Behavior Modification and Missing the Point Completely….

[I know I have been sharing about Anxiety and I left you hanging in the last post but I will finish the story...I promise....just not today.]

For so long I have lived in a culture that has been all about modifying behavior.  Although it is never put in such terms, it’s what it boils down to.  People talk about the heart, about what is going on in the inside but the focus always seems to come back to behavior; what you’re  “doing” or “not doing”.  Avoid the “bad” behaviors and excel at the “good” ones.  What is deemed as “good” or “bad” varies from church to church but it usually doesn’t take long to figure out what they are.  From my experience, behavior modification and truth growth are completely opposite of one another.

I find that observing my behavior and asking myself the question, “why am I doing what I am doing?” is far more beneficial than just trying to change my behavior.  My behavior can give me valuable insight into what is really going on deep down inside.  It gives me a heads up that maybe something isn’t okay.  It can tell me something about my own hurt, my own pain. 

It is difficult to look inside.  To look at things I would rather keep hidden.  To come to terms with the ways I have been hurt and they ways I have hurt others.  Who wants to look at that?  Who wants to sit in a therapist office and realize that the reason you don’t wear dresses isn’t because you find them uncomfortable or impractical….. but rather because you are afraid people will laugh at you…… because deep down you don’t feel like a real woman ( more to come on that whole mess).  Let me tell you how fun that is.

As I am focusing less on my behavior and more on what is going on deep down inside, I am experiencing a freedom a have never known, one that I didn’t know was even possible.  I’m  not so worried about whether I am doing something wrong (or right for that matter) but seeing it all as a process.  A process of becoming.  Becoming who I want to be, who I was made to be.  I am learning how to yield to that process and let God work things out in me.   In His time, not mine or anyone else’s. I am learning to lean into the pain, into the discomfort of becoming.  And no, it’s not easy but it is worth it.