Tag: Anxiety

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Dynamic Catholic Presents – You Aren’t You When Overwhelmed

“Overwhelmed feels like being buried alive. It feels like you are drowning. It’s a state of panicked anxiety and when we are in that space we are not thinking clearly.

Here are 10 things we forget when we feel overwhelmed…

1. Not everything we think is true. Our mind plays tricks on us. What’s the truth here? You cannot do it all at once. That’s true. You cannot handle it all at once. That’s true. You can handle it one thing at a time. That’s the most important truth in this situation.
2. This is temporary. This too shall pass. You’ve been here before and you got through it. You will get through this.
3. You got this. You can do this. You know how to get through this, you know what you need to do, you just aren’t thinking clearly at this moment.
4. You don’t need all the answers and a total plan to move forward.
5. Feelings are not always connected to reality. Overwhelmed is a feeling. But you are not your feelings, and your emotions are not your life.
6. We forget to breathe. In stressful situations we sometimes hold our breathe without even realizing it when what we need is the exact opposite. Oxygen makes clear thinking possible. Breathe deeply. Fill your body with the oxygen your mind needs to navigate this situation.
7. Doing nothing will only sustain these feelings of being overwhelmed. If nothing changes, nothing changes. Change something right now. Overwhelmed is a feeling of helplessness. Take back your power immediately. Do something to move you out of this state.
8. Gratitude changes our state of mind every time. What are you grateful for? (see 4 signs) 9. Our problems are usually not as bad as we think they are and not as unique as we think they are. Ask any therapist. Other people in history have been through some version of what you are going through and they found a way…
10. It’s amazing how quickly things can turn around. The smallest step in the right direction can shift the momentum of your life.

We all get overwhelmed from time to time. This isn’t the last time it’s going to happen to you, but it is time to develop a strategy to deal with it.”

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Minute Meditation – Turn From Anxiety to Adoration

Now, in this time, in this space, in this Presence, is the invitation to an essential turning toward God. First, we reflect on the obstacles to overcome. Perhaps the obstacles we face are clutter or schedules, maybe they are prejudices, grudges, or judgments. When we limit any of these things, we turn our focus toward serving, loving, honoring, and adoring the Lord God. Next, the cares and anxieties that often overwhelm us, such as financial, medical, or familial concerns or conflicts, can be put aside in this prayerful, all loving Presence. As we turn these worries over to God’s care, we strive to allow our adoration to strengthen our faith, trust, hope, and compassion. 

— from the book  Eucharistic Adoration: Reflections in the Franciscan Tradition 

//Franciscan Media//

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Seeking God in Suffering – Worrying is a Waste of TimeG

Worrying Is a Waste of Time

DAY 22 | Matthew 6:25-34

“Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” —Matthew 6:34

My 15-year-old grandson took a high school psychology class and began diagnosing each family member with a mental disorder. When I asked him about mine, he said, “Anxiety.” I laughed because I’m generally a glass-half-full kind of person. I trust God for the future.

Yet I admit that I do secretly worry about what will happen when my three-year cancer treatment plan ends. I worry about my children who have already lost their father to cancer. I worry about my husband having another heart attack. I worry about my dad’s grief and loneliness after losing my mom and then my stepmom.

What secret worries linger in the back of your mind?

We can imagine Jesus lovingly shaking his head at all of our what-ifs, and asking the rhetorical question “Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?” Jesus teaches us not to waste time with such concerns but instead to “seek first the kingdom” of God. We can focus on living out the gospel, sharing it with others, and maximizing the time we are given.

Jesus challenges us to have faith and to trust that the Father knows exactly what we need. Rather than fret, we are invited to surrender our stress to Jesus. “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened,” he says, “and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).

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Lord, we worry when we should just pray. Help us to bring the concerns of each day to you in faith, and empower us to trust in your providential care to sustain us and our loved ones. Amen.

//Reframe Ministries//

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Minute Meditation – What is Life and What is Death?

Humans are the only creatures who have knowledge of their own death. Its awareness creeps up on us as we get older. All other animals, plants, and the cycles of nature themselves seem to live out and surrender to the pattern of mortality. This places humans in a state of anxiety and insecurity from our early years. We know on some level that whatever this is that we are living will not last. This changes everything, probably more than we realize consciously.

So our little bit of consciousness makes us choose to be unconscious. It hurts too much to think about it. On this last Sunday before Palm Sunday, we dare to look at the “last enemy,” death. And the only way we can dare to part the curtain and view death is to be told about our resurrection from it! Yet, I assume we all know that Lazarus did eventually die. Maybe ten years later, maybe even twenty, but it did happen, we assume. What then is the point of this last dramatic “sign” before Jesus’ own journey toward death? An important clue is given right before the action, when the disciples try to discourage Jesus from going back to Judea where he is in danger. Jesus says calmly, “Are there not twelve hours in the day? When a person can walk without stumbling? When he sees the world bathed in light.”

Jesus refuses to fear darkness and death. Quickly he adds, “Our friend Lazarus is sleeping, I am going to wake him” (John 11:9–11). Those who draw upon the twelve hours, who see the world bathed in light now, have begun to see the pattern. As is often the case with wise people, they let “nature nurture them.” Yes, the other hours of darkness will come, a metaphor for death, but now we know that it will not last. It is only a part, but not the whole of life—just as the day itself is twelve hours and night is the other twelve, two sides of the one mystery of Life.

Jesus’ job is simply to “wake” us up to this, as he did Lazarus and the onlookers. We must now “see that the world is bathed in light” and allow others to enjoy the same seeing—through our lived life. The stone to be moved is always our fear of death, the finality of death, any blindness that keeps us from seeing that death is merely a part of the Larger Mystery called Life. It does not have the final word.

“Good God, the creator of light and darkness, You who move the sun and the stars, move us into the place of light, a light so large that it will absorb all the darkness”

— from the book Wondrous Encounters: Scriptures for Lent

by Richard Rohr, OFM

//Franciscan Media//