This was an interesting week: I think I’ve experienced every emotion that is humanly possible, and I think I did it all with great zeal and exaggeration.
Having transitioned from Zoloft to herbal supplements – which includes Omega 3, hydroxytriptophan, and a multi-vitamin rich in the B’s – I now have 13 pills I take throughout the day, emphasizing the point that going organic is not the easy way out. Ever. I think this is more pills than my grandmother took.
Thirteen pills is a lot for a girl who, up until more recently than she’d care to admit, refused to swallow even an Advil alone for fear she would begin choking and nobody would be present to Heimlich it out. As a result, my pill-swallowing regimen has not been consistent, which has caused me to feel very polarized in my emotions.
However, as I spent the day with my family yesterday, feeling myself becoming irritated with everything, feeling anxious, feeling tense, feeling exaggerated impatience, I found myself for the first time taking those thoughts captive, and not allowing them to well up and surface. I found myself acknowledging the crazy cycle, and making the decision to move past it rather than entertain it.
It was tough – I pursed my lips a lot. I pinched the space between my eyes. My brow furrowed. I swallowed back the tightness in my chest. I constantly felt I needed to be somewhere besides where I was. Bryan asked me several times if I was okay. But I held fast to my sanity, and trusted in God to smooth the rough spots. I am learning new ways to process my emotions, and I finally feel as if the tools I’ve been given are useful in my hands, though not perfected.
Despite the failures of the week – the raging, the emotional eating, the crazy space my head was in – I am understanding more and more that THIS IS MY RACE. As in, “…let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us†(Hebrews 12:1). It is the path I have been given, and I’d better quit wasting time trying to jump tracks (a fine use of mixed metaphors).
In church this morning, Pastor Mike defined Faith as trusting God to give us what we need the most – Himself. And Hebrews 12:2 says we are to fix our eyes on Jesus, who is the author and perfecter of our faith. As I submit to this, more and more I feel myself changing and making better choices.
But it is exhausting.
Yesterday was not a relaxing day for me because I was waging a war in my mind. Everything I felt, everything I thought, I put it through a rigorous checklist of sanity: is this real? Is this rational? Is this irrational? Is this under my control or out of my control? Can I do anything to change the situation? Could I have done anything differently? Was that comment meant to hurt me? Will he still love me if _____ ? Is this the way I really feel or am I feeling according to perceived expectations? Is it okay for me to feel this way?
I could go on and on, but you already think I’m crazy.
The point is, my weak mind requires that I think with endurance. It is when I become a lazy thinker that I fall into so many of my traps. Yesterday I flexed my muscles and thought with endurance.
May Christ continue to give me strength.
amen.