Happy Friday, dear friends. And welcome to October! Today is the first day in recent memory that I have not been sweating by 9am, so I’m calling that “Fall.” My dear friend Jamie just sent an email update from Montana saying, “Fall is here . . . the nail color is getting darker and the coffee stronger.” If that isn’t pure poetry, I literally don’t know what is.
Been thinking about my last post. One of the things I want to add, and will serve as a dovetail into today’s discussion on chapter 8, is something I’m really considering in my own life right now.
When I start feeling plagued and those brain vultures are on the prowl, sometimes I am resolute in my fight against them. And then there are other times — more recently — when I just start to get rage-y. I want to know when this will all go away. I want to yell at someone. I am DONE. I’m tired of being picked at. I’m tired of being buzzy and nervy. I’m tired of being cloudy and worried and, most of all, I’m tired of being tired. These are my low moments. And they can very easily send me into “solution-mode” where I am immediately trying to find that elusive solution that will fix me.
I think I’m being invited to think about all this a little differently, though I’d like to report that I’m not sure I like this new perspective. What if there were gifts in the buzzy and the nervy? What if that tension and friction created a productive energy that manifests itself in creativity, ideas, dabbling, inspiration? What if my anxious thoughts actually catapult me into deeper thinking, deeper feeling, deeper living? What then? Perhaps this “thorn in the flesh” has a purpose.
Let’s assume this is true for a second — that anxiety can be helpful sometimes. So then, how can I learn to channel that flow of energy so that it doesn’t overwhelm me, doesn’t send me flying off into either/or thinking, doesn’t lure me into solution-mode, but instead actually helps me be more creatively productive?
And if “anxiety” feels like too strong a word for you, then think of it as being entirely, systemically overwhelmed. See, if I’m completely overwhelmed, then I disintegrate into all the unhelpful places I just mentioned above. I literally come apart. I’m not an integrated version of myself. But if I can use some of that buzz, learn to work with it in safe environments, then I wonder if it could become what I see as a gift instead of a curse. I don’t know.
How might we reframe the things in us and around us and about us that are frustrating us? Well, in my opinion, we usually need help to see things differently.
This leads me to chapter 8, Googling for Help. This was one of the more personal chapters for me to write, simply because it gives you a peek into some of my own personal desperation and because it is the story of me doing something that some people might think is weird: seeking out a 12-step group called Emotions Anonymous. I took the risk, decided to let you think I’m weird, and wrote the chapter anyway, because it needed to be put out into the world. This story needed to be told.
It is the story of me beginning to think differently about a few things:
- Sometimes we are powerless over something and we need help in order to gain a hold. It is not defeatist to believe we are powerless; in fact, the opposite. It is the brave first step toward getting well. When there’s something we are powerless against in life, admitting our losing battle can be one of the most essential things we do.
- Fixing is a solution; healing is a process. I am actually putting those words on a 3×5 card and taping them to the wall by my desk today because I spent a good amount of time last week buying into the fact that if I could just press hard enough, I could find a solution to all the things that were eating at me. Solution-mode is rarely helpful. Process-mode, journey-mode, long-way-home-mode, through-not-around mode . . . these tend to be the paths to freedom. (Ugghhhhhh.)
- I don’t have to figure it all out (see #2). I can invite God in to help me. I can let go and let God figure it out.
- We cannot fix ourselves (see #1-3).
- “We need help. It feels needy to need help. Oh well. Let’s get it anyway. Google is a great place to start. So is Step 1: “We admitted we were powerless — that our lives had become unmanageable. (I believe in you.)” page 77
I know these are no-joke, heavy topics. I know these concepts reach into the core of us and tug at the deepest depths of who we are and who we want to be. So thank you for tolerating the depth and weight of these concepts. The words and ideas from this chapter are making their way back to me today as I need to be reminded of these truths so very often. I hope they are doing the same for you.
I say I wrote this book (and the next one coming out in the Spring) because they are the subjects I needed to explore, consider, write about and process for myself. I wrote Breathing Room because I needed some. I wrote Brazen because I need to find the courage to emerge and not just be the safest, smoothest version of myself.
Hopefully, through these posts and through your own reflection, you are finding ideas that are companioning you as you walk through the squeeze. And, most of all, that these ideas become pockets of air for you even if you haven’t found your way entirely to the spacious place yet.
And one more thing . . . You are not irrevocably flawed. Even if you are overwhelmed and angsty, you have not been forgotten. It is not over for you. The brain vultures may be picking at you, but you have not been left for dead. Maybe you’re just coming to the point where you’re realizing you’re powerless. But, as I’m learning, that may not be so bad.
And, above all, maybe there are even some gifts in the mist, if we can possibly imagine. Some days I’m not so convinced. And then other days, I see how my ideating brain is one of the things I like best about myself, and I begin to believe that perhaps the “third way” isn’t either solving my anxious mind or be swallowed whole by my anxious mind. Maybe the third way is learning to see it as a strange kind of gift and to ask God how I might celebrate and maximize this gift instead of shut it down.
Anything you’d like to add? Anything that really resonated with you from chapter 8 or this post?
Here’s to darker nails and stronger coffee and the third way and googling for help.
Love and more love,
Leeana
P. S. If you’ve missed any of the previous chapter discussions, here are the links:
