Thursday, June 08, 2006

Streams of consciousness

Every person has an internal sensor that tells them what they should/shouldn't say, what they should/shouldn't think, when they should/shouldn't do something etc etc. For most, this sensor is rather normal; when I say normal I mean that the sensor works but is not too overly active or inactive. So, you could probably say that most of the time these people are fairly rational thinkers.

However, when you are a perfectionist combined with the environment/culture that I've grown up in you get a person whose sensor works overtime. The sensor over thinks things. A million things run through your head and the sensor filters through these thoughts and puts them in the should or shouldn't category. And you'll find that the shouldn't list is generally significantly longer.

Being in this current stage of searching and wondering, learning to except God's grace, it has been "suggested" that I start this little task called Stream of Consciousness Writing. It is when you set a time limit, sit down with pen and paper (or in my case, a password locked Word document) and just put pen to paper the thoughts running through your head for that set period of time. And you are not to reread what you written for at least 3-4 weeks.

The idea of this is so I learn to be more honest with myself and God. To learn to trust. To learn to turn off that internal sensor when it's just God and me. After all, He knows what I'm thinking already so I'd might as well tell Him.

I've been warned that I'll hate it (and I can see myself hating it already) but apparently it's good for me. I'm yet to start but will endeavour to have done it at least once before Kath gets here. I'll let you know how I went after my first session.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey Jean

I thought this sounded interesting so I did it last night. Forgot to set a time limit though! I stopped after four pages...

jeanie said...

Nice! I'll let you know how I go when you get here...Only 7 days to go!