Accepting Feeling Tired

It has been a year since I began seeing a therapist for depression and anxiety. A year of getting over hard things, moving forward and self-discovery.  The depression is gone. Anxiety is a bit of a different animal. Something I now realize I’ve lived with much longer than I care to acknowledge. But it also is much better.

I am still learning new things. The latest is the importance of recognizing when I am tired. What is it about saying, “I feel tired,” in our society? Even to ourselves?

The other day, after teaching children at VBS, I came home and did some more things. That evening I was physically and emotionally tired. But I still thought there were some business things I should take care of that night. Or something. Shouldn’t I always be doing or thinking about something?

But as I concentrated on the thoughts rolling around in my head, I realized I was ruminating and obsessing. Lots of “you should” and “you need to” thoughts were coming up. Along with “you never…”

I noticed a difference in how I felt. Not only was I tired, but now I was starting the spiral. You know, the spiral from feeling vulnerable (uncertain) to shame (you are not enough) to depression (why even try?).

Now, I know from experience what happens when I go down the spiral. Those thoughts would stay with me throughout the night and I would wake up the next morning with a huge helping of anxiety and depression.

This was the first time I connected being tired with going down the spiral. Being tired contributed to my run-away thoughts.

So I stopped.

• I accepted that I felt tired. Exhausted.
• I made the choice to stop my thoughts. Everything I was thinking about could wait until the morning when I wouldn’t be tired and could think more clearly.
• And I relaxed. I sat in silence watching the sunset, watched some tv with my husband, took a bath and went to bed.  And I didn’t think about anything.
• Most of all, I realized when I rest and relax when I am tired, I am treating myself with grace and compassion. 

Love Is Patient. Love Is Kind.

My bucket of faith, hope and love

Several months ago, Dr. Anna asked me to write my insecurities on a Styrofoam cup. I wrote about my fears, disconnection, perfectionism, feared judgement and unmet expectations. Then she had me poke holes in the cup to drain my insecurities.

It felt good to drain my insecurities. At the bottom I wrote, “Every last drop of insecurity drained.”

On the drive home I thought about what I wanted to fill my cup with. And the words, “Faith, hope and love” came to me.

Yes, that is what I want poured into my cup. I want to overflow with faith, hope and love.

I opened my Bible when I got home and turned to 1 Corinthians 13. You know, the Love Chapter. If you are like me, then you read it as an outward action. Love is patient (with others). Love is kind (to others)…

For some reason I read it differently on that day:

Love is patient. (I can be patient with myself. The same way I would be with a friend.)

Love is kind. (I can be kind to myself. I can speak kindly, the way I would with a friend.)

Love is not easily angered; it keeps no record of wrongs. (Whoa. I don’t have to be angry with myself or remind myself of what I’ve done or not done every day. My mistakes don’t have to play over and over in my mind.)

 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices in truth. (Depression lies. Satan lies. Anxiety lies. I rejoice in the truth. I seek the truth and dismiss the lies.)

Love always protects. (I protect the truth. I protect myself from lies.)

Love always trusts. (I trust myself and God.)

Love always hopes. (Through God, I see the best in me and always hope.)

Love always perseveres. (Don’t give up. Seek the truth and move forward. Stop living in the past.)

Love Never Fails.

I have lived a life believing the lies of perfectionism. Now, if you have seen my home or know me, you may laugh to think I struggle with being perfect. I fall on the other end of the spectrum. If I can’t do it perfectly, why do it at all? The All or Nothing Mentality.

Letting go of perfectionism is all about learning to be self-compassionate. Learning who I am. Trusting myself. Being willing to try and fail. Everything 1 Corinthians 13 says. 

No, it's not easy. In fact, my anxiety ratcheted right up this last month and I realized it was about perfectionism. That's when I bought the little pink bucket and wrote 1 Corinthians 13 on it. It helps to have a reminder around.

If you wonder about your level of self-compassion, you can take a test at http://selfcompassion.org/

If you can't love yourself, how can you love others openly and honestly?

When A Community Is Rocked By Suicide

Last Saturday, I sat in church for a service with many people from my community. None of us wanted to be there. We listened to Pastor Roger give a message around the question, “Why?” A question that will never be answered.

We all gathered together: the young man’s mother, father and stepmother. Aunts and Uncles. Cousins. Friends. Classmates. Parents of friends and classmates. Teachers. Bus drivers. Coaches. VBS teachers. Pastor. Church family.

Through tears, we watched a slideshow of pictures. Twenty-one years of life – a happy, smiling kid loving life. How do you leave out a photo when there will never be another?

After the service, we all hugged each other, bound together through grief and tears. As I hugged the young men and women from our community, I saw grief and unanswered questions in their eyes. The question, “Why,” weighs heavily.

But in the eyes of their parents, mixed with the grief, I saw fear.

Their question – “What if?”

The question and the fear are real. Made even larger in all of our minds because this is our tiny community’s fourth young adult to take his own life in the past 3 ½ years.

My first inclination is to fix our community. Fix all of the problems in the school, the churches, and the community organizations. Because, really, aren’t we all responsible for these young lives? Let’s point fingers and blame each other. Set up more programs. Fix it.

But then I thought of my own struggles with anxiety and depression. Pointing fingers and blaming others have done nothing to help me. Thinking I have any control to fix my community is futile.

The only person I have any control over is me. Not my husband, not my kids, not my extended family, not the people in the church, the school, or the community organizations. I only have control over me.

But my actions can change my community. I will engage with my community. I will build relationships. Connect with friends. Build trust. And hope.

I will live an authentic life. I will speak well of people. I will share my faith.

I will make the difficult phone call when someone is hurting. I will show up. Not to fix, but to love.

I will reach out to a trusted friend when I find myself sinking into depression or when anxiety hijacks my thoughts. I will name my emotions, try to understand them, and accept them instead of burying or numbing my emotions. I will seek counseling when I need more tools to move through depression and anxiety.

My hope in living an authentic and wholehearted life is to encourage both the young adults and the parents that there is hope. You are not alone. I struggle, but by being courageous, leaning on my faith in God, learning to know myself and gaining the tools I needed through seven months of counseling, I can live my life. Not someone else’s. My life.

My 3:00 a.m. Worry Time

3:00 a.m. – my worry time. I have learned 3:00 a.m. is also known as the “Witching Hour” or “Devil’s Time.” Hmm, sounds about right.

I awake from a deep sleep with anxiety. Sometimes a worry will pop into my mind without me even thinking it. If not, I will find one. Then I lie in bed and worry, like a dog with a bone.

Prayer seems like a good way to handle it. If I just pray about whatever I am worrying about, the worry will go away. Right?

Wrong. When I pray, I find I am just worrying over the problem in prayer. I don’t turn it over to God. I tell Him what He ought to do and how He ought to do it. Along with a deadline. Please, Lord?

When I am done praying, I don’t feel any differently than when I spent the time worrying.

My daughter recently moved across the country. I am happy and excited for her! But, I am a mom. And now I find my daughter on my mind when I wake at 3:00 a.m.

When I realized my prayers of worry and control were doing neither her nor me any good, I remembered some words a friend told me after a fearful time in my life.

In 1995, my husband, John, was accidently injured while working as a lineman for a rural electric company. A hot wire came in contact with the guy wire John was tying off on the ground. 7200 volts of electricity went through his body. The ER doctor met me at the door of the emergency room and told me they were monitoring his heart and kidneys for damage. John had a couple of bad burns on his fingers where the electricity entered his body. Thankfully, he recovered without any lasting damage. But I didn’t handle it so well.

I could no longer believe that God would protect my loved ones. I struggled when John returned to work. Would he walk through the door that night? I talked to my friend, Betty Johnson, about my anger towards God and my questions of why He didn’t protect John.

And I will never forget what Betty said: “Gayle, God never promised complete protection for your loved ones, but He does promise to be with you through whatever happens in life.”

God will be with me. He will never leave me alone.

Because of this, I can pray, “I trust you, Lord.”

This has become my go-to prayer when I begin to worry. I whisper the words, “I trust you, Lord” when I feel fearful. It is what I pray when I want to control a person or a situation.

I have learned that worry and fear are about control – ironically, the outcomes over which I usually have no control. How silly I am to think things should happen the way I think they should. Or that people should act the way I think they should.

Now when I wake up at 3:00 a.m. with worries, I have a routine:

Capture the thought. Rather than letting my thoughts go like a runaway train, I capture the thought, the worry. I make myself aware of it. Then I ask,

Is it rational or irrational? Once again, this is awareness. If I realize the thought is irrational (out of proportion, making something catastrophic or making leaps in logic); I stop it. I tell myself it is irrational and I will no longer think about it.

Do I have any control or not? If the thought is rational, I ask myself if I have any control over the situation or not. If yes, I can decide on one action to take during the day and leave it at that. If not, then I pray

“I trust you, Lord.” I trust that God, in His infinite wisdom, has a plan. I trust that He is in control. Not me. Him. And no matter what happens, I will still trust in God’s love, kindness, and mercy.

“We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” (2 Cor. 10:5)

P.S.  This routine also works during the day!

Judge Not Lest Ye Be Judged

Where I do some of  my best thinking - the drive home from therapy

After writing Reconnecting with Community two weeks ago, I prepared to post it to the blog. The cursor hovered over the “publish” button and I hesitated. The post was very personal. It could make some people in my community feel uncomfortable. I read it over again to be sure that I wrote authentically—without an agenda, without trying to control an outcome.

Yes, it reflected who I am and what I value. I hit “publish.”

Encouraging comments began to appear on Facebook and on the blog. The post had value to others. But, as the week went on, I began to feel uncertain about it. What do other people in my community think of me? What are they saying? “Did you read Gayle’s blog? Why would she write that? Why is she dragging up things in the past?” Or, “She sure is good at playing the victim.”

I recognized the feeling of uncertainty as vulnerability (thanks to Brené Brown’s books). I am learning that when I feel vulnerable, shame rushes in to fill the void.

When I saw my therapist last week, we spent time talking about my feelings and my vulnerability. Dr. Anna reminded me (as she often does) that other people’s thoughts and actions are beyond my control. She asked, “How do you know what they are thinking? Does it matter what they are saying? Does it change who you are?”

It was a really good session and made me think. But the Big Realization hit me on the drive home: What I think others are thinking and saying is what I would be thinking or saying if I was in their place.

Those are the things I think about others when I am feeling defensive and hurt. I would play the blame and shame game in my head or even say it to my friends and family. I would think they are playing the victim and it would make me feel angry.

Whoa! The “good girl” inside of me doesn’t want to think I can be mean, insensitive or flat-out judgmental. And, yet, I recognized my thoughts. My thoughts, not what other people are saying. My thoughts.

Then I realized it isn’t necessarily what other people have thought or said that makes me feel shame; it is what I think and say to myself that opens the trapdoor into the sea of shame.

In other words, I judge myself in the same manner as I judge other people.

In Matthew 7:1-2 Jesus said, “Do not judge, or you too will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”

I always took this to mean when Judgement Day comes, I’ll be judged in the manner I’ve judged others. But, it is mind-blowing to realize I judge myself with the same measure I judge others. And I can never measure up. How can I expect it of others?

It’s the same as “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:31). If I don’t love myself and treat myself with respect, lovingkindness and compassion, how can I love others?

I went back and read Chapter 6 in Rising Strong again. No surprise there. Brené Brown wrote that the people who didn’t think others were doing the best they could “judged their efforts in the same exacting manner that they judged the efforts of others.” She noticed these were the same group of people who struggled with perfectionism.

Today I showed Dr. Anna what I had written in this post to this point. I hadn’t finished it. I had a week full of revelations that I shared with her, which I’ll be sharing with you in the future.

Once again, my mind opened up more on the drive home and I had these thoughts:

           

• It is easier to judge and avoid connection than to connect and work through conflict.   
• Avoiding Connection = Avoiding Conflict
•  The opposite of judgement is acceptance.

I’ve got more wrestling or “rumbling” (Brené Brown’s word) to do…

Who I Am

Who I Am

I am darkness and light.

I am perfect and imperfect.

I am shy and outgoing.

I am music and silence.

I am joy and sadness.

I am saved. And I am a sinner.

I am weak and strong.

I am courage and fear.

I am love and hatred.

I am judgment and grace.

I am selfless and selfish.

I am human.

And when I acknowledge, embrace and integrate all that I am,

Instead of denying, hiding, covering, or running,

I am me. All of me.

(copyright 2015 Gayle Gresham)

Reconnecting With Community

Cape Canaveral Beach, Florida where I spent last weekend with my daughter

Some situations in our community the past couple of years left me and my family feeling singled out, rejected, and talked about. In one word – ostracized.

After these situations, I ventured out to the Christmas Bazaar last fall with my daughter, daughter-in-law and grandbaby, feeling vulnerable, but trying to be brave. Most people were friendly and spoke to me. One woman wouldn’t say “hi” back to me when I said hello. But the woman beside her came around the table, hugged me and made a fuss over my grandbaby. Thank you, again, for your kindness. One lady turned away from my girls when she saw them. This broke my heart when they told me about it.

Whether the ostracism was real or perceived, the result was the same. I withdrew. My family withdrew.

We withdrew from the community where John was born and raised and where our children were born and raised; the place where we have lived 28 out of the 30 years of marriage; and where we have been involved over the years in the school, library, 4-H, fire department, and church.

I am writing this, not for you to feel sorry for me. I am writing because I know I am not alone. If there is one thing I know about my community and your community, it is that there are many wounded hearts, people who have been shunned or who feel ostracized from their community.

 

It isn’t something we like to think about.

It’s easier to explain away why someone doesn’t fit into our community. Sins become scarlet letters, which makes it OK to talk about someone and tell everyone else what they’ve done. We label people because it is easier to label someone than work to get to know them for who they are. Personal lives are treated like the soap opera on television, “Did you hear about so-and-so? Can you believe it?”

Is it any wonder so many of us hide out and stay away from community?

Or, we flat out have a feud. We try to control what others think. We draw people to our side by telling them how bad those other people are. We have a verbal shoot-out in a public meeting.

The result? Either we have power and do everything we can to keep control. Or we withdraw. Nobody likes me, everybody hates me, guess I’ll go eat worms.

Well, I’m tired of eating worms. Worms infiltrate your system with hatred, bitterness, loneliness and rejection.

Last week, I stepped out and returned to the Book Club at the library. It had been over a year since I had attended a meeting. The women welcomed me back with hugs and smiles. And graciously forgave me when I spent much of the meeting talking with the new branch manager of the library.

It felt good to be with a group of community members and to be accepted as I am – broken, hurt, vulnerable, but striving to be brave and courageous.

Last week I read Brené Brown’s latest book, Rising Strong. Her words define what I am feeling and inspire me to keep muddling through and finding the ability to rise strong. But Chapter Six, “Sewer Rats and Scofflaws” stunned me. In this chapter Brené shares a situation with another person in which she felt very uncomfortable. Her therapist asks, “What if that woman was doing the best she could that weekend?” Brené struggled with this idea.

Brené asked her husband, “Do you think, in general, that people are doing the best that they can?”

He answered after much thought, “I don’t know. I really don’t. All I know is that my life is better when I assume that people are doing their best. It keeps me out of judgment and lets me focus on what is, and not what should or could be.”

Read his response again. “My life is better when…”

How will our lives change when we assume people are doing their best? What will happen if we stop judging and accept people for who they are at that moment? How do we focus on what is instead of what should be or could be?

Looking back at my experience at the Christmas Bazaar, I know the pain of rejection was real. I experienced it and I felt it. The rejection devastated me. My thoughts ran with what should be or could be. She should have said hi to me. She could have stepped forward and spoken to my girls. She should have fussed over my grandbaby.

But what if each lady was doing the best she could at that moment? It doesn’t make the rejection any easier, but it makes my judgment a little less. If I can accept those moments for what they were without dwelling on what they should have been, then I can let go of the pain and anger I’ve held for a year.

I am doing the best I can.