Wow. Ok. I am going to begin to tackle a subject that has been a huge asset to my Race and, subsequently, my life. This is something that I didn’t understand and didn’t see the importance of until Month Two at the Awakening in Honduras when I was learning that I’m a bit of a verbal processor.
I’m gonna talk about (you guessed it)… Processing!!
Because there is so much I would like to say, I will only be introducing it to you in this post and will break up processing into a multi-post series! I want to first explain why I process and why you should as well. Remember in Honduras when I posted about my needs? If you missed that one, back up and read the blog I posted called “To Need and Be Needed”. This was my beginning to learning how to process. Let me share three key parts of what I’ve learned through processing. I pray these will be helpful and, hopefully, healing to those of you who, like me, don’t know how to sort through your own thoughts.
1) Unfilter yourself.
This is first, and probably the longest section, because it is so important.
I realized that I needed an outlet, a way for me to go unedited. I was suppressing so much of what I wanted to say and do and was failing to have healthy communication with even my loved ones before I realized that I verbally process. I believe we all need some time to go unedited, both verbal and internal processors alike. So what happens when you do not have a way to articulate and resolve your daily mess of thoughts? What happens when your “safe” people, people that have taken time to be a listening ear and build a level of trust, aren’t around? What happens when you continually press down your own voice and don’t allow the space for your own needs to be met? Anxiety happens. Silence happens. Loneliness happens. And, personally, I tend to hear Jesus a whole lot less because everything going on in my head takes up too much bandwidth for me to hear him clearly. I encourage you who are struggling with anxiety (which has many forms, but that’s for another time) or anyone who deals with stress (let’s be honest—that’s all of us) to begin a journal. Let loose on the page. Honestly, your relationship with God and with people needs it. People cannot always be there and God truly prefers your honesty over neat and proper prayers. He can see every dark thought, curse word, and negative emotion anyway. Get messy with it. The more mess on the page, the easier it will be to let God into the mess of your mind.
2) Once you have removed your filters— Let Him in.
For some reason, before I learned how processing benefited my mental health, I thought I was protecting people from my horrible, terrible, no-good, very bad self. I even thought that God must be proud of me for being able to handle some of my own crap before giving it to him in a pretty little box with a bow on it (aka. I kept some control). UGH, the enemy is such a liar. Let me shatter this potential place of bondage for those of you who struggle with this too—God already knows. The stuff you have hidden deep down in the dungeons? Yeah. He knows. So why not let Him in? You are not too much. Let God speak truth into every lie and hurt, every daily struggle. Let Him be to you what he said he is: the Way, the Truth, and the Light. Simply ask Him what he says about you as you write what you’ve believed about yourself. Find scriptural responses to write down. Let His Word speak truth. It will take time to learn, but you will soon find that He is ready to respond even as you write and, sometimes, the answer is just that he is enough.
“I’m here, Daughter.”
“Son, I never left.”
3) Then, let them in.
God has blessed me with some incredible, lifelong friends through the Race. Sharing the pages of my verbal processing word-vomit with people was a scary thought, and then I found myself among these people—amazing, wonderful people who I will stand by forever, if they continue to let me, because of how they’ve stood by me. I cannot tell you how impactful it is to have accountability in community that listens to you where you are, but never chooses to let you stay there. Get some people like that around you. Don’t settle for the people who let you wallow in self-pity or let you vent and vent and vent without helping you seek scriptural solutions. Don’t settle for the people who don’t pray with you or pray for you. Find those special people that, when they say they are praying for you, you know they have God’s attention. Find the people who listen to it all and will hold you when you can’t verbalize that that’s exactly what you need. Find people like that. Surprisingly enough, more people want to be there for you than you realize. It’s our choice, however, to let them in on the hard days.
I hope this has been encouraging to someone. Processing is so special because, while it reveals how we are all incredibly unique, there are so many more commonalities between us than I think we sometimes realize. For all the new processors: Be bold. Be courageous. Be willing to learn new things about God, others, and yourself. You will be amazed by what you learn and, if you do it right, the fruit of change in your life will be well worth the effort.
Next in the Processing Series… “It’s a Process!” Take a look into tools and I’ll give some practical examples to help you begin processing!
