Part II…The Rebound Effect

The last post I talked about freezing in the face of fear and indecision, and how to get unstuck. But there is another side of the issue we need to talk about, and that is coming unstuck so fast and furiously that you hurl yourselves back into instability again. This is called “rebounding.”

Cycles and seasons are a normal part of life. Freezing in the face of grief, loss, and indecision is sometimes simply a dormant season in our life, like the seed experiences in the ground during the cold winter. It may be dark and cold, but in our heart we know we are working things out, fully aware there will be growth again. We may be miserable, but we don’t panic or feel trapped. We know that “this too shall pass…”

But sometimes, especially when our season has been prolonged, or particularly dark, there is a danger that when we come out of it, we move way too fast. Instead of being caught in indecision, we make decisions way too fast–even somewhat impulsively. Instead of procrastination, we meet everything head on, often barreling ahead without thinking enough about the consequences. We overcompensate for our long period of inactivity by doing way too much; taking on too many new projects, and trying to balance too much. Pretty soon we are overwhelmed, and we realize we are in way over our heads. Our lives, finances, relationships, and health become unstable, and pretty soon we’ve triggered another huge mistake, or sabotaged ourselves in unforeseen ways.

This is particularly true in relationships. When we are coming out of a bad one that has gone on way too long our release can send us headlong into risky or inappropriate relationships that are unhealthy for us. I’ve counseled numbers of couples at the end of a divorce, fighting for custody of their children, and their divorces weren’t even final yet. But they were already deeply involved with other people and planning to marry them just as soon as the ink was dry on the divorce decree.

This is classic rebound, and no matter what I said about the statistics of success in situations like that (they are about 80 percent failure) rarely would they listen. So glad to be out of the bad situation, they refused to see the mistakes they were repeating, all over again.

In my case, the danger is more benign. My danger is more in the area of work projects, proposals, and business relationships. I’m getting unstuck, but now I’ve got to watch that I don’t overcommit myself. In my fear that I’ve lost financial ground, I can actually run ahead of God, grab onto the first thing that presents itself, and waste valuable time and energy chasing “possibilibilities” that are only dead end trails.

So, I am trying to be careful here. I need to discern what is being driven by God and what is being driven by fear. Honestly, sometimes God uses our fear to birth new things. That is how writing started for me. When I was falsely accused, neither my husband and I had jobs, and we were broke I turned to writing, never dreaming where that would take me.  But during another bad time, I tried without success to turn my skill as a sculptor into a business, and still cringe at the amount of time and money I spent chasing that pipe dream.

For some people, this pattern is present, but it is not extreme. But for others the pattern is so exaggerated it interferes with functioning well in life. We call this pattern of extreme mood and behavior swing Bipolar Disorder.

We will look at that in more depth next week in Part III….