Tormenting Ourselves

I'm still thinking about the movie, Little Manhattan (see my post below).

In one scene, Gabe wonders, just by looking across the karate classroom at Rosemary's face, if Rosemary is mad at him for something he did. Her lips smile a little, and Gabe thinks, "She loves me." She turns and frowns just a tad and he fears, "She loves me not." Gabe's anxious, worried mind goes back and forth and back and forth--she loves me, she loves me not--just by trying to read Rosemary's teensiest facial movements.

Boy, did that bring back memories of a few decades of torturing myself by trying to second-guess people, instead of just applying good ol' communication.

We do it to ourselves. We way too often torture ourselves.

We wonder if people are mad at us, yet we're afraid to simply ask. Or we go ahead and ask, and then doubt or analyze the answer if it was, "No, I'm not mad at you."

Or we base how we feel about ourselves upon how others appear to feel about us, when it would have been much better to just go to God and ask Him, "How do you think I'm doing?"

Or we stop loving ourselves if someone else stops loving us... instead of remembering, always, we have a friend in God--the lover of our souls. 

Probably most of the time? We believe others are tormenting us, when it's we, ourselves, who are allowing anxious, torturing thoughts to spin inside our aching heads.

Why I'm loving my 40's? On most days, I'm at peace with myself and God. I'm not analyzing people and things to death or giving myself headaches by trying to run my own life.

There was a better way all along! But not until my 40's did I discover it  and oh, how good Life feels now.



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