itchy neck and beauty

Just show up to your life.  Stay on your mat!  Have you heard these spoken or written before?  Glennon Doyle Melton (author of Love Warriors and Carry on Warriors) talks about staying on your mat, meaning don't run away from the hard things in life.  Show up!  Well, if we're honest, it's easy to say these things on our good days.  And very hard to practice them on our hard days.  I will confess that is very true for me...
Here I am showing up today, but yesterday was the hard day.  Yesterday was the day that I retreated like a hermit crab into my shell.  Someone is passing by...retreat.  Hide.  And the darkness of my lonely shell felt miserable.  All day long I struggled with my anxious thoughts.  My triggers were high and I was feeling like a girl caught in the rip current of the ocean, forgetting which way to swim out from the rip current (the signs always tell you at the entrance of the ocean...but who can remember when they're actually caught in a scary rip current!?!)  So there I was struggling.  Too embarrassed to post anything on my anxiety support group Facebook page...that I happened to create.  Me...the one who talks about being vulnerable and real and showing up to your life.  Yes, even me.  I still struggle.  Even after paying way too much for counseling (I'm too embarrassed to say how much I have estimated paying for counseling!) I still hide on a day like yesterday. I will say that I didn't stay in bed.  I did my best to do what I have learned from all that expensive counseling despite feeling fearful, anxious, and caught in a hamster wheel of anxious thoughts.
Even though I knew that my brain was doing its addictive anxious thought patterns, I really didn't do much to divert it.  I got on the internet and researched how to eat better, what supplements I should take...all those dangerous no-nos that I have already told myself I should NOT do on an anxiety day.  But there I was...saying "no big deal, it's just a few clicks.  I won't do this for a long time like last time..." slippery slope words... (yes, denial words...)
But somewhere in the midst of my early evening I looked out the window (which we have a lot of in our house, thankfully) and noticed the beauty.  It triggered a healthy thought (oh, thank you counselor for embedding some healthy thought seeds into my brain!)...look outside, notice the beauty, distract my anxious fear brain, be thankful.  Practice gratitude!  Oh yeah, gratitude.  All day long I was thinking about all that was miserable about my life.  My itchy itchy neck from eating something the day before.  Feeling despair that my neck will always be itchy.  Thinking that maybe I can never eat again...stuck. Trapped. Despair. Fear. Anxiety.  THEN, that beautiful thought of "oh, there is still so much beauty around me! Still so much to be thankful for.  Lift your eyes up! See.  Notice!"  For a moment I breathed deeper.  I noticed.  I saw the beauty.  And as I kept making myself do this each time the fear thoughts would say "no no, be worried.  think about us.  fix your problems!" I noticed that I was able to have a little more breathing room.  To remember that this too will pass.  There is still sunshine and beauty in this world.  My fear is not the whole reality.  I do not have to stay in the darkness.  My fear is just fear.  But look, there is light, and beauty still!!!  Light is greater than darkness.  Light a small candle in a dark cave and you will notice the light.
As I lay in bed my neck was still very itchy, reminding me of something I should be very very worried about.  But I decided to turn my thoughts to beauty, and what I am thankful for.  To remind myself that this will pass.  I'm going to be ok.  And God is still with me.  And I felt a flicker of...hope, and maybe even joy (these are not familiar feelings...I'm still learning what they feel like!)  And I fell asleep...

can I rest yet?

we long for rest, yet actually resting takes a conscious decision to cease working.  and this is where we seem to have trouble.  until illness strikes.  until the job is finished.  until something interrupts us and forces us to stop.  we go around complaining that we are tired, bored, and never have enough hours in the day.  are we victims to our lives?  do we have no control over the busy lifestyles we maintain?  are we driven by others? bosses? friends? work? who is driving all the busyness?  Why is rest so hard for us to allow ourselves? 

Today I was talking to someone telling me that her weekend was busy.  She was tired.  I thought, wow, it sounds like she needs another weekend to recover from her weekend.  And I know you have heard this before "my vacation was full! I need another vacation to recover from my vacation!"  We don't seem to know how to rest.  Is rest a lost art?  What are we waiting for?  (permission to rest?! from whom?)

What are we afraid of? We finally have time to "rest" and we fill it with more stuff.  More activities.  Are we afraid of the quiet? Afraid of the stillness?  Afraid of being alone with ourselves?

And yet we are tried.  Driven by fear of deadlines, places to go, things to do, and we don't want others to think we are lazy.  

driven

weary

chaos

busy

noise

restless

bored

...burned out

"Come to me all who are weary and I will give you rest."

Hungry

tired

thirsty

weary

I want rest!

I am coming.

Dropping the work.

Stepping out of the "ought to's"

Ignoring the fear

I come

Embraced by love

Held

Comforted

I breathe

You are here

I am here

Embraced

Relief

My soul finds rest in God alone

Restored

Rested

Ready to go

Knowing who I am

There is a flow of 

creative energy

defined by rest and love

May I live in your rest

Letting the rivers of love

flow into me

And through me

I will mount up with wings like eagles

I will run and not grow weary

I will walk and not grow faint

My rest is found in you, O God

And my work flows from this rest

Stuck prayer

Sometimes I get stuck.  Stuck in the mud of anxiety in my brain.  Thoughts take me down paths, and then I find myself trying to figure out how I am going to solve/fix something that has no answers.  And it gets me spinning off into unhealthy places of fear.  Because I can NOT fix the problem no matter how hard my brain tries to solve it.  Exhaustion.  Anxiety.  Fear.  UGH!!!
Yesterday I swung from what I would call "healthy" thoughts to some of these "stuck in the mud" thoughts.  And when I would wake up and realize these are "stuck in the mud" thoughts I would feel defeated.  Looking back I should have been happy that I could at least identify that these are my unhealthy thoughts.  Because that is the first step!!!
Anytime I get stuck in the mud it's usually because I'm trying to solve my problems...those problems that really have no solutions that I can find today.  And the more I think about what to do the worse shape I'm in.  And I get this glazed over withdrawn look that my husband is like "knock knock, anyone home?"  And I get annoyed because he's bothering me from all my problem solving.
Deep breath.  Sigh.
God, I surrender my stick in the mud thoughts to you.  They aren't helping me.  They are hurting me. I keep going back to the mud, but what I really want is to be free to run in the open fields of love. I want to see my hair flowing from the wind as I run free, like a little girl who has yet to be tainted by the cares of the world.  God, set me free with your truth...the truth is that these muddy thoughts are not the ones I have to fix.  I don't have to fix the mud in my life.  Bring me back over and over to your wellspring...the place where the waters flow freely.  Dip into the waters of love...love that casts out any remembrance of fear.  Until I am completely absorbed and in awe with your beauty.  Continue to stir the deep places in me...that I can respond to your love with love.  You are so good.  So beautiful.  And I want to wake up and see you.  To step out of the slumber that comes from muddy thoughts.  God you alone can save me.  You alone can rescue me.  I lift my arms to you...lift me up.  You are my Savior.  My prince of peace.