I’m back.
I know it’s been a heck of a while since my last post. Let’s just say that a worldwide pandemic got in my way a bit. I also decided that I needed to dial-in my relationship with food (less talk, more walk). If you’ve been following my posts, you know that I am naturally more parts sluggard than ant. I come to you as a fellow struggler, not some got-it-all-together guru with a chiseled instagram “inspo” physique. Because I am easing myself back into the blogging pool, I’m going to keep this short. There is a little space that, if you enlarge it, will send your life on a new trajectory.
Think about compulsively eating that cake in the fridge. Or buying that outfit. Or yelling at your kid. Or surfing facebook instead of finishing that report. Or hitting the snooze button. Or snipping at your spouse. Or slapping the traffic cop. Or stealing the thing at Walmart. Or gambling your rent money. Or having a one night stand. Or snorting coke.
I know I had you at first and then I lost you, right? You will notice that you could relate to the first few items on the list, but as the items got “heavier” you might have found yourself going “um…not me!”. The truth however, is that there isn’t much of a difference between the former and latter items on that list. They are all simply urges acted upon. If it’s not your compulsion, it’s not your compulsion. Most of us only succumb to “safe” compulsions; food, procrastination, purchasing, watching TV instead of doing the dishes, etc. We also like to judge others for the compulsions they give in to, especially if they are different than ours.
Yet the same principal applies to all:
- There is an urge.
- You make a choice to either satisfy the urge or not.
- You reap the consequences, good or bad.
When we talk about “those people” who use drugs, gamble away their life savings, or have illicit hook-ups, we affirm the above three steps in the urge process. We say, “They made a choice. Where they’re at is a result of their poor life choices“. Yet do we apply the same equation to ourselves when we sleep in, eat the garbage, or put off that crucial act we know will move our life forward in some positive way? I would guess most of us either give ourselves a free pass or simply sit in despair. For us, we say, “I wanted it so I ate it. I couldn’t stop myself. I had no control“. Unlike our thinking about the druggie/fornicator/gambler, our personal equation looks like this:
- I had an urge.
- I acted on it and the consequences aren’t my fault.
See, there is no agency there. No choice. And throughout the day we make many, many decisions that way. And to be fair it isn’t always bad. Our flesh gives us all kinds of impulses that actually serve us. Maybe we should run from danger. Maybe we should sit down when we’re tired. Maybe we should take a step back from that ledge. That tingly feeling we get when standing at the Grand Canyon is prompted by a rudimentary, animal operating system that works well to keep us alive.
Babies ONLY have that operating system at first. When they get a hunger impulse they cry and then they suck. When babies get a bowel impulse, they let fly. They don’t ask, “Mom, have you finished putting the new diaper on me yet?” As they grow they learn to exert more and more control over those impulses, but the impulses themselves never go away.
Animals are the same. They live off of instinct and impulse. They do not have agency because they are unable to choose a course of action that is different that what the urge dictates. They are truly captive to their nature.
Yet God has made us human. We are higher than the animals in this regard. As adult humans we have the potential to transcend compulsive urges and act based on reason, morals, and a higher purpose. We are all caught between the Garden and the Great City of God. We are neither animal, nor God. Or we’re perhaps both beast and divine. We exist in this middle place, where we can choose either path.
Back to that little space I mentioned at the top. When we have an urge to do something that we know will not serve us, there is a fleeting moment- a precious moment- where we may truly escape our beastly, earthly nature, and act as our Father would. We are capable of following the Spirit. And Jesus made that right choice every time.
I contend that if you are struggling and believe you have no choice but to eat the pizza on impulse, don’t even try to stop yourself. Instead, watch for the space. Listen for that Divine Moment, given to you by God personally. Recognize that only beings made in God’s image have this superpower that is now revealing itself within you: the power to choose according to your higher self.
You may find that the more you live in this space, the bigger it becomes. In time, you may find you can place a crucial pause between having an impulse and gratifying that impulse. Open that space wide enough and you might discover that you can simply accept the impulse as it is: a request from your animalistic self that is not serving you. You may sit in the urge for a while or mindfully dismiss it. You certainly do not have to obey it.
This is the space between Heaven and Hell.