Archive for the The Journey Category

I walked with a purpose. My goal was to get somewhere quiet and stop the pounding heart from rattling around in my rib-cage. My thoughts raced but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t shut them down. Like a volcano, they were erupting all around me with heat and fire—singeing my skin and refusing to be extinguished. Anxiety, the mother of all that burns.

It’s easy to say to someone with anxiety, “Don’t worry so much.” But at its core, those words signify a blatant ignorance for what anxious people suffer. The National Institute of Mental Health reports that “18.1% of adults are affected by anxiety disorders—approximately 40 million adults between the ages of 18-54.” So I know I’m not alone as I sit or lie down in dark spaces and try to catch my breath. But sometimes, no matter how hard I focus, my brain won’t listen and I gasp and flop like the proverbial fish trying to make it back into the water.

In the book, “The Meaning of Anxiety” Rollo May states, “But, as is obvious to any observer, many people are thrown into anxiety by situations which are not objectively threatening either in kind or degree. The person may very often state himself that the occasion of his anxiety is a relatively minor event, that his apprehension is ‘silly,’ and he may be angry with himself for letting such a minor thing bother him; but he still feels it.”

And that is how I felt a few days ago as I sought to mentally machete the angry little sprouts of worry that were snaking around my ankles. My worries seemed silly and I felt confident in my ability to destroy them, but after concerted mental avoidance I realized my methods were ineffective. They had found the MiracleGro, experienced a growth spurt, and were curling around my neck. I found no amount of chopping would make them abate.

I’ve had some very real reasons to be anxious lately. I work in an office that is currently experiencing tremendous pressure to conform to new government regulations, I have a child with special needs, and I’m trying to make ends meet. Sometimes the thoughts catch me unaware and my random brain starts chasing invisible bunnies down treacherous trails. The strange thing about anxiety is that the thing I’m chasing (usually a problem I want to solve) ends up chasing me. I make pretty pictures with my brain, not unlike the Spirograph so many of us used as children, only I don’t have any artwork to show for all my mental gymnastics, only a frayed nervous system.

But I like what Rollo May says next, “Attempts to evade anxiety are not only doomed to failure. In running from anxiety you lose your most precious opportunities for the emergence of yourself, and for your education as a human being.”

If my anxiety exists for no other purpose than to help me learn and grow as a human being, I can live with that. If anxiety forces me to understand the misery other experience, and therefore teaches me compassion, even better. We learn our most potent lessons when we open our hearts to pain. When we allow the sorrows to touch a place we didn’t know existed and then muster the courage to foster healing, we become something more than muscle and bone. Anyone can cry and complain, but it takes concerted effort to stifle the groans and press forward. Only the stout of heart dare attempt it, and, umfortunately, the only badge of honor they receive is the true and lasting peace of knowing they are more than they thought they were.

The brain is a complex organ and I am only beginning to scratch the surface on my journey to understand the root cause of anxiety. Sometimes I think it’s physical. Be it food or environmental, I can become crippled by the heart-palpitating pressure that builds in my chest. I often experience the same physical response when I get stuck in traffic on a bridge as I do when I consume excess amounts of chocolate.

At other times the chest tightening episodes are a random response to the cavalcade of thoughts I am trying to process. In those moments I am learning that it is important to pause and step off the Spirograph. Spinning in circles is an exercise in futility. Sometimes it is as easy as sorting out one problem at a time and deciding the best way to manage it. Then, after I come to terms with my response, I am able to let it go.

When my volcano blew a few days ago, I reverted to hiding and deep breathing, but I also employed a tactic that serves me well in other stressful situations: prayer and scripture. Much the same way a mother comforts her fearful child with truth, I comfort myself with God’s truth. I prayed for the heart to stop pounding and then reinforced that request with words of comfort.

Let me be clear, sometimes the verses do little more than comfort my busy brain. The heart continues to throb and the chest is still tight, but other times I experience supernatural calming in my body that cannot be explained. I really consider anxiety to be not unlike a progressive illness. There is no known cure, but I can find relief from acute symptoms. The important thing is that I make a choice to focus on the truth that I know; I am loved. I am not alone. I am in the process of sanctification.

Today if you are struggling with anxiety and are sorting through the cinders of your last episode, consider how you will respond the next time the volcano heats up. Our bodies are so often out of our control (Just ask the bladder. She will not be denied.). But we are not utterly helpless. If you have never read a single word in the Bible, consider opening it. Ask real questions. Seek real answers. And be prepared to calm your quaking fears.

“Courage and cowardice are antithetical. Courage is an inner resolution to go forward in spite of obstacles and frightening situations; cowardice is a submissive surrender to circumstance. Courage breeds creative self-affirmation; cowardice produces destructive self-abnegation. Courage faces fear and thereby masters it; cowardice represses fear and is thereby mastered by it. Courageous men never lose the zest for living even though their life situation is zestless; cowardly men, overwhelmed by the uncertainties of life, lose the will to live.” – Martin Luther King, Jr. Strength to Love.

Monotony suffocates. For those who struggle with depression, the day-in day-out drudgery of performing the same mundane tasks is more than wearisome, it’s unbearable. Those who have not experienced the tentacles of despair are fortunate. They do not know the slow and gasping breaths that accompany hopelessness.

So I had to stop and pause when I read the news of Chris Cornell’s death yesterday. I needed to process not only his sad and untimely passing, but his life. I considered his family and friends, some of whom might be learning of life without him from the cold and unfriendly pages of the internet. The vast unfairness of it took my breath away.

When someone takes their own life, their final choice ripples across the waters of their personal community, but when a person of status or renown commits suicide, we all respond. Depression sympathizers will emerge to philosophize on the kindnesses of ending our unbearable suffering. Doctors will promote the use of newer and better medications to ease said suffering. Laymen will lament and mourn, and maybe even justify the act. They can detachedly grieve an art form, an idea. But the people close to that individual bear the brunt of that pain, the never ending throb for a heart that no longer beats.

I was stuck in traffic on my way home Monday night when it occurred to me how much I detest foolishness. It seemed to me that the careless set themselves behind the steering wheel of vehicles and then propagate their idiocy on hapless victims. The result is the ineffable car accident and the enigmatic traffic jam. As I passed the damaged vehicle and emergency personnel—all of which were in the right hand lane and not obstructing the direct flow of traffic—I wondered why everyone was slowing down to look and to watch. Is foolishness contagious? Couldn’t people see their nosey behavior was slogging up the highway? I wanted to holler out of the window, “Yes, there is a banged up car on the side of the road. Move along! There’s nothing to see here!” Alas, I bit my lip and pushed on the gas pedal.

It happened again on Tuesday night. Same highway. Different accident. Same traffic response. I was seriously considering buying a bullhorn to direct traffic myself, all the while I echoing Charlie Brown, “Good grief!”

So when it happened on Wednesday night too, I was livid. I had just about had it up to here with sitting in a hot car trying not to fall asleep on a drive that was taking exponentially longer than it should have. For the love of all that is holy, what in the world is wrong with people?!

Ahem!

But I do realize human beings are by nature curious. They want to know and understand, but not necessarily because they sincerely care about the injured parties. Their curiosity stems from a deeper desire to better understand themselves because of what they have seen. For those who have experienced car accidents, they begin to process their own pain once again. For example, my mother cannot bear to see an accident on the side of the road because her mother was killed in an accident. I grew up under the stigma of that and have the same reaction to a point. It seems that we are all processing the events around us in correlation to ourselves. And that is why a depressed person pauses when they see that another seemingly depressed person has taken their life. They silently wonder, what would happen if I did that?

Those questions can lead to very dark places but are nevertheless important because we must face our fears in order to find the courage to overcome them.

I have been reading a very good book by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. called Strength to Love. In it he discusses the disciplines required to love our neighbors well. Today at lunch I encountered the chapter titled, “Antidotes for Fear.” And for the first time I came to understand just how afraid I really am of so many things. At various points in my life I have fantasized about committing suicide. How would people respond? For the people I loved I wondered, would they miss me? For the people who hurt me, would they be sorry? But I never actually processed the fact that the reason I had so little regard for my own life is because I was afraid.

The reasons for my fear are deep and wide and I won’t digress this time. But needless to say, Dr. King did give me an antidote to my despair. He showed me that when I am afraid I can be courageous. I can face my fears with love.

He uses a bible verse to backup this statement,

“There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.” I John 4:18

Many people fear religion because of their bad experiences with hypocrites—people who claim to follow Jesus but disobey his commands and treat their fellow humans poorly. Hatred is born out of this fear. But the God of the Bible I read is a God of love. He continually pours out his love to people who repeatedly reject him. If a wife repeatedly cheated on her husband, he would eventually grow tired of her infidelities and divorce her. But God loved us so much he sent an invitation in the form of his son. God then heaped all of our sin on him and punished him instead so we would not have to fear him any longer for rejecting him. We no longer have to be afraid; we can simply accept God’s love by embracing the free gift of His grace—which was purchased at a terribly high price.

This kind of love gives me courage. So when I think about Chris Cornell and the darkness he faced a few nights ago, it is not without tears. I have faced that darkness and it is brutal. The difference between myself and him is that he lost hope. He caved in to his fears. How I wish he could have read the words of the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. “Hatred and bitterness can never cure the disease of fear; only love can do that. Hatred paralyses life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illumines it.”

If you are reading this, you still have an opportunity to counteract your fear with courage. You are able to look into the void and know a light can shine there. You can cry out for love, and banish fear and the ensuing hatred that grows out of it. All is not lost. As you pass by the car accident on the side of the road and consider how best to respond, pause and ask yourself the hard questions, “What are you really afraid of?” And then apply the antidote: you are loved!

When I finished high school, I never imagined I’d go back. The few fragile friendships I’d developed disintegrated, real life happened and time passed. The wounds, however, remained. All the petty grievances I’d experienced via insecurity and careless gossip had done their damage. Needless to say, I remember fleeing the school grounds with a kind of euphoria born from the knowledge that I would never, ever have to see those people again.

I stayed in touch with those who were real friends and forged ahead with my life, trying not to think about the hurt feelings and silly sorrows of my childhood. Still, they clung to my heart like a milky film–not readily visible, but nevertheless, present. I even had a recurring nightmare for years in which I was back in class and feeling the pressure to complete schoolwork–knowing I had already graduated and wondering why on earth I had to go back. My addled brain refused to let go of the people who had made such an impression on me in my younger years and the wounds we had inflicted.

When I heard there was to be a 10 year reunion, I balked. Who in their right mind would go to that? Back then High school reunions struck me as a waste of time. I shrugged off any nostalgic pangs and moved forward, even as I quietly wondered who was there and what they were talking about. So when I heard about the 20 year reunion, I was ecstatic. I had this idea that since I had lost the weight, I wanted to go back and revisit some of those relationships. Initially, I wanted to prove I was worthy of being liked and accepted by those who had rejected me back then. Also, many of the people who circles I frequented were planning to attend and I really wanted to re-connect. Long story short, I went, and I had the time of my life.

I learned that many of the perceptions I had of others were actually my feelings projected onto them. I learned that I was liked, not ugly, and singularly valued. Also, quite astonishingly, I made new friends–people I never knew in school the first time around. I left with such a sense of well-being and peace that I was genuinely excited about the next one.

This past weekend I attended my 25th high school reunion. The organizers planned it so beautifully with a mixer at a local sports bar Friday evening, and a family friendly BBQ potluck on Saturday. The reunion concluded with food and drinks at an up-scale restaurant after the outdoor shindig. We were all exhausted and feeling our age but we talked, laughed and surprisingly–did not reminisce. Maybe I am alone in this regard, but I don’t recall really talking about high school at all. It was quite simply, awesome fun.

As I reflect on the conversations with friends, both new and old, I find myself satisfied in my soul. We shared stories, complained about the current administration, and talked about our children. One jolly fellow said what we were all thinking, “some of us looked like we could be on the cover of GQ magazine but others have not aged as well. I had to laugh at that. Does anyone really age well? If I looked half as bad as I feel most of the time, no one could bear the site of me.

The song “Glory Days” by Bruce Springsteen keeps rumbling through my thoughts even though it doesn’t really apply to me. I don’t feel I have any glory days to recall. I really only remember angst, self-conscious primping, and pimples. Oh, and passing biology class(though I had to go to summer school to do that–thanks Sean!). For many years school was something I merely survived, but now I’m starting to realize the significance of those time-tested relationships. The people who were present while we were young have a different perspective of us than we do of ourselves and its important. If we listen well (as I tried to do this weekend) we will learn that we were not exactly who we thought we were. We will learn that we were liked, and maybe even loved. We will learn that we made an impact. We encouraged and inspired. We even helped people achieve their dreams(like John who pursued soccer simply because Liv asked him to participate). I was amazed by the stories and humble accounts of each person I spoke with. We are all on the journey together experiencing this thing called life. We have all lost our innocence in one way or another, and it was very healing(at least for me) to come together and ruminate on what matters most of all; friendship.

I realize now that when I was younger I mostly mis-characterized many of the other people I attended high school with–not only because I was obtuse(though I was), but because I was more worried about what they thought about me. And maybe this is the best part of maturing… I’ve been given the greatest gift of all; a do-over. Those who were brave enough to come and face their insecurities and fears met on common ground and simply got to know each other again. Somehow in the process of sharing stories both sad and glad, we came to see we are–after all–only human. We may not agree or even sympathize in some respects, but we can acknowledge that regardless of our differences, we all have the capacity to love. I for one find that very cathartic.

Until next time, fellow Hawks!