Occasional Anxiety.

It's amazing to me how quickly anxiety can make you forget that you are standing on firm ground, that you are capable of breathing and that the world is not piling on top of you.

It's amazing how quickly anxiety piles on the lies of loneliness, shame, fear, and hurt.

It that moment right before an attack you suddenly are faced with a million thoughts all at once.

And they are not mere thoughts, they are every worse case scenario possible, all at once.

Some describe it as a drowning feeling.

Other's have said it's like a bunch a rocks being piled on to your chest and stomach and neck.

Anxiety is weird.

Because it never depicts reality.

It's like Murphy's law.

Everything that could go wrong will go wrong.

But it's in your head, and it doesn't really exist to anyone else.

So it's hard to describe to people who don't get those small desperate emotional heart attacks that attempt to express themselves physically.

Especially my anxiety.

I feel like I have an anxiety that no one else has.

Everyone else seems to have a fear of being in front of crowds. Talking, singing, preforming, etc.

And I'm not saying that those things are not scary. In their own way they are very nerve wracking.

But my anxiety comes when I am by myself.

Alone.

Thinking.

I think about my sibling and my parents.

I think about school.

I think about friends.

I think about how I treat my self.

I think about how I am going to be able to handle things all at once.

BECAUSE IT ALL HAS TO BE FIXED RIGHT NOW!

But that voice screaming at me, begging me to fix everything this second, forget's I can only do one thing at a time.

It forget's that I am bound by time.

It forget's some of these "problems" are not even my responsibility.

This voice only hears chaos.

This voice feeds on loneliness.

This voice speaks lies.

This voice breathes fire.

And none of these things are how I work.


******


In July I worked at Boy scout camp.

And since I was 15 I had been involved in venturing.

And we would go on these trips to a high ropes course.

Well my anxiety got the better of me every time.

I kept telling everyone I would never do that again.

I tried twice.

Failed both times.

And then one night this pass July, I got on the Ropes course.

And I finished.

This is a huge deal for me.

Because I would be on a rope bridge and realize that I was 40 feet in the air and loose it.

But not this time.

This time I was determined.

So, one step at a time.

One breath at a time. I finished that dumb course.

******

So Anxiety.

Sucks.

But, even when our anxiety is great we have to remember who controls our brain.

We have power over our thought process.

And some of us don't have a choice because we have chemical imbalances, and that's okay too!

We can still remind ourselves, that we only have to take it one step at a time and one breath at a time.

Occasionally We Move.

So I'm house sitting for my friend while she is in Africa. 

And she lives in the middle of nowhere. 

And I've been in the worst of places these last couple of days because I've been seeking fulfillment from everything except Jesus for the past 6 months, and it finally caught up with me. 

And when you live by yourself in the middle of no where you're forced to look at your self in the mirror and no one is around to hold you accountable. 

And it's awful. 

But I'm driving home tonight and I'm screaming at God, and I'm sobbing. 

"Is this my life? Is it just going to constantly be a fight!? WHY!? If you loved me! This in not how it would be!!!" 

And I stop screaming.

 And I'm silent.

 And he say's 

"what does it look like to move? How do we move Kayla?" 

And instantly the Hokey-pokey is in my brain. 

I hate the Hokey-pokey.

 I can't believe they play it at weddings still!

 But I thought, 

"that's what it all about." Sometimes fighting isn't just scraping.

 Although, in my life, it feels like it is.

Especially when I am the way I am and I shoot myself in the foot and have to constantly be reminded that my actions to not dictate how the creator feels about me.

 I hate the hokey-pokey.

I have since I was a kid.

I hate bing told how to dance.

But what is life if we don't have to do things we hate.

That saying, if it was easy everyone would could do it, really fits here.

Life isn't easy, and a lot of people haven't made it.

But it's worth doing the Hokey-Pokey, to live a life that is purposeful, meaningful, honest, and brings life to your own soul and the souls of those around you.

I am dying for life to be simple.

But it isn't.

Because I mess up.

A lot.

And I get so angry with myself.

And I ask myself questions,

"How could anyone love you?"

"How can you live with your self?"

"Why don't you just get over it?"

But that's why there is grace.

And new days.

And you start moving.

And you start doing things differently.

And you start changing the way you talk to yourself.

And you move.

And you then you let yourself down again.

And then you move.

How do we move? What does it look like to move?

Then right in front of me, this giant meteor streams from the sky, plummets toward the earth, and disappears past the horizon. It was so big I could see the black, red, orange and yellow colors.

And God say's,

"This is how we move Kayla."