Tonight I have been thinking about how fear can affect us. Fear can stop us in our tracks and prevent us from moving. I found these quotes about fear interesting.
Category: anxiety
Don’t give up
Life is an amazing journey. I my lifetime I have married, raised children, sent them out of the nest, welcomed grandchildren and now great-grandchildren. I have worked several jobs, had a great career and ended doing the one thing that married my vocation with my greatest passion.
I have lived but I (God willing) have years in me left to pursue other goals. Those of you who have been reading my blog know that one of my goals is to share experiences, offer solace and kindness, information, and ideas that I have gained over the years.
I have also made strides in controlling my tendency to worry myself into anxiety. I continue to grow each day and owe much thanks to the others who deal with this issue and have offered support and suggestions for conquering it.
In the scheme of things it is probably that something fought with over a lifetime will not disappear entirely but learned skills do help in catching escalation to the “tipping point.”
The trick is to keep trying things and find what works for you. Each of us will have different things that help. Just keep trying. There is something out there that will be the thing that helps you turn the corner. Our mental health issues can, many time, be lessened or averted with the right tools.
Never give up. Just keep on trying. Also don’t think you are alone. There are many of us and we truly understand.
Life is fragile…accidents happen
Our 2019 ended….badly. Our 21 year old granddaughter was in a serious auto accident and ended up in surgery. She was very blessed that when the surgeons went in the only thing damaged was her spleen. Her spleen was removed and she is recovering. She does have a bruised lung which makes breathing painful. It will be a few days in the hospital barring any infection or other problem.
This was early in the day and was not alcohol related with either driver.
Life is so fragile. One moment everything is fine and the next it can be taken away at the snap of a finger. It truly reminds me to treasure each and every day. Even when things are not perfect it is still life!
If only we could live so that we don’t let our minds move us into places we don’t need to go. The worries and anxieties can remove all the joy and we spend each day struggling.
Just to live each day in thanksgiving and peace. That is really the driving force behind worry less journey. To worry less and experience joy and peace more.
May each of you have a blessed new year!
De-stress
It has been difficult to find time to write in the last few days. We have some family here from out of town and finding time alone is not easy. I miss it but I am also enjoying my family. This has been a good holiday but I will be glad to get back to normal.
One of the things that can be hard is to not be in a normal routine. It throws us off and makes it harder to relax. I will work through it in order to enjoy the time that we have together.
The holiday season can be stressful for most of us. It is easy to obsess over shopping and wrapping and cooking until we are worn to a frazzle. In the new year it is time to check how you are feeling and take some extra time to de-stress. The time after holidays can also be a let down. When we were living at West Point the cadets called it “gloom period.” If you live where the trees have all lost their leaves everything looks gray. It can make your life feel gray.
Find something to brighten your life. Go out to lunch or dinner. Treat yourself to a bubble bath or eat your favorite food. It will help you slide into the new year ready to embrace it.
Preparing for surgery with new focus
The events of the last few weeks have been stressful but organized. I am to have surgery on Friday to remove the other half of my thyroid. It is pressing on my trachea. The Dr. visits and pre-surgery were especially good with pleasant, wonderful, caring people and greatly efficient. The whole process has gone exceedingly smooth. It was moved from Tuesday Dec. 3 to this Friday as the Dr. decided to work that day. Now just to get it done and headed back to my ??normal?? self. The surgery itself it not difficult we just don’t want to find any unexpected problems.
As part of my journey I have worked hard on finding new ways to reduce anxiety in my life and some of it is paying off. My consistency with prayer, meditation and focus on each day has really improved. That doesn’t mean that there haven’t been moments but nothing like before I started this journey.
Consistency and a determination to live more fully and joyfully are making a difference. I may succeed in conquering it before I shuffle off the planet. The lesson learned it that no matter how many times spent backsliding getting up and going on it what matters. Each day is progress….maybe not so visible but it is there.
If you pray keep me in your prayers and if not send good thoughts my way.
A government by the people???
A nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.
People who lived during the Kennedy days know that he was not perfect. We do, however, know how intelligent he was. I don’t think anyone can be a perfect president. It’s not possible.
Today I am distressed and anxious about out government. It is impossible to know what to believe. News is no longer news but opinion. We can’t count on what we hear or read to be the truth. There is so little actual work being done. Time is only spent trying to destroy each other. This is not how our congress is supposed to be.
I find the quote by Kennedy to reflect where we are now. I’m not sure that it the whole nation that is afraid of its people but those in charge. The people are seen as uneducated, unprincipled, undisciplined and unable to think clearly. Those in power see themselves as the only ones who can determine the future path of our nation. They have no desire to follow the pleas of the people begging for changes to set the government in order. What do we do to make them hear and understand?
Live each day
Fear drains us. It takes away our ability to think straight and we struggle in the depths. I have always loved the quote “we have nothing to fear but fear itself.” That is so true. There are times when being afraid is logical….when in danger it is appropriate. The fear that tears us apart is the fear of things we don’t know. Many people are afraid to go to the doctor because something may be found wrong. Illogical. It is crossing bridges before we get to them.
I have done this kind of nonsense most of my life. I can picture all the horrible scenarios and play them out in my mind. Then nothing happens and all that time was wasted in worry and fear.
Somehow we need to lean to live each day as it comes. Not an easy task but one worth pursuing. The day we are in is the only one we have. Savor every moment. I have a friend who has been living with a disease that should have killed her years ago. He life is a struggle. Each day a challenge. Yet she lives each day to its very limit and doesn’t think about dying tomorrow. This is surely how to live!
Always something new
Today I find myself leaning on my faith. I have some medical issues which may resolve…or not. Time will tell. This news did not send me into a panic…at least not yet. I have high hopes that this will be an easy fix and life will go on pretty much as normal.
In the meantime I will continue my routines and keep my anxiety at bay. I am grateful that I have some tools that I have made a habit and can actually count on them to help.
Life is always interesting and challenges us in many ways but it is worth cherishing. Keep me in your thought and prayers as I travel into this joourney.
Mystery is allowed
We are surrounded by mystery. Though hard for us to accept we don’t have control over many things. We would like to be in control. We yearn to be in control but ultimately we are not.
We prefer to make decisions trusting that they will happen as we planned. We make judgments about right and wrong, about people, about events. We can make quick certain and smug judgments. We are so sure that our way is the right way. We are sure that life will follow the path we have set. We are so wrong.
This inability to accept our powerlessness can make us blind and unwilling to see the truth. We can say “don’t bother me with the truth, I want to be in control.” We see ourselves as all knowing. We cover our heads and stick with own ideas. This action leads to a lack of willingness to see any other way. It makes us unable to have compassion for others and their thoughts and ideas.
We choose not to see our own biases, imperfections and wrongness. We do not look deep inside ourselves to find the “shadow self” who hides there.
There is so much that we do not know or understand. Pat answers lead us nowhere. We have to see the world as it is in all its mystery. We have to be willing to step out into the unknown. We have to face doubt and fear and understand that they are part of life.
We must learn to accept the ambiguous and the anxiety it can cause. To not know the answers is understandable in the world we inhabit. I don’t think we will ever have all the answers and the truth is we don’t have to know.
Burned books
Recently a college near us ran into some controversy. A novelist came to read a selection from her recent book and students protested and burned copies of the book.
The book is:
The novel, Make Your Home Among Strangers, is by Jennine Capó Crucet, an English professor at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, who came to the Statesboro, Ga., campus last Wednesday to read “Imagine Me Here, or How I Became a Professor,” an essay included in the novel, according to a statement from Crucet.
Make Your Home Among Strangers was selected among a list of recommended readings for freshmen as part of Georgia Southern’s first-year experience program. It is the story of a first-generation American born to Cuban immigrant parents who is accepted into an elite university and is rejected by her family as well as the white students at the college.
Students were offended by some of her statements about white privilege and staged the protest. The school responded with statements.
Vice President for Strategic Communications and Marketing John Lester wrote in an email. Book burning does not align with Georgia Southern’s values, Lester told USA Today. But the university does uphold students’ rights to assert their freedom of expression, he said.
I cannot disagree with the students right to protest. However, I was a young child about 5 years old at the end of WWII. I am sure I didn’t remember much then but as I grew older and understood Hitler’s policies I was appalled by the burning of books. The episode at the school triggered memories of burning books and banning books. This, for me, is a reminder of where things are headed when we are told what we can and cannot read.
These students were not around when books were burned to remove freedoms. They don’t have experience of thoughts being limited and controlled. I know that was not their intention but I am always anxious when I hear about books being burned.
