People Are Symbols

Sometimes the mind locks onto a person or situation, but the intensity is often pointing to something deeper within us that wants attention. What looks like a reaction to someone else can actually be grief, memory, or an unmet part of our own life story asking to be acknowledged.

When that deeper layer is recognized, the looping can soften because the mind no longer needs to use the external situation to carry the feeling. There is a quiet release that happens when the focus shifts back to what the heart is truly holding.

Transcript

People and situations are symbols for things. And if we can figure out what that symbol is to us, It gives us a little doorway in processing things from our past and moving forward without the brain being stuck in this thinking loop. Recently I saw an old high school friend's profile on social media and I realized that she was pregnant and I believe engaged or something like that. And for the next few hours, My brain just kept looping around her. I thought it was odd or just stressful, I guess, Because it didn't seem to be leading me anywhere. And usually when my brain loops, I know there's something deeper there that wants to be seen or acknowledged. So I sat down and I asked myself, What is she symbolizing to me? And what I realized was that. I. . . Had grief from thinking that I was going to live that life too. In marriage and having a family. But, Unfortunately, I ended up leaving that relationship, And now the possibility of having children is not there right now. And honestly, I had never really sat with that grief, Just the grief of a timeline of my life, A version of life that I could have lived. And so thankfully, When I realized that she was the symbol of that, I could say to myself, Gosh, That is hard, You know, That that does hurt to think your life is going to be. One way and it turns out being completely different. And neither timeline or any timeline of our lives is a hierarchy. None is better or worse, They just are different, And there's no way to really compare them. And when I was able to really sit down and realize this grief that I had never really acknowledged before. It let my brain get out of that looping cycle of concentrating on her as a person. Because in my experience, To be honest, It's never really about anyone else. Anything that we're upset about, It may seem like a certain person or situation, But it's deeper than that. It always, For me, Comes back to something about myself, Something I have not seen or heard or been able to really know about myself, Unless I can figure out what they symbolize to me. And when we're tangled up in the thought of someone else, It allows us to completely wash over the true emotions, Which Maybe some sort of subconscious avoidance, But. . . For me, I really want to get to the root of a lot of the things I experience because that's when you can actually set yourself free. And it was not fun to sit in that grief, But I was so thankful to have acknowledged the fact that it wasn't her because I didn't want to be fixated on someone else's life and spend the rest of my day comparing myself to someone else. So if anyone out there is struggling with looping thoughts about another person or another situation, I invite you to sit down with yourself and ask yourself, What does that person, Place, Or thing symbolize for me? And see where that takes you.