My Journey with Anxiety: Settling (Part 5)

Looking back, anxiety was like living with my fists clenched and up, ready to fight. Now I am learning to lower my fists and figure out where I am going to settle. I am relearning where I need to stand firm and be stubborn and where I need to let go. I have always been strong-willed and I don’t see that changing. But I think that my reasons for being strong-willed have changed from those of fear and anxiety to those of integrity and intentional relationships.

Settling may seem like the easy part. Maybe for some people it is the easy part, but for me it doesn’t feel like there is a part of this journey that lacks complexity and difficulty.

I think that settling has been one of the most disorienting experiences of this process. It feels like you’re figuring out everything for the first time. It feels like nothing is solid and every thought and emotion you have requires questioning. 

The thing with lowering your fists is that you have to learn a new normal. How do I make sure I don’t swing too far the other way? I think that when you’re used to living in a state of extremes (which I was), it can be easy to swing the other way to opposite extremes. What requires real patience is taking the time to wade into every moment ready to sort out the truth from the lies and give yourself grace to make mistakes and learn from them.

I hate to break it to you, but you will fall backwards. You will fail. You will get sucked back into anxious patterns. I have experienced this many times and each time I have to work to pull myself out. When something has been your normal for so long, it’s easy to fall back into it. It can feel comfortable and safe. It is a part of growth to fall backwards. Growth is not a steady line upwards. It has ups and downs (sometimes multiple a day). The turbulence can shake you up, but remember that you are growing. Eventually the turbulence will smooth out, your resilience will grow, and things will get better. Then life will throw something new at you and you’ll start all over.

Whether you fall backwards or are just struggling to find new normals, I hope you remember to give yourself grace. Give yourself grace when you fail yourself. Give yourself grace when you don’t measure up to your own standards or the standards that other people put onto you. Give yourself grace to take the time to figure out new normals. It’s not realistic to figure it all out overnight or even in a few weeks. You are allowed to sit in the struggle for a while; in fact, it's probably better to sit there for a while.

Hebrews 4:16 

Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

You may have noticed that a theme in every single part of this series is grace. That is because grace is needed every day. Grace is needed in every moment. It is always applicable. It’s a good place to start or restart. I hope you learn to give yourself grace because it’s already been given to you; it’s just up to you if you want to accept it.

There is one person who will always love you exactly where you are (even if you don’t know where that is). There is one who sees you for everything you were created to be and nothing less. He sees your hurt, pain, and insecurities, and still calls you loved. When you feel like you’ve let go of so much, you can feel empty at times. I encourage you to let Him remind you of who you are. If we are able to start seeing ourselves from the eyes of the one who loves us so perfectly, we can start to rebuild on truth.

Zephaniah 3:17

The Lord your God is in your midst,

    a mighty one who will save;

he will rejoice over you with gladness;

    he will quiet you by his love;

he will exult over you with loud singing.

It is in the intimacy and the proximity that changes the game. When you are in tune with the one who knit together your heart, you start to learn to step into who you were created to be. All of the extra baggage that we hold on to, hoping it will provide some sort of security, only holds us back from knowing Him more. We have a choice daily (sometimes hourly) - to choose the one who knows and loves us better than anyone, or to choose the things that make us feel safe. 

Holding onto control and anxiety were my normal for so long. The journey from that normal to the new normal that I am still settling into has been beautiful, terrifying, freeing, dizzying, heartbreaking, backbreaking, exhausting, and uncomfortable. I’m starting to look up and see the life I am building for myself. It’s been so good to look up, see it as mine and be proud - not because it’s all figured out, but because I am so much farther than I could have thought possible. And the journey has just begun.

My Journey with Anxiety: Meeting new people (PART 4)

You may or may not know this, but I moved out for the first time a little over three months ago. I moved to a new city and basically had to completely restructure my life. A new church, new friends, new roommates, new job, new rhythms, new city. Half of those I am still working on; the others kind of got thrown at me and thankfully have stuck well. I experienced a lot of growth just before and when I moved. Moving honestly felt so right because everything else in my life felt like it was changing, so why not just add a few more changes to the mix? *silently cries because change is hard* 

It has been mostly good and the growth that I have seen in myself since moving here has been very fruitful and pretty beautiful to watch. However; there’s something weird  that I’ve noticed. As I meet new people and grow in relationships with people, it often hits me that they will never know who I used to be. All that they see is who I am now. They get small glimpses into who I was when I have hard moments, but for the most part, they are getting to know someone who basically didn’t exist a year ago and definitely didn’t exist two years ago. But what’s crazy is that that’s their normal. The person I am now is their normal. I think that’s pretty cool. 

Oftentimes when you grow and go through a lot of change, it can be super hard to try and explain yourself to the people who have always known you or known you for a long time. It’s already challenging to navigate yourself through periods of growth and figure out who you’re  becoming and how that affects your choices,but when you also have to help your community navigate that, it can be overwhelming. It can make you question your growth. It can make you fall backwards into old habits because they make other people more comfortable or make you more comfortable. 

It was when I moved out that I really started to see the change that had occurred in me. I saw it in the types of relationships I had with people. Some relationships were not as black and white as they might have been before. I mostly saw it in the types of people I let in. I stopped letting in people  who drained me and surrounded myself with people who spoke life into me and reminded me of the value I hold as a child of God. I got to choose who I let in and I saw myself choosing people who were emotionally healthy and who were good for me. I saw myself love people well and learn to be loved well. I saw myself stop trying to prove that I was worthy of being loved and start to settle into who I was created to be.

I think that change was already occurring before I moved out. But when I moved out, God began to show me how much. He put so many specific people into my life to show me. They know who they are and they know how incredibly grateful I am for them. 

As you go through change and growth, I want you to know that it’s okay to let people go and let new people in. And let me be very clear. I am not bitter at all to the places and people that I let go of. I love them all dearly and know that God used them for where I was. I had to learn to keep any bitterness in check pretty quickly. When things become uncomfortable, it’s easy to push people away and use your bitterness towards them for not seeing you as a reason to push them away. I encourage you  not to let that happen. Let the peace of God help you to see them as God sees them - with unconditional love and grace. I also don’t think that everyone has to be pushed out of your life indefinitely. It’s okay - healthy even - to go through seasons of being apart. Its okay to say that you need space from a relationship in order to figure out how to be in that relationship well and love someone well.

I don’t know what it looks like for you to let go of people and let new people in. But I do know that no matter the situation, it’s really important to do it well and to do it with grace.  

I also want to mention that there will be some absolutely wonderful people who will stick with you and love you so well through your change and into your next season. They absolutely exist and are worth holding onto. You’ll know who they are because they’ll hold as tightly to you as you do to them. They’ll love you well and they’ll embrace you for everything that you are, whether it’s before, during, or after change. They are a gift from God and should be cherished. 

Something that I tend to mention a lot: give yourself grace. Give yourself grace for when you are learning to let people go and let new people in. It is hard. Part of me wanted to cling to every single person and place that I loved when I left because it was comfortable. But God called me here to Hamilton and eventually I had to realize that those relationships needed to be let go of, if only for a short while. I want to dive head first into Hamilton and everything that God has for me here, but I can’t do that if I’m holding tight to Niagara. 

I also want to mention that it’s okay to take notice of how much you have changed and be proud of it. You don’t have to be so hard on yourself and look at how much you still have to grow. Realize that you have worked hard to get where you are and don’t let shame tell you otherwise. Take a moment and take it all in. Take in the abundance because it is here and more is yet to come.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

There is a time for everything,

and a season for every activity under the heavens

a time to be born and a time to die,

a time to plant and a time to uproot

a time to kill and a time to heal,

a time to tear down and a time to build,

a time to weep and a time to laugh,

a time to mourn and a time to dance,

 a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,

 a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,

 a time to search and a time to give up,

 a time to keep and a time to throw away,

 a time to tear and a time to mend,

 a time to be silent and a time to speak,

 a time to love and a time to hate,

 a time for war and a time for peace.

My Journey with Anxiety: What if I don't like myself without anxiety? (PART 3)

Photo by Michelle Sypkes

Unpopular opinion: My life felt way more put together when I was anxious all the time. 

Anxiety affects people differently (probably because we are all different people). For me, anxiety kept me performing at a staggeringly high level and pace. My environment and the world around me valued accomplishment and doing everything, and doing it well. I'm not saying that value was a bad thing. I am saying that I had no context of how to give myself grace. Every time I wouldn’t meet my impossibly high standards, I would consider myself a failure. And it was so hard to shake. 

It felt like when you take off a sticker and there is still residue left behind. That residue of the sticker seems impossible to get rid of. No matter how many times you try to scratch it off, there always seems to be a little bit left. You have to end up getting a cleaner to get rid of a silly little sticker spot. In the same way, it would take me so long to shake the feeling of not being enough. It could be one tiny little moment, but because I was constantly battling with inadequacy, little moments turned into huge cleaning jobs. Therefore, being in an environment that valued accomplishment, I worked really hard not to “fail”.

When I started to work through and let go of some of my anxious habits and tendencies, I began to “fail” more. That was hard. I knew that I needed freedom, but I honestly did not like who I was becoming. I felt lazy, pathetic, and inadequate. It took a long time to get to a point where I started to see the benefits of letting go of anxiety (I still am). Anxiety made me feel driven and like a go getter. But the thing is that when those things are being spurred on my anxiety, it’s not sustainable. 

When I started to let go of anxiety, I also went through a season of feeling so lost. I didn’t realize how much I had let anxiety make my decisions until big parts of anxiety had left. I had no clue how to make decisions. I didn’t even know where to start. I had to refigure out what I valued and who I wanted to be. It is really confusing when you let go of something and expect to find blissful freedom and instead end up with more questions and feeling more lost than you were before. 

Like I said in the last post, sometimes that is just a part of growth. Growth is uncomfortable. I wish that I could say that when you grow, every moment feels so life giving and that transformation feels like a picturesque moment that you have been waiting for. And those moments do happen, but more often than not, it is uncomfortable and disorienting and sometimes feels like you have made a huge mistake. 

I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.

John 16:33

I am starting to get my footing now, but I still have MANY moments of questioning who I am and who I am becoming. I often wonder if I even like who I am becoming. As I write this, I am having one of those days. A day where I look up at my life and see how much I don’t have figured out and feel like a complete mess. But that’s when you turn to great friends who remind you that you are awesome and loved. Not just awesome and loved by people but also by God. 

One year ago, I was nannying and experienced a love that I still have a hard time putting into words. God put me into the life of a little girl who taught me how to love without holding back. The person I became in that house as I spent hours laughing with her and holding her felt like the best version of me. It was in that house that I saw a version of myself without anxiety and saw beauty in myself at the same time. I saw beauty in the way that I loved her, not for everything that I could do. The love that I had for her was not from me. I felt like a vessel. I felt like God’s love for her poured into me and out of me. It also felt like I had no control over that love. Normally the feeling of being out of control would scare me, but that was a space where I felt totally at peace. I was in exactly the right place at the right time. 

Then she left. I fell apart. I thought I would never be okay again. I missed who I was when I was with her. I thought that I had lost not only her, but myself as well. But God is restoring me, slowly but surely. I have started to see glimpses of the love I had for her in the way I love others. I am slowly but surely reuniting with unabashed joy. 

In my moments of questioning who I am and who I am becoming, I remember her. I remember the love I had for her and the person I was while I loved her. I remember the words of a good friend who told me that part of me was not lost forever and it would come back to me. In my moments of questioning if I even like who I am without anxiety, I remember that I can’t see the whole picture but I can choose to focus on God’s abundance. Because His abundance is something that I have seen and experienced and could never pretend otherwise. His abundance came in the form of a sweet little girl and His abundance also exists outside of her. 

If you have been afraid to let go of something because of the fear of who you will be without it, I know how that feels. But I also now know how it feels when you let that go and I think it’s worth it. If you are currently learning to let go but struggling, give yourself grace and centre yourself on the abundance that God has for you. It may not look like what you expect (in fact, it probably won’t), but it will be worth it. 

This question of  “What if I don’t like who I am without anxiety?” hit me pretty hard a couple of months ago. I feel like when people share about anxiety or different hurdles that they’ve overcome, they only talk about who they were before and then skip right to when they were walking in complete or partial freedom. Not many talk about the in-between stage where everything feels awkward, out of place and confusing. I’m talking about it because you need to know that it’s okay to go through that. It’s healthy and normal, and it’s a space where God still exists, even if Christians don’t always talk about it. When we choose to sit in a space of emptiness and confusion, that’s where we can let God in to fill us up again. Don’t let the discomfort overcome you. Let Him in.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.

Hebrews 12:1

My Journey with Anxiety: What if the journey never ends? (PART 2)

They say that anxiety is exhausting. I have definitely seen and felt that. Being on edge at all times is exhausting. Our bodies were not made to be in fight or flight at all times. But as tiring as anxiety can be, I think something that people don’t tell you is that healing is exhausting. Working on yourself intentionally is tiring. Taking the time to wade deep into every deep hurt and fear and sort out the truth from the lies is tiring. 

When we start to heal, we often have to re-experience hurt and fears all over again - sometimes over and over again as we sort it out and learn to move forward. That is no joke. It is difficult and exhausting. It also takes time. You can’t rush through healing. You also can’t decide when you are done healing; you just have to let the process happen to you. And on top of it all, while you let the process happen to you, it can feel like every messy part of you is on display in front of your eyes. It is isolating and can feel like you’ll get swallowed up by the mess. It can feel like all you are is the mess. Sometimes I wonder if it will ever end or if I’ll ever be able to just rest in freedom.

I read this in my journal the other day: “This phase of life has been like opening a can of worms and not realizing how messy it would be.” I wrote that in February of 2018. Over a year and a half ago, and I still feel that way. 

Don’t get me wrong. I have grown and had so many breakthroughs since then. But that is the other part of healing. One breakthrough is not the end. Finding little bits of freedom is only the beginning. Each breakthrough seems to bring me to a new hurdle. It can make you question if the breakthrough was even real. Or at least, I question it. 

Here’s a tip as you go through your journey of healing: appreciate every little victory and every little peek into freedom. Hold it close. Write it down. Read it when things get hard again. Remember that for every painful moment that you experience, you are one step closer to freedom.

There is so much importance in growth and being intentional in digging into the difficult and hurtful parts of life. That is where I have seen God’s love and grace the most. To me, it’s a clear sign that that’s where we need to be. Wherever God is working is where I want to be. It is an incredible thing to be able to look back on the person you used to be and see how God has shaped you into the person you are becoming. For me, it started with small steps of faith... “God, whatever you have to do to make me into the leader that you want me to be, do it”; “I don’t want to feel this way anymore”; “Be the healer of my heart because I can’t do it.”

fear not, for I am with you;

    be not dismayed, for I am your God;

I will strengthen you, I will help you,

    I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

Isaiah 41:10

A question I have asked myself is this: What if struggling is my new normal? What if I never see full freedom? The hard thing is that I don’t know. I can’t tell you that I’ll ever fully work through all the mess. I can’t tell you that you will, either. All I know is that I would rather be struggling and growing if it means that I see God’s heart more and more each day. That is where transformation happens. It makes the struggle so worth it. It doesn’t always feel that way. But as I look back at who I was before I started this journey, I see a person who I don’t recognize anymore. I love who I am becoming as I let God’s grace and love transform me. 

Rend your heart

and not your garments.

Return to the Lord your God,

for he is gracious and compassionate,

slow to anger and abounding in love,

and he relents from sending calamity.

Joel 2:13 

I have found that as the journey stretches out, I can be really hard on myself. I can put the pressure of healing onto me. Like if I just wanted it bad enough or if I just tried harder, then I would have full healing already. I’ve had to come to terms may times with learning to just sit in the journey in every ebb and flow and be content that that’s just where I am. Because even when things are hard and painful, God is still good. Just because our circumstances suck doesn’t mean that God does. When the journey is long, it’s not because of an inadequacy in you. It is long because things take time to grow. When a plant grows, the seed has to be broken first. If you didn’t know better, it looks like death. It looks like something is going seriously wrong. 

In the same way, when we grow, it can look messy, broken and wrong, but in reality, it’s just a part of growth. Instead of being hard on myself for not growing faster, being stronger, or being less messy, I choose grace. I choose to embrace healing for everything that it is. Will you?

Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

Romans 5: 3-5

My Journey with Anxiety: Abundance and Freedom (PART 1)

“The Lord our God spoke to us at Horeb, saying, ‘You have stayed long enough on this mountain.” - Deuteronomy 1:6

This was the verse that made me start to believe that I could one day let go of the anxiety that I held so dear. For so long, anxiety felt like the one thing that kept me safe. It was my way of feeling in control. It felt stable even if I wasn’t. It felt like something I could lean on and use as an excuse. I used it as a reason to push people away. I used it as an excuse not to take risks or opportunities even if they were meant for me. I also used it as a reason to stay where I shouldn’t have.

Anxiety has been a part of my story for a long time. But I am excited to say that is becoming less and less prevalent every day. It doesn’t have a hold on me as often. Freedom and abundance are within reach. I can feel it.

DISCLAIMER:

**IF YOU ARE STRUGGLING WITH ANXIETY, DO NOT TAKE THIS MOMENT AS ONE OF SHAME. IT IS NOT. I still struggle and I am only speaking from my perspective on my journey through anxiety. My perspectives are unique to my story and therefore are not going to be applicable to everyone or even most people. I hope you know that your story is unique to you and is also one worth sharing.  If you find something about my story helpful, great. If none of this applies to you, that is okay, too. We all have different experiences and things to teach others and things to learn from others. If you would like someone to talk to about your journey with anxiety, mental health, etc., I would love to be a listening ear for your beautiful and unique story.**

It was around two  years ago that I heard Deuteronomy 1:6 for the first time. I was reading Joyce Meyer’s “Battlefield of the Mind” and she talked about this verse. She explained that the context of the verse was that God was calling the Israelites off Mount Horeb because it was better for them elsewhere. They were comfortable on that mountain. It wasn’t the best but they had been through so much trauma that it finally felt like a stable place to be. In the same way, God can call us out of certain things so that we can live the life that we are called to: one of abundance.  That hit me hard. That was a moment for me that I started to see that abundance and freedom could be a part of my life one day.

Something that I have really realized in my life is that when God calls you into a new season, space, or calling, it doesn’t mean that it will be all butterflies and rainbows. In fact, there may be very few of those. One of those first difficulties that I encountered on my journey was other people’s opinions. I was told by so many people that I could just pray and be healed. IT CAN BE SO EASY TO BE UPSET AND HURT BY THOSE WORDS. HOWEVER, we always have a choice  regarding how we react. We can always choose to see the best in people instead of taking every comment as a personal attack on who we are. With that in mind, here are the conclusions that I came to: I don’t think they had bad intentions. I think they actually had beautiful intentions. They wanted healing for me so bad and they didn’t want me to have to wrestle with things that I didn’t need to. When you see people hurting, I think it is very natural to want healing for them, and to pray for that is a beautiful thing. 

Even if instantaneous healing is not what they need. 

Even if instantaneous healing is not what God has for them.

Because here's the thing: healing, whether it’s the slow and agonizing kind or the fast and whirlwind kind, God wants abundance for us. It is God’s abundance that we need to be focused on because His abundance shows up. When we focus on His abundance, others' words don’t cut as deeply because we start to see that their heart is also focused on that abundance.

Nevertheless, I will bring health and healing to it; I will heal my people and will let them enjoy abundant peace and security." - Jeremiah 33:6

I knew in my gut that healing wouldn’t be a quick fix for me. I knew my heart and I knew God’s heart for me. I know that so much of God’s heart is in the slow moving and tiny changes. I appreciated every prayer for healing and relief. As hard as it was sometimes, it reminded me that God’s will was for me to eventually be healed and His heart was for an abundant life for me. But it is  in that slow and steady growth where my roots grow deep in God’s heart for me.

I think I learned more about God’s heart for me in the slow and painful growth than I would have if I had been healed in an instant. I learned to rely on God in so many ways because of the slow process. I”m still learning.

I also learned so much about loving other people well. I don’t think I will ever be able to fully vocalize my appreciation for the people who loved me so well where I was instead of where I could be... for the people who asked me questions about how they could support me while I was having a panic attack, or the people who continued to listen to me talk in circles about the same issues as I struggled to find my footing (special thanks goes to my counsellor Gina - because dang girl, did I ever talk in circles). I will be eternally grateful. You were the ones who taught me that I was worthy of grace. And you showed me how to extend it not only to others but also to myself.

In the slow and steady and painful and heart-aching growth and healing is where I found out that God is in it with you. He loves us deeply and will not leave you when you feel like you are being drowned by your hurt, anxiety, and fear. He wants freedom and abundance for you. That is the truth. But the freedom and abundance He has for you will not always look like it does for others. Do not believe the lies that if you only had enough faith, you would be healed completely. Healing does not always look like that. God is so much bigger than one moment of faith and there should be no shame in journeying through anxiety to find little bits of freedom along the way.

"Hear, LORD, and be merciful to me; LORD, be my help.’ You turned my wailing into dancing; you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy" - Psalm 30:10-11