Mindfulness | Relationships | Mental Health
Of Denial
Once upon a time, thinking was the main killer of my Aliveness.
Every time I had a thought, true or not, I was under its gravitational pull.
The thought took on a physical presence. It had a hypnotic power and I acted as if I was mesmerized. I held on to the thought and tried to do something about it. Sometimes all I could do was worry about it or despair that I couldn’t do anything about it.
The thought became a problem.
When I considered solutions to the problem, I made up reasons why they wouldn’t work.
I created excuses. Not your regular, run of the mill excuses that sound like excuses. They were really good ones.
I came up with logical excuses — ones that sounded perfectly reasonable. They slipped right into the conversation in my mind and they were hard to argue against. They were based on limited facts, but I believed them. I became my own conspiracy theorist.
This kind of thinking created the Yabuts of Denial.
I started telling myself things like ‘Yabut, it’s too hard’. Or ‘Yabut, I’m not ready’. I wasn’t open to new possibilities. I couldn’t see anything outside the current situation.
Our mind continuously looks for patterns and proof to remind us why things are the way they are. These stories were perfect.
My Yabut stories were my evidence.
Luckily, I got curious about them.
I figured out that these Yabuts were all about my need for control. I realized if I considered something else was possible, my life would change. Most people don’t like change and I’m no exception.
But, sometimes change can be good.
Everyone has something they want. Whether it’s happiness or a new house, better health or more money, you can’t get it unless you’re willing to accept change.
We build a fence to keep the changes out.
When we stand at the fence and deny what’s on the other side, we aren’t allowing ourselves the chance to get what we want.
We say Yabut…. that’s not possible. We stay within the parameters of what we’re used to.
We were taught to color inside the lines.
The Yabut stories are a great excuse. They keep us from experiencing the pain of being different. We deny possibilities and that prevents change.
The Yabuts of Denial are stories we tell ourselves so that we can keep doing the same ‘Aliveness killing’ things that we always do.
We can get in the habit of making every thought a Yabut thought.
- Yabut, that hasn’t been my experience.
- Yabut, that’s not how I was raised.
- Yabut, this isn’t a possibility for me.
- Yabut this is the evidence that I’ve gathered to prove that.
- Yabut that’s not allowed.
When I realized what the Yabuts of Denial were doing to my life, I took a long hard look at what I was denying. I looked at the things I wasn’t allowing to come into my life and decided to make a change. Now I catch those thoughts and turn them into questions. I ask myself — what is possible here?
Do you find yourself saying Yabut?
Get curious about the possibilities on the other side of your fence.
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Tree Langdon is a writer and editor for ILLUMINATION and Whispers of Magic. She’s a ‘Top Writer’ in Poetry on Medium. Follow her on Twitter and Facebook.*
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