I tend to withdraw when I have a feeling I can’t seem to figure out. But I’m learning…
Those deep feelings we often sweep under the rug or minimize can be messengers trying to tell us something of what’s happening within. I came across this old song by the children’s TV personality Fred Rogers who said, “Feelings are mentionable and manageable.”
I thought it had some good reminders for us adults as well. 🙂
What do you do with the mad that you feel
When you feel so mad you could bite?
When the whole wide world seems oh, so wrong…
And nothing you do seems very right?
What do you do? Do you punch a bag?
Do you pound some clay or some dough?
Do you round up friends for a game of tag?
Or see how fast you go?
It’s great to be able to stop
When you’ve planned a thing that’s wrong,
And be able to do something else instead
And think this song:
I can stop when I want to
Can stop when I wish.
I can stop, stop, stop any time.
And what a good feeling to feel like this
And know that the feeling is really mine.
Know that there’s something deep inside
That helps us become what we can.
For a girl can be someday a woman
And a boy can be someday a man.
But when our feelings move to anxiety because “We’re a tangled web of hardwiring and history, wounds and praises, thoughts, emotions, gut instincts, perceptions and knowledge, blind spots and brilliance,” (Marilyn Vancil) we may need to unearth what’s underneath those feelings and anxieties. The “stop” then needs to take on a more serious measure.
I’m a proponent of meditation which can be a form this stopping mentioned in the song above. As Archibald Hart says of Christian meditation in The Anxiety Cure:
“…deep breathing alone would prevent half of the visits to emergency rooms for panic attacks. Slow, deep breathing floods the body with needed oxygen and reduces stress hormones such as cortisol. Imagine a gazelle being chased by a cheetah. Does the gazelle run with long, slow, intentional breaths or does it panic with rapid, shallow, high alert breaths? Meditation and deep breathing is the opposite reaction of stress. Keep in mind that this sort of meditation is a far cry from the type of Eastern meditation in Hinduism and Buddhism. Whereas they have the goal of emptying the mind, the goal of Christian meditation is to fill your mind with all of the riches and wonder of the Saviour and his work in your life.”
A place to dissect those feelings and decipher what is underneath them, whether it’s healthy concern that needs to move to prayer, self-protection, defending my old self or pride, we can get some clarity and help in our spirits with a “stop”.
A good exercise for this is meditation, slowing yourself down with deep breathing in God’s presence then taking the worry to Him for examining and understanding.
When panic or anxiety is on the horizon, what will your plan be?
” The wisdom of the prudent is to give thought to their ways,
but the folly of fools is deception.”
Proverbs 14:8