Tests

I often wish I wasn't so introverted. While I feel like I have a strong understanding of my emotions and spiritual self, I often have trouble communicating and expressing it to others. I don't know where it comes from. I have been experiencing this in various forms since I started college. Often I feel like my mind betrays me. I can be in a conversation with somebody, and then some kind of mental loop takes place. I start seeing the person I am conversing with and the conversation we are having through the eyes of what I project to be some other person's thoughts and feelings. It's like my mind roll plays, "ok, if I was this type of person, how would I feel about this situation, or what if I was this person?". I have to really struggle to stay locked in as the self that I know I am.

The effect of this odd looping in my mind is that I feel like I cannot respond to the person I am with; I am emotionally numb. My whole being really wants to connect with them but it feels impossible. The few people I have gotten really close to during this time were a result of me overcoming that, doing anything desperately to develop the friendship. For so many others, the relationship has stayed distant, awkward. I could not express my respect and love for them, so I kept it in my heart.

The reason that I am probably writing this blog post, and many others, is that I do want to connect with people in a profound way. I feel like writing my feelings is the only way I can, I don't feel blocked up when I am alone.

I also am trying to get to the source of my problem. It seems mainly a mental problem, though I suspect it stems from a deep emotional place I cannot access right now. In the beginning I was angry that this was happining. I had felt during my last year of high-school that I had a gift for reaching out, affecting and being affected by others. As this ailment arose and lingered, I finally got to the point where I gave up, stopped caring. First by becoming numb to it all, then through prayer I realized I had to be detached from what my previous concept of enlightenment had been. These days I have learned to live with it, manage it. It has become my reality. While I know that I have evolved and grown because of it, sometimes I wonder, sometimes I get frustrated.

All I can do is rely upon God, and peel away the layers leading to my true self.