Return to your rest, my soul,
    for the Lord has been good to you.
Psalm 116:7 (NIV)

I have always been a world-class brooder. It comes in tandem with the pessimism that marks those of us who are romantic individualists known as Enneagram Fours. If there is a major relational conflict or some kind of crisis in life, I will tend to brood on it.

Brood is actually an interesting word because the most common definition in the English language means “to sit on” and “incubate” as a mother hen sits on her eggs. What an apt word picture for what I can do with a conflict or crisis. I mentally and emotionally sit on it, keep it warm, keep incubating as I stir it in my soul over and over and over again. I may look like I’m perfectly normal on the outside, but inside I’m a boiling cauldron of angst, fear, negativity, and insecurity.

Along my life journey, I’ve gotten a lot better at recognizing when I’m going into brood mode and when I find myself there. As a young man, I know I spent long periods of time in brood mode never knew I was doing it. To the world around me, I appeared to be functioning normally, but I was actually mentally and emotionally disconnected for long periods of time. This is when having an Enneagram Eight as a spouse is really helpful. Wendy is quick to see me go into my brooding mode, and she’s quick to address it.

Having said that, I’ve also learned that I am an internal processor who has also, along my life journey, developed decent communication skills. This means that I can typically talk through what I am thinking and feeling with others, but not before I’ve taken some time to process it alone. I believe Wendy has done a great job of recognizing that there is a difference between me processing something internally and giving me time to do so, and me silently disconnecting and descending into my brooding pit where I might not surface for a while.

Brooding is like mental, emotional, and spiritual spelunking (those crazy people who descend into and explore caves). A wise spelunker always has a safety line that is attached to a strong ground anchor above. Along the way, I’ve also learned that I need spiritual, mental, and emotional “anchors” with which to pull myself out of my brooding pit.

That’s what came to mind this morning as I read today’s chapter and came upon the verse I quoted at the top of the post:

Return to your rest, my soul,
    for the Lord has been good to you.

When I descend too far into brood-mode I have allowed myself to go into a mental space that is not healthy. I have learned that one of the best anchored life-lines I have is my spiritual journey and my life journey. I can look back on that journey and recall several stretches of stress and crisis which were brooding bonanzas. In each one I can recount how faithful God was to me, how things worked out despite the difficulties, and how God used those moments to bring about growth, new levels of maturity, increased faith, and spiritual fruit. By recounting these both the crises and the progress it afforded in my spiritual journey, it helps me put my current crisis in perspective, to trust God’s faithfulness, and to left faith help lift me out of brood-mode.

In the quiet this morning, I find myself grateful for the waypoint I find myself in this life journey. I’m thankful for the things I’ve learned about myself, my loved ones, and how differently we engage in the world around us and in relationships with one another.

Socrates famously said, “the unexamined life is not worth living.” This morning, Socrates has himself a witness. Were it not for my spiritual journey as a follower of Jesus, I’d have gotten stuck in a brooding pit years ago and might never have made it out.

(Did I mention Enneagram Fours have a flair for the dramatic? 😉