I have been thinking a lot lately about what makes me me. I know the standard church stuff, I am an eternal being and I lived before I came to earth and I will live after and I am a child of God, but what makes me act the way I do and make the choices I do?
I believe that what I have learned through church and school and experiences plays a big part in the way I act and the things I do, I believe I have an eternal spirit, but how much of who I am can I really change?
I know that through God all things are possible, but are they all possible for me? Is it possible for me to stay calm and not get overwhelmed when I have a million things coming at me? I have learned tools to help, but I don't seem to be able to remember them in the heat of the moment. Other people can, they stay totally calm in any situation, not me. I get hyper, I know because my coworkers tease me about it, some of them laugh, I can tell others get really irritated by it, it doesn't mean I don't solve problems and deal with things appropriately because I do. It does mean that I sometimes irritate or offend people in the process, neither of which is a very desirable outcome when in a stressful situation and wtih people I have to deal with all the time. So I apologize...a lot.
My question is can I change that, and if I can, should I , or is it part of what makes me me and if I change it I won't be me any more? Would I be better off to just accept that I get hyper, that's just me, and figure out ways to use that to my advantage or should I keep working hard to change myself? Maybe I should keep working hard to change myself, but my efforts would be more effective in another area, like developing more patience or being more positive, maybe I could actually make progress in those areas?
I don't know, a lot of this probably doesn't even make sense when you try to read it. One would think that by the age of 47 I would have these things all figured out, apparently not because right now I pretty much just have a lot of questions. Anyone have a good answer for me?
Let me take a shot at it since I deal with the same thing...a lot. (like mother like daughter) First - you know that much of what's happening is chemistry - & yes, it's part of who you are - can't change that much. The upside is that we tend to react very quickly and figure out the critical path faster than our slower reacting/thinking friends. Since I've been in the fire service and we deal with instantly stressful situations, like a monitor going off in the middle of the night & having to go from a deep sleep to reacting "calmly" in a very short time, I have gotten better at it - not great but better. One of the big secrets we learn is the appearance of calm. No matter what situation we walk into those people expect us to know what to do and how to help them so our first responsibility under ANY circumstance is incident stabilization - basically calm everybody down and act like (and believe) that you are calm and things are under control-don't panic - it will be ok...even if your heart is going 90 miles an hour, your brain is in overload and your emotions are running wild. That happens when the ground drops out from under you. That's when training kicks in - you can operate on auto-pilot if you practice a response until you actually do get in control of yourself.
ReplyDeleteOK - having said all that....I'm still not good at doing it in day to day life - the old chemistry dumps on my brain and I react.
Sooooooooo I apologize a lot too only not nearly as much as I used to. And truly it is part of what makes you, you. And while others may not have this particular problem/short coming/attribute/personality trait/advantage (very quick thinking) they all have theirs too. Just look around - we're pretty lucky if that's the worst thing we do.