Who Am I?

This is a question that has been haunting me for the past few weeks. I think for the most part, people have no idea who they really are, and I am equally guilty in that claim. The only think that I can honestly say that I knew about myself was that my name is Gary and I like hamburgers. That was the extent of the knowledge about myself. I really had no idea what drove me, what I was passionate about about or what I actually believed. I am starting to realize that when we are faced with a struggle in life that completely messes with our mind and emotions, a situation that breaks our heart and confuses our mind, this is when we start to see who we really are and what we are made of.

I always thought of myself as a straight talker, someone who was grounded and well balanced. I could stare a conflict in the face and laugh at it. But when that conflict became a personal struggle, I had no idea what to do or how to handle myself. It's a hard thing to learn about yourself. If you really stand back and honestly evaluate who you are, I think that most of us would be caught off guard. For many of us, I don't believe we have the courage to look at ourselves and answer the question, who am I?

It's human nature to go into defense mode when we feel threatened or attacked. We go into self preservation mode and try to maintain who we think we are. Walls start to erect. Emotions start to get the upper hand. Truthfully, we should not be using our heart as a guide during immense personal struggles because our heart can become our biggest deceiver. God wants us to undergo a heart transplant, but until that is fully realized, our heart can be a tricky thing to follow. We do have hope. There is something that we can use that can and will give us clarity through our struggles. And our hope should lie in this...that we have the mind of Christ.

God never said that we had to go through a brain transplant to receive this, just simply trust in Him for the answers. This is never an easy task because sometimes we don't like what we are hearing. It's a tough battle to understand the difference of fighting with your heart and your head. Don't get me wrong, I believe that emotions play a huge part in defining who we are by allowing us to express things in a certain way, but it should not be used as a decision maker in times of great distress.

Back to the question that started this rambling...Who am I? This is an important question to ask yourself when you are faced with difficult situations. My journey has led me to this conclusion. I am a son of the living God. I can do ALL things THROUGH Christ who strengthens me. And we have an awesome resource at our disposal, that is actually encased in a thick skull. We have the mind of Christ. Time to start using it!

Obsessins Of A Passive Aggressive

      Learning about being a Passive Aggressor has been an educational experience to say the least. I always viewed myself as someone who was a take control kinda guy. Someone who could give it to you straight. Someone who you wouldn't want to make angry. Man, was I sadly mistaken. Well, I guess on the bright side of being passive is that I never really got mad at myself. I never had to worry about yelling at myself in public. There I go again, being passive about my passivity. That's it, I am so mad at myself I am not going to talk to me for a few days. That should work.

     How did it take me 30 years to come to this conclusion? Have I been that blind to my own thought process to completely miss this for all these years? Looking back on my life I am beginning to understand how having this disorder influenced my decision making. If I would have taken a step back years ago, maybe things would be different for me. Maybe I would not of pushed aside my wife and treated her like garbage. Maybe the relationships that I formed would be totally different. Maybe the people who like me now, would think that I was a jerk if circumstances were different.

    Having passive aggression control your life is like being extremely hungry while the whole time there is a plate of your favorite food in front of you. Being the passive person you are, you refuse to eat the food because you don't like the color of the plate it was served on. Instead of getting mad or upset, you make an excuse and say you are not hungry. You walk away from the table starving, stubborn and confused. You know you want to eat, but you can't express why you don't want to. You are afraid that if you express your dislike for the color of the plate, you will be rejected and dismissed for being ridiculous. Then someone asks why you don't want to eat. You use a safe calculated answer, "I'm not hungry". Now the turmoil on the inside is really starting to fester. By this time you are starving, you have a feeling of discontent, afraid to express your feelings on the matter and all the time you are suppressing that emotion. So now the sarcasm begins. You begin to use it in an indirect manner for destructive purposes. If that does not work, well then the silent treatment for the person who served the food. That will fix them. From that point on it begins the short one word answers for the innocent questions that come up. And so goes the cycle. For someone who has never experienced this, it's hard to understand.

    All this because a person with passive aggressive tendencies has a hard time dealing with and expressing their emotions. We do everything we can to avoid conflict. But in the end, the conflict is just way out of control, and it would even be hard for a sane person to deal with it at this point.

    For now, I am having a hard time looking back at all of my experiences where I caused people great pain because of my actions. I now understand what I was going through and how my mind was processing things. I wish this revelation would have come 5 or 6 years ago, it may have given me the tools to maintain a healthy marriage. Now, I am afraid it is too late. The damage has been done and I am to blame for it. I hope that there is some good that comes from all this.

     I can only speculate on the things that would be different if I were different. But one thing I am beginning to realize is that the past is done. I can never change that. What I do have is a future that I can work with. I can only pray that I did not cause too much damage with my mind and emotions that can't be fixed with love and support.


   DAMMIT, I AM MAD AS HELL, now just mostly at myself. But it's a start.

Mobile blog test