Imagination Catastrophe
I FOUND OUT my husband was sleeping with another woman by doing my laundry. The proof was in the pockets of his work pants—the ones he wears Monday and Tuesday, I wash on Wednesday, and are clean and dry in his wardrobe by Thursday.
Well, I WOULD have found it.
If he’d been having an affair.
If I did the laundry with any obvious regularity.
Or with the discipline of going through each and every pocket.
Maybe I’ve destroyed the proof of his affair without knowing it, busily not checking pockets as I dump in the clothes on my way to do something else, then sighing later at the sight of another load of wash decorated with sticky little flakes of tissue, paper, and other unknown aggravation. Those tiny flecks could have been evidence, but now they are irretrievably lost.
Of course, I haven’t lost my imagination—that I’ve got in greater amounts than I could ever need. For greater peace of mind, we’ve been counseled to keep debt to a minimum—but it’s my imagination that causes me more grief than my debt, weight, fitness level, and spectacular failures all put together. You can at least measure debt. My imagination knows no limits, and the only bounds it can dimly conceive of are between the great leaps it makes from bad decisions to (currently) nonexistent dramas.
For instance, if my beloved was having an affair, would I actually be aware that something was different, or would I just obliviously carry on with my life?
If I bottled vegetables, would I recognize the signs of botulism poisoning if my children started dying around me?
I’ve considered how best to secure a small boat to the roof of our house, just in case there is flooding. I don’t care that there are no dams, lakes, streams, or oceans close by. Such facts—and the fact that we’re in the middle of a drought, and live nowhere near cyclone-vulnerable areas—are merely minor details that aren’t as important as what may happen.
I’ve worked out how to escape my house through every room in case someone comes after me. To that end, I’ve climbed out my bathroom window to make sure that I could. Thankfully, I can, and I didn’t get stuck. Unfortunately, sensible considerations such as “If I Get Stuck Solutions” never crossed my overly enthusiastic mind (okay, at least until I was half-in/half-out, trying to convince my bosom buddies that they really should come try the experiment too). THAT was when I started imagining how I would best explain my predicament through the locked door, and how to convince the firemen to leave their cameras in the truck.
I’ve planned funerals, fallen out of too-high windows, thrown up on my boss, offended people for thousands of reasons . . . none of which have ever happened except inside my own head.
There is a term for someone with thought tendencies like mine: catastrophist. One who expects catastrophe, regardless of the likelihood of said event happening. I am guilty of catastrophising. It’s eating me alive.
It’s a giant wrestling with my spiritual growth. It’s out of control, and I am looking for a big stick to beat it with. I want to train my imagination to once again be an exciting and uplifting friend, instead of the sucking parasite it’s become. I’ve only realized this because Someone has given the Spirit an enormous megaphone with which to catch my attention, and what I’ve heard is as gentle as a cattle prod: “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths” (Prov. 3:5–6).
I read in an article somewhere two words, “intelligent preparedness,” and my mind slowed to deep-ice stillness.
A perfect quiet.
Then clear, blunt communication: I hadn’t been intelligent. I certainly hadn’t been preparing. It was a shock to see the truth. It hurt to realize that I hadn’t had peace or stillness in my head for such a long, lonely time. My brain thawed, and I returned to my familiar thought whirlwinds, but the quiet still resonated deep within. Inaudible, yet felt.
It’s become painfully clear that when I’m stressing because of the “what-ifs,” I am relying on myself to find a solution. But I don’t trust my solutions, because they are mine. I want His solutions. But then I catch myself in the middle of another unlikely scenario; I begin thinking about what to do “just in case” He doesn’t tell me what to do in Situation 183Alpha-62d . . .
Trust not in the arm of flesh.
The buzzing in my head leaves little space for the Spirit to be heard. I want the Spirit to have room to move inside me, to fill me up and have an ever-ready pulpit from which to speak, instead of competing with the thunder of my regular mental frenzy. I want to be a regular visitor to that cool, calm center that is lost inside me.
Listen.
It has been an embarrassing and sorrowful experience to realize just how little I have been listening to the still, small voice. What have I missed? What could I have done? Who could I have become had I heard the voice that has been ignored for so long? It’s too late now to travel down those unseen paths, and my thoughts refuse to venture along the road of “what might have been.”
Of course, it’s often much too easy to put off what you know you should be doing. For all the clarity and purpose I felt in that one instance, it is still really hard to stop catastrophising. It’s taking physical effort. I have to consciously stop my body from moving and deliberately relax. I’ve come to realize that the more agitated my imaginings, the more I’m physically cramped. I wear my shoulders as earrings. My hands are creased into fists, my little fingers curling perfect crescents into my palms. I can’t be still—I have to move, fidget, pace, throw. This is how I’ve spent too many hours of too many days—pretending to prepare for the explosion due any minute now.
I’m working from the outside in. I reckon it’s because I’m so entrenched in my catastrophising that I’m not conscious of doing it. So I’m being prompted and being made more aware of how I’m feeling in my bones, my muscles, in my tired and weary body, so I can address my inside more directly. When my earrings are catching on my collar, I suddenly wake up to the fact that I’m captive to another wild exercise that has no bearing on real life. I wonder why my hands are aching, my face is hot, or why I’m breathing faster—and find it’s because of my mental carnival, complete with side-show side effects.
I’m making my outside work for me. I’m beginning to notice the signs sooner, and I am responding faster. I imagine a big stop sign in front of my eyes. My unconscious carousel obeys the stop sign, and the difference I’ve noticed within three heartbeats is incredible.
?Sometimes just seeing the sign is enough for my shoulders to drop automatically. There are times when I have had to concentrate on slowing my breathing, or rolling my arms backwards. Shaking out my hands is the best first aid I’ve found.
Not catastrophising requires the regular reapplication of a mental shake . . . or seven. At the border between imagination and catastrophising, I’m learning to decide where to visit. I choose to laugh about my latest cerebral brawl instead of being upset at my relapse. I remind myself that I’m aware of what I’m doing, and then I try to stop. I cry my three-word prayer, “Please, help me!” when I’m really struggling.
Imagination had been a prized possession of mine, but I’d let it be beaten and bullied by something ugly and twisted: imagination’s evil stepsister catastrophe. But now my bizarre, wonderful imagination is coming back. Sure, sometimes I still find myself in the middle of an imagined disaster or two (What if someone snorts the same piece of spaghetti out of their nose and their mouth at the same time? Which end do I pull? If I ever cleaned the top of the fridge but it fell on me and broke both my legs, should I aim for the wall-mounted phone or my mobile on the bookshelf?), but I’m doing better at smacking it with my big stick. My aim is getting better, and it’s great exercise!
Most of all, in the heat of my internal battles, I keep remembering that moment of total clarity. The absolute quiet I found within myself. I never suspected it was there. I want to visit there more often—the sweetness and breathtaking clarity found in that one moment’s revelation. I’m learning to trust that whatever may come, I can ask for strength to get through it and survive it. I am not required to prepare or plan for every contingency. All I need to worry about is following the counsel to be prepared. I’m doggedly gaining on my goal to be prepared, but not fear.
Kellie has three incredible boys (one she married, then they made the other two) and has recently moved from the bottom end of Australia to a place toward the top. The fridge didn’t arrive, but all her books did. She loves collecting words, and believes the best gift is a great book and the time to read it.
