It's annoying. It's distracting. And nobody wants to see it. The quality of a scene immediately goes down if you spot a boom mic in the shot, right? I think we can all agree on that.
What I didn't realize, however was that there were tons of boom mikes (mics?) in my own life, specifically my mind.
As most readers know by now, I've been going to therapy since September and it's been one of the best decisions of my life. I cannot tell you the amount of growth I've experienced and how much I was able to deal with my past. This week was my last session until January. We're taking a break for a month. As we summarized my progress for the last few months my therapist asked me about how my thought process works now. I'd like to share this with you in hopes that you may find it useful.
I sometimes get triggered by certain words, tones, and general behaviour. This invites many negative thoughts into my own head. These thoughts are destructive. They carry the voices of my past, telling me that I am useless, dumb, good for nothing, and a burden; that I am unlovable. With time, I have learned to believe these thoughts about myself.
These negative thoughts, whether they are about myself or about others, are the boom mikes (mics?). Your life is a movie. You are the movie editor. You don't want those pesky boom mikes (mics? Frig, how do you spell the plural version?) in your scenes. You want to echo Philippians 4:8. So what do you do? You cut it out. How do you do that?
Well, first you need to actually recognize that there is a negative thought. Any triggers, suddenly feeling attacked, defensiveness, jealousy, anger, judgement, etc. are things to watch out for. You don't want these in your life. So whenever any of them arise and you recognize them, it is time to press 'pause'. Just stop the scene. Time out! Identify the thought. Write it down if you have to. Did you get it? Ok, let's go back to the moment when the thought first popped up. What were the circumstances? What happened? We pause at the boom mic and then we rewind the scene to see how it happened. But it needs to be in slow motion because you don't want to miss it.
Now we get to the part where we cut out that thought, because we don't want it. It can go suck an egg. You're a strong, independent man or woman who don't need no negative thought in your life.
Let's compare your exaggeration of this situation against reality- whatever is really happening.
That person probably didn't mean to anger you.
That person probably didn't mean to make you jealous.
That person probably didn't mean to hurt you like that.
Even if they did, it's not your responsibility to carry that burden of bitterness in your heart.
When you finish your movie and are ready to show it to the world, would you want them to see the negative things you think about yourself and/or others? Probably not. Would you want them to see all that stored-up bitterness in your heart and mind? I didn't think so.
Once you start dealing with these buggers in your life, it'll become easier and easier to detect and deal with them. It may start out as a long thought process but with practice, it'll become second nature and you will be in a constant state of thought renewal. And who doesn't want to be happy with themselves?
I know that, personally, this analogy has helped me tremendously when it comes to my own thought patterns. I no longer want my life to be a crappy movie version. I don't want others to constantly point out the boom mics (I'm sticking with this one). At the end of the day, I want to be happy about how I handled the scene.
I'm extremely sorry if this didn't make as much as sense as I thought it would. I'm writing this quite late at night and may regret doing so.
Alas, happy thinking!
xo
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