In Our Own Little Head

 

This morning, I typed the phrase, “in our own little head” into Google search.

This is the definition that came up:

“To be in your head usually means overthinking or overanalyzing a situation or behavior, constantly dwelling on the same thing over and over until your mind feels super cluttered. Sometimes, we all get stuck in our heads, but some of us do so more than others.”

I have been considering how being in “our own little head” relates to patience, and based on the above definition, while some might see great patience in spending oodles of time going over the same thought or situation, I see it as being an act of impatience if open-minded resolution or closure is not the motivation. 

That’s because impatience fails to do the patient act of objectively measuring our own role in the interactions with other people and organizations, and instead places everyone involved, including ourselves, within our own one-sided, self-centered and self-important perspective.

This results in quickly jumping to, and emotionally enlarging upon, if not unfair and warped conclusions, then certainly self-defeating and unproductive ones. 

Patience, on the other hand, takes the deep breath of setting aside one’s sensitive and insecure emotional state so as to thoughtfully and bravely consider true context, which can take time, requiring skills and maturity that develop in the course of months and years.

If that groundwork has not been laid, then of course we will be inept with, and perhaps entirely ignorant of, calm, measured responses and perceptions. 

After all, positive behaviors become habits the same way that bad behaviors do, and can become our default mode in the same way; the difference being productive outcomes.

When getting outside of our head is the norm, we can build healthy inner personal and outer interpersonal dialogues founded upon the reality of what actually took place and do so unthreatened by multiple viewpoints. 

Instant reaction is thus replaced by a slower right intake and careful recollection of all of the facts. 

David Baily Harned, in his book, Patience: How We Wait Upon the World, writes that patience is a “profoundly important defense against the distractions of dejection and sorrow and the frustrations that seem to have no end in sight.”

I love that concept of impatience leading to distractions: the stealing of our minds and hearts from what is good, right, lovely, pure and going well in our lives via the tunnel-vision of self.

“Through a forbearance that has no thought of punishment or revenge, those who are patient neither permit an injury to become an obsession even more painful than the original hurt, nor do they retaliate, which would cancel out the difference between themselves and those who harm them," Harned writes.”

Ultimately, I find the phrase “in our own little head” to be quite telling in the use of the word “little,” as little heads only have room for one person, and thus will be frequently impatient with everyone, and everything, else.

Copyright Barb Harwood