Anxiety and Happiness

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    "Knowing that we can be loved exactly as we are gives us all the best opportunity for growing into the healthiest of people." Fred Rogers

     Sometimes it is difficult to attribute our struggles to our heroes. Personally, I don't think of Fred Rogers losing patience experiencing anxiety, anger, or even just getting burnt out. When you read up on Fred he has so many good coping strategies and was beloved by so many, that I struggle to see that he ever struggled, but he must have. He didn't take it out of those that he served and served with, but running a non-profit public broadcast show during a recession, without congressional support, and with the eyes of the world on you does not seem like a recipe for an easy-breezy no stress life. It seems again and again that Fred Rodgers was seen by the world by his orientation towards caring and serving others.

    There are several problems with my view of Fred Rodgers. I didn't know him, I simply know of his accomplishments. I have been served a portrait of the man, rather than the actual living breathing one. The other is that even past all of the things I don't know, I will never be Fred Rodgers, I can only be me. The biggest problem hiding within all of these problems is why being me is not enough. I can only imagine what Fred Rodgers would say about that.The naked truth of chasing an idol or imaginary hero character is the fiery dart of the enemy that says, "I am not enough." I worked with a young man recently that was facing a difficult task. Something that he had never done before and working with him, I could almost see the thought pass into his eyes. Seeing that my heart seized up and I felt that. I know that feeling so well. It is the one that tends to well up in me when things get to be big. Good big or bad big, it actually doesn't matter. The bad big says I won't be enough to fix that problem. The good big moments say I am not enough to keep this up. I never stop acknowledging these thoughts, but I take another approach to dealing with them. 

    Anxiety can be a pushing force to move forward, but most of the time it is a hamster wheel, to run in the background. No one knows exactly how long you have been working, but as long as you move, then you won't be caught off guard, but that is just the anxiety talking. With this mindset, everything can be great and you carry the same level of stress as you do when things are in emergency mode, making balance not only a dream, but simply mythical in nature. Everyone talks about balance, but I have never seen it. Getting through anxiety, is not the same as getting past it. It is accepting the reality of what sets that off with you and knowing that it is an unreliable narrator of current events. Mostly because it asks inappropriate questions to every situation. I had a theater director once that was a genius in his field, but classically bad at Self Care, and very emotionally abusive to his closer relationships. He told me something that sounded profound at the time, but only because it echoed in the chambers of my then haunted heart. He told me that you should never trust happiness. What he didn't say is that really; he couldn't trust happiness. I knew that I couldn't at the time, and this wisdom comes from the anxious hurting heart. It was not until years had gone by, therapy, my wife and a constant relationship to Jesus changed that view for me. I simply had to accept the good.

     As my mentor Heath always said, "the best part of being happy is, being happy." There is not an ulterior motive for our happiness. We don't have to make excuses for being happy. If someone questions what makes you happy and it simply does not effect them, then it may be time to ask them what they are trying to accomplish. It reminds me of a popular anthem from my teenage years, Linkin Park's Numb. "I wanna be more like me and be less like you!" Those people may be passing down their own anxieties that they chose not to work through and as a result imprint others, or see others through that anxious lens. Maybe its not conscious, but it is always harmful. 

    One of the mantras that I said over and over again as I quit smoking cigarettes in college, was I can have a good day without a smoke. For those with anxiety, you can have a good day off the hamster wheel in your head. You can rest knowing that when the times comes, you will have the ability to pull through. If you decide not to, then you have a another chance to come through for others. So when it comes to your thoughts, Paul urges us to take every thought captive to obey Christ. So take those anxious thoughts, name them for what they are, and bend them to Christ. Pull through for yourself, so that you, not someone else, can pull through for others.

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