Spinning Wheels
It’s February. We just had another massive winter storm, this time bringing with it a gross mix of ice and freezing rain. I have a miserable cold.
The middle of winter has arrived.
I heard a car trying to get out of a parking spot this morning. It was that revving noise over and over as the tires slid in their grooves of ice and slush. It went on for what seemed like an eternity. I could almost see the grooves getting deeper and deeper, further trapping the car in place. The person persisted though, revving again and again and again…
It made me think. This is what we, as humans, do in our minds. We get specific tracks or grooves that our thoughts follow. The argument on how they got there and when is an entirely different debate, but regardless, they are deep and worn in and habitual. Our thoughts slide down these grooves like butter down the drain. The more we use them, the deeper the grooves get and the harder it is to step outside of the thought pattern. This has been painfully true for me lately. I can feel the grooves in my mind. I know when it is happening. There is that conscious part of me that recognizes it but the grooves are so deep my thoughts just remain. Negative thinking is like a poison that creeps into every part of our living existence. For me my negative thinking makes me quiet. It silences me. I feel I have nothing to say to anyone about what is really going on in my head. This is just the poison taking over though. How could I have anything to say when what I have to say is not important?
The grooves are deep. The wheels rev again and again and again. Until the conscious part of me, that guy over there in the corner sitting all peaceful and aware of the ego that has taken over my thoughts, he gets up, pushes me out of the groove, and I am free. That part is me. The actual me. The person who believes and is free from judgment and free from the need to beat myself up every day with negative thinking. The person without labels or pages of agendas. That’s the real me. Free. Just being.
The grooves are deepest in the heart of winter. They always are. Awareness is what stops the wheels from spinning though.
Maybe I should go tell the guy outside to stop spinning. He’ll be in that parking spot all day if he doesn’t try a different route.
Katie!
I’m SO glad to see you’ve returned to your blog!
And these thoughts you’ve composed make a world of good sense. Taking your metaphor still further along, the mind gets through some requisite wheel-spinning (only enough to get going without making ends out of the means) and- with a leap (or a lurch?) of trust- finds the traction to spring from the ruts. And isn’t *that* liberating!