I was thinking about the word “confluence” recently.
I’ve been slow to write about it, but a few weeks ago I went through a very busy few days with travel and a lot of social interaction thrown in.
I tend to be a fairly outgoing introvert. I enjoy people and social interaction, but there is a real effort to socializing for me.
The trip started with a few hours behind the wheel followed by an all-day meeting for work. From there I went to my AirBNB and got settled in. I virtually never sleep well away from home, and this trip proved to be business as usual. The next two days were spent at a large conference, followed by another few hours behind the wheel to get home.
I was blessed by the lessons I took in and was truly glad to connect with people, but toward the end of my time at the conference, I began to face stronger and stronger emotional turmoil. Old problems, stresses, and thought patterns I had made progress against started rising up, seemingly stronger by the hour.
Driving home I thought of the word: Confluence. The idea of coming together, specifically the concept of multiple flows or streams coming together. Over those couple days I had a few streams mixing together. There was the good, through conversations, lectures, reading, and there was the not so good, through lack of sleep and a lot of personal or emotional output. And the confluence resulted not in an even “middling” emotional state, where the positives and negatives shared the bandwidth* equally and resulted in a mediocre emotional state, but the highs became higher, and the lows lower, and the oscillating back and forth between them was growing more and more stressing and painful.
I’m finding that in times like this I need to focus heavily on the positives, and purposefully counter the negatives. I have to be intentional and aggressive in cutting off bad thinking patterns. Notice, I’m not saying “bad thoughts,” but “bad thinking patterns.” “Bad thoughts” sounds more passive or reactive. I need to be active and intentional. As outlined in Philippians 4 I must think on good things, not simply try to drop or get rid of the bad things that come.
Through God’s help, the last weeks have slowly moved in the right direction, but it’s a long and tiring journey.
*Someday (or more likely, some night) I will sit and type up my assorted thoughts on human bandwidth, but this is not that time.