As a human that exists, it’s hard to deny myself.
Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.
Matthew 16:24 NIV
It’s point blank and obvious. Of course you need to deny the flesh in order to follow God.
But how can I deny something that subconsciously rules my world?
Luckily, I’m a very introspective person and because of my path, I’ve learned to observe all of my thoughts and actions. Now this doesn’t mean I’m always aware of my own reasoning, sometimes I am, but for the most part again, subconscious.
When I find myself falling into my own rabbit hole, I sit back and watch it play out while not remaining attached to outcomes. Usually.
This time, was not one of those times.
When I started planning my Halloween party, it was mainly because I hadn’t really been to a good party since one of my own years back and wanted to experience it once more (I guess).
I’m not really a party person anymore but sometimes the random urge comes through so, I caved.
As I continued through the month, running around, planning, plotting, decorating, shopping, I kept asking myself, why am I doing all of this?
I was invested. Maybe because I had already started and couldn’t back out, I don’t know. But a feeling of perfection began to overcome me. It was like a project I was going to get graded on and I couldn’t get a “B”.
Now of course my perception of an “A” would have included much more time, dedication and funds. Essentially, I was setting myself up for my own internal demise.
During this time, when I found myself getting caught up in the mess, I’d stop and pray and ask God to keep leading me to Him despite the things I am preoccupying myself with.
Another question I kept asking myself was, why is God letting me do all of this?
This year was the first year ever where I felt conviction when it came to Halloween. I had just spent the year buried in my bible, buried in Christian content, and detaching myself from things that don’t lead me closer to God (or at least trying to).
Now of course, Halloween is definitely not on my list of things to do for God but as a very skeptical person of all things, I couldn’t tell if the conviction was coming from God or from the brainwashing that was probably happening to me over the past year.
So I continued to do my thing and pray that if I weren’t supposed to be doing all of this, that God would let me know or stop me.
He didn’t, so I pushed through.
I pushed through to the point that once the party started, was happening, and ended, I was distraught with the way everything had turned out.
Was it bad? Not that I know of. Was it bad for me? Not in the way that deserved such a reaction. So what was it?
Here’s the idea; I spent a month doing all of this work for one night, for it to get graded maybe a “B-” (I want to say “C” but I’m not sure if it was that bad) in my book.
After 2-3 days of despair and reflection, I came to the conclusion that I became so attached to the outcome, I didn’t allow myself to enjoy the party or even feel satisfied with how it actually turned out.
That’s the problem with perfectionism. If I could’ve just done this, had more time to do that, and this like that… nothing would have changed. And I probably still would have felt the same way.
Then, I realized why God let me do all of this.
And suddenly I realized that every single thing in my life is fleeting,
unknown
and that only God is eternal.
One of the first concepts I learned spiritually was through Buddhism, attachment is the root cause of suffering.
All of life is temporary and constantly fleeting. When we attach ourselves to that which isn’t permanent, we suffer once it’s gone, once it’s changed, or in my case, when it doesn’t meet your expectations.
I somehow became so emotionally invested in this party that I let its existence ruin my peace and clarity.
And while I sat there in my own thoughts and feelings, God sat next me with His unconditional Love. I rested my head on His lap and knew this was the only space I ever wanted to be in; the only thing I want to invest myself with.
But I needed to experience this first in order to relearn this.
Because as life is, as strong as this illusion is, there is only one Truth, and that is God.
So, if you’re asking me about a party next year,
I might just say maybe.
xx
— Natalia