I am not feeling a lot of faith and trust this morning. I awoke at 5 this morning, worrying if I should take the bird in the hand, or the better one in the bush. There is a house available that is ok. It could be cute, with a good clean and a paint job. It’s more space than we need, and right at the top of our budget. It’s a little old, single-pane windows, and darkish. The house in the bush is not yet confirmed as within my budget, and is not available until two months after our move-out date; however it’s much nicer, new windows and a renovated kitchen. I prefer it.
So I am anxious all night, then the where will we live anxiety morphs into how will I get money. And how will I ever afford all this? And then my brain goes so far as to remind me that it wasn’t actually terrible living with the ex. But then I remember, yes it was – I felt trapped, occasionally entertained thoughts of suicide, and wished for him not to be in my home. I even hoped he would die so that I would be free and wealthy (his life insurance).
Even when I talk myself down, I am stressed. I can feel my gut constrict, and I want to not feel this way. I want to distract myself through one method or another – busy-ness, exercise, food, tv, drugs (alcohol, caffeine, sugar), or sleep; in short anything to take my mind off.
So now I have my initial stress, compounded by the stress resulting from fighting my stress. I think that I shouldn’t be feeling this way. Fighting the way I feel is just another layer of anxiety.
And why shouldn’t I be anxious? Why wouldn’t I feel stress right now? Sure, my inner spirit has eternal knowledge, faith and trust, but my lesser me; the pedestrian part of my soul that was schooled here on earth and believes all that negative nonsense – that part of my brain thinks the unknown is scary, that change is dangerous, and that this must be a negative experience.
It’s perfectly natural for me to be stressed. Sure, it’s also a sign that I am not completely highly evolved, but there it is. I am stressed.
Fighting that stress is ridiculous – now I am stressed and not allowing myself to be that way. I am not only experiencing the emotions and reactions fairly typical of this event; now I’m making myself wrong for feeling them. So I’m doubling the stress, where there needn’t be any.
It’s a bit of a trick, managing negative emotions that I know I don’t need to experience. I must at once accept that I feel this way, while reminding myself that it needn’t be this way. I have to parent myself, just like when one of my kids is upset. In those situations, I have no right to tell them not to feel a certain way. I won’t invalidate their emotions; instead I comfort them, listen to them, help them place the event in perspective, and then allow them to feel whatever they are feeling. Telling them they are wrong for being upset is not useful.
I need to do the same with myself – comfort myself, tell myself it’s perfectly natural to feel this way, remind myself that all this will pass, and that Life always comes through, often in surprising ways.
