The mind is a tricky thing, this I know for a fact. It can be both amazingly wonderful and dangerously deceitful at the same time. If it has a physique, I would imagine it to be big and brawny. Unrestrained, it is a terrible master. It would use its strength to smash my confidence, pound my self-esteem and pummel all that is good in my heart. When it is well trained, it makes a good servant. It lifts me up and carries me through the hardest of hardship, braving the wind, the cold and the rain. If it has a personality, I would think it can be both wise and sly at the same time. I have a love-hate relationship with my mind. Most of the time, I’m in love with it but when it comes to love, I wish I never knew my mind.

Relationship is the Achilles heel of my existence. Yes, it is a limiting belief, I admit. When it comes to problem solving, brainstorming ideas and creating something out of nothing, my mind is my most trusted ally and friend but when it comes to men, it is skeptical, paranoid and distrustful. I don’t blame it. We’ve been through a lot together—we’ve loved and we’ve been hurt, we’ve been lied to and abandoned. I even think it is quite sweet that my mind has made it its life’s mission to protect my very fragile heart. But often it goes overboard with the protective mechanism, sometimes even verging on extreme. In a way, I understand why it is necessary. After all, I was never quite the same after… him.

My last significant relationship ended in early 2007. It was significant because it was the one that caused me the most pain. It was the one that really made me take a good, hard look at myself. The one that made me realize that he wasn’t the problem, I was. At the time, him leaving was the worst thing that has ever happened to me. Now, looking back, it was the best thing that has ever happened to me. In the wake of his departure, I embarked on a journey of self discovery and healing, and in the process, met many wonderful people and experienced many wonderful experiences along the way—meeting God was one of them.

After I ‘got my shit together’, I dated on and off for over two years between 2008 and 2010. Within that time, a pattern began to emerge. I seemed to attract and be attracted to a specific type of men. They were all masculine, older men who were driven and ambitious. They often came to pick me up in their flashy cars—the Audi TTs, the Mercedes Benzes and sometimes even rare collector’s items. They were good dressers and sweet talkers too. If there was a university degree for whispering sweet nothings, they would be on the Dean’s list for it. Irrespective of vocation, age and creed, they all had one thing in common—they were all emotionally unavailable—at least to me.

The cycle that kept recurring was that we would date for a while, they would seem interested and then came a point when they would tell me that they weren’t ready for a relationship at the time but they liked spending time with me. We would continue to see each other and I would secretly be hoping that if I stuck around long enough, they would change their minds. Weeks, sometimes months would go by and suddenly, I would stop getting their calls. They would stop returning mine. I would eventually find out that they have met someone else and settled into a committed long term relationship with the other woman. They hadn’t bothered to tell me and I was left trying to come up with an explanation for myself. In the midst of my confusion, trying to grapple with the truth, my mind would tell me that I wasn’t good enough for them, that I had been strung along, kept as Plan B until Plan A comes along. It hurt every single time.

So in early 2010, I sought help and saw a psychologist. I stopped dating and decided to just spend a year or two working on myself. Within that time, I started this blog, quit my job and started on my journey of purpose to write my book and to raise consciousness in others. I was in my creative prime. I found a lot of peace and a kind of happiness I have never experienced before being my own person. Life was sweet—the sweetest it has ever been.

Early this year, I thought to myself, “I’m ready to start dating again.” so I did. That’s when it surfaced—that skeptical, paranoid and distrustful alter ego of my mind. I went on every date, curious but jaded at the same time. In my mind, the crystal ball of my past experiences foresaw that every single one of them was going to be no different from all the others. My mind’s eye lasered in on clues and cues that reminded me of each of the men I used to date—the look in their eyes, the tone of their voice, the words they use. I would analyse everything they said and did and—in the privacy of my own mind—question their motivation. I would feel unsettled and impatient. Alarm bells would ring incessantly in my head, telling me that I’ve seen this all before and I know how it’s going to end but I won’t be the fool who stuck around to find out. Not this time.

In a separate part of myself, I know what this all means. It means my mind is afraid. It means that when it sees something familiar associated with a past hurt, it goes crazy trying to protect me from what might be a disaster. In its authoritative voice, it tells me I’m so much better off alone, that I was happy before this man showed up in my life, and this whole dating game is just bullshit and a waste of time. And because my mind knows me better than anyone else, it uses the most powerful ammunition on me, knowing that it will make me bow to its demands. It whispers to me, telling me that this man will distract and detract me from my journey of purpose, that he will belittle my dreams and keep me small. My mind is cunning that way because it knows that I would not stand for that.

When I sat with my riled emotions and waited for calm to settle in, I reminded myself that I was no longer the same person I was two years ago, that if pain was going to descend upon me, I would know how to handle it. I told my mind to stay in the present. Nothing bad has happened yet, let the relationship unfold and see what happens. If it does turn bad, what’s the worst that could happen? I’ve been down that road before, I know how to pick myself up, but taking myself out every time I’m afraid is not a way to live my life. My mind did not like that. It argued with me, telling me that my blatant disregard to its warning would come back and bite me in the ass. Yes, my mind gets a bit crude and loud mouth like that when it’s aggravated. I don’t blame it. It still behaves like a child when it’s afraid.

Through this all, I had a voice of reason. That voice wasn’t my own—I made sure of it. It was a trusted old friend who had seen me sift through all the men in my life, one who had sat through all the tears and lent me a solid grip that helped pulled me out of my funk. It was an independent, objective third person who kept my mind in check. God knows I could do with some help sometimes. I grow tired trying to resist its protest, especially this time, when I refused to bow down to its demands.

What about your mind? What does your mind look like, if it has a physique? What kind of personality does it have? What does it say to you when it’s afraid? And what do you do when it tries to take you out? Share them with me at the end of this post, perhaps we can be each other’s voice of reason.

To Minds,

Chiao Kee