Dear friends,
Phones ring, files breed across my desk, and my collie dog frightens
a new colleague away from the door on her first day at the office. (Don’t worry.
She came back.) These small dramas
are nothing compared to the bigger dramas in my life, but I smile serenely because I gave up anxiety for Lent.
I live with Anxiety.
Capital “A” anxiety. I worry
about everything. What if a plane
crashed onto the street outside my house?
What if the chemicals in this creamy peanut butter give me cancer? What if I never find my soulmate? Could I get a sperm donor? What if my sperm donor is a psychopath? If I don't recycle this plastic bag, will an animal eat it and die? Would I look better blonde? Is North Korea poised to push the button and nuke
us? Have I lived enough to die today?
No, I had not lived enough because every
moment spent worrying was a moment not lived.
I missed the taste of the peanut butter, flaked on dating, and disregarded the healthy relationships
around me. I was missing things and focusing on exhausting improbabilities.
I have had Anxiety my whole life. As a girl, I would get so excited and
worried about family vacations that I would vomit the night before and prompt
my parents to cancel because they thought I was sick. High school was a blur of attempted
perfection—captain of three teams, valedictorian, band geek, too tired to
address the problem of feeling like I didn’t belong. In college, when my grandmother was dying from cancer and Parkinson's, I
would run and run and run around campus and feel too full of anxious acid to
eat the calories I needed. I got too
thin. At Oxford, I agonized over my intellectual
inadequacy and strained myself into strep throat. Now, I am a young attorney in a family
business, everyone is getting married and having children like the world is
about to end, and I can’t eat my favorite foods because my acid reflux makes
them unappetizing.
But there’s hope. At
the beginning of Lent this year, I’d had enough. Anxiety had ruled my life for too long. I may never find my soulmate, and Kim Jong-un may kill us all, but I would not be controlled by fear any more.
At first, it was easy.
Whenever I started wandering along the worry trails, I yelled “Halt!” and switched to something pleasant. I forged new mental paths. Look at all the Hart of Dixie episodes I have left! Purple spring crocuses are popping through the
ivy! Book club meets next week at the
steakhouse! I swam two miles in the pool in the fast lane! Every time
the anxiety started to choke me, I breathed deeply until my heart was so full
of oxygen that it had no choice but to relax.
“Calm the f*** down,” I said. “God
has it handled.”
Lent has passed, and I wish I could say I float serenely through the storm. God has challenged
me anew with some personal drama. Someone dear to me may be ill and need treatment, and I am unsure of the future. I study law, not medicine, and I fret about what I don't know. Even the calmest individual could not escape fear in this situation, but I wonder if God wanted me to give up Anxiety this Lent because trouble was on the horizon. I could have given up many things, but He encouraged me to release the thing that would torture me the most. Clearly, there's a plan I have yet to understand.
Work won’t let up, and neither will life, yet I am better
armed against it. In overcoming Anxiety, I pray for three things. I pray for Wisdom to find the right path, Courage to step onto it, and Strength to carry me through. Tomorrow has its own challenges, but for today my collie dog and the
new colleague are friends, my files are handled, and God takes care of the
rest.
If you suffer from Anxiety, here are a few suggestions for managing it:
Exercise. It releases endorphins (happy chemicals), pounds out anger and fear, and keeps you fit enough to handle the stress.
Talk to a good listener. If you don’t have someone to talk to, God listens and answers in interesting ways (story on that for another time).
Go outside. Plants, especially trees, release calming chemicals. In Japan, people call it “Forest Bathing” and do it regularly. http://www.shinrin-yoku.org/shinrin-yoku.html
Stop judging yourself. If you need to eat ice cream and watch a dumb TV show, do it. Sin a little to release some steam in the pressure cooker.
Never think you are alone. Consult your doctor if you suffer from serious symptoms. I have been there, and there is no shame in it. Visit here for more information: https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/anxiety-disorders/index.shtml.
Cheers,
Super Spinster
