The rut

I did a thing yesterday and I’m proud of myself. I’m sharing it with you because if I’ve learned one thing since I started paying attention to my own mental health status, it’s this: whatever I am struggling with, I am not the only one. Someone else is struggling with it too … probably a lot of someone elses.

Since my childhood I have had “good girl syndrome.” For whatever reasons, I believed the only way to be loved was by being a good girl, making people happy, giving them whatever they wanted. This is commonly known as “people pleasing.” It took some ugly turns in my college years.

I’ve carried this belief throughout my adulthood, which has already been twice as long as my childhood. To say this way of thinking is firmly ingrained in me is an understatement. The roots run deep.

My husband Ben has adored me for 38 years, yet it has not changed this false belief. No matter what he says or how well he loves me, it is solidly entrenched. That’s frustrating for both of us.

But you know what started to change it?

Therapy.

I originally began going to therapy for help with PTSD that resulted from a head-on car accident, but it has helped me in areas where I wasn’t even aware there were problems. I continue to uncover layers of false beliefs I’ve long held that hurt me as a person, a wife, a mom, and a child of God. Therapy has helped me become a healthier version of all the parts of me. Here’s an example.

We are building a house. Ben keeps telling me he wants me to have exactly what I want in this house—every detail. I believe he means that when he says it, but there’s a little part of me that doesn’t. This part of me still believes I am not worth having what I want. I am not worthy of good things. I am only worthy of what I perform well for. In other words, I must do something in order to earn something good.

Now listen, I am not advocating a broad, sweeping “I deserve this” mentality. That only leads to us thinking more highly of ourselves than we ought to think, which God warns against. But God wants to give good things to his children because he loves us. It’s not because we merit them, but because he is good, and that’s all.

When God tells husbands to love their wives “as Christ loved the church,” this is part of what he has in mind. That husbands should do good for their wives not because we deserve it (we probably don’t), but because they want good for us. It’s part of the mutual good will that is necessary for a happy marriage.

So yesterday I met with a kitchen cabinet designer and she laid out the kitchen according to the house plans.

I did not like where the refrigerator was and mentioned that to her. She reminded me that now is the time to change it, before sheet rock goes in—which is tomorrow. But making this change would mean more work for Ben, late at night in the dark and cold and rain, moving a water line and an electrical outlet. And let me tell you, we have had some wiring drama at the new casa.

I left the store to drive home and my brain went into high gear. It reminded me that this was more work for Ben to do. It was telling me he works so hard. Don’t add more to his plate. It’s just a dumb refrigerator. It will be fine. It’s not a big deal.

YOU are not a big deal. YOU are not worth all this extra work.

Do you see what happens when an old belief is stuck in your brain? The whole episode went from the placement of the refrigerator to the belief that I am not worth making a change in the kitchen. I felt like I was between a proverbial rock and hard place.

I came home sad. Ben asked what was going on and I hesitated. Inside my brain, a fight was raging.

It’s selfish of you to make more work for him—he’s working so hard already.

But he loves you and says he wants you to have what you want in your new kitchen.

But it’s more work for him and sheet rockers are coming tomorrow and it will be late and cold and he’s already tired from working all day. It’s too much to ask.

But he says he loves work and it would make him feel like a hero.

Don’t be selfish. It’s just a stupid refrigerator.

In other words, YOU are stupid for wanting it moved.

Do you see how I talk to myself? This is that old false belief arguing with the truth in front of me that my husband is willing to do whatever it takes to make me happy.

I could see this while the argument was happening in my brain. I was aware of the two sides in conflict and me in the middle not knowing what to do. #enneagram9

So I made the very difficult (for me) and very quick (also super hard for me) decision that the old false belief would not win today. I told him I didn’t like where the refrigerator was and I really wanted it moved.

Saying it out loud was terrifying and I braced for impact.

For what?

I don’t know what I thought would happen. Ben has never once been mad that I asked for something or wanted him to do something for me. Never.

It wasn’t him. It was the false belief that I am not worthy of good things telling me the world would explode if I asked for something just for me, just because I wanted it. Friends, our beliefs are so very powerful!

Did you know that when you believe a certain way, a certain thing, it creates a groove, or a rut, in your brain? Then when that scenario comes up again, your thoughts automatically follow the well-worn path. Eventually the rut becomes so deep you can’t find any other way to think and it takes someone or something from outside your brain to help you see another way.

That’s what therapy did for me. It showed me my wrong thinking, that my false belief I’d held so long was a habit. And it showed me a different way to think. I just had to choose the new way. Now, the more I choose the new thought, the stronger that groove, that habit, will become.

This is what personal growth means: learning to abandon unhealthy thinking patterns and choose healthy, God-honoring ones.

So I chose a new thought. I decided to believe Ben when he said he wanted me to have exactly what I wanted in my new house. It was scary. But do you know what happened?

He moved the water line and the outlet and it’s all done. He said it was way easier than he thought it would be.

Then we stood in the garage and I thanked him for doing the extra work to give me what I want and he said, “You’re worth it.”

I tried to look away (my brain still doesn’t want to believe this) and he said, “Look at me. You are worth it.”

Are you crying? I’m crying.

Friend, don’t let the old false beliefs win. Start paying attention to what you tell yourself and ask God if that’s what he says about you, if that’s what is really true. If it’s not, it’s a false belief that needs to go. Get your brain out of the unhealthy rut and start making a new path. It will be hard but it can be done. Practice it until it’s a habit.

Years ago I heard a pastor say,

A rut is a grave with both ends cut off.

Get out of the grave. Believe what God says about you, and then act like you believe it.

You are worth it.