Category: Spirituality

Peace in the suffering

8:57am Saturday morning, palm desert. I often get anxious and frustrated. When I can’t quickly find peace I begin to panic. I start to believe I am trapped in an awful situation with no way out. I think about running away. Of trying to escape. Of death and dying. I would do anything to stop the suffering. Sometimes I go for walks. Get drunk. Try to distract myself. Then when I don’t think I can endure any longer the moment passes. I look back and wonder how it got so desperate. How I almost broke. I vow to change my circumstances. To change who I am. To never make myself that vulnerable again. But before long I feel happiness. I enjoy a moment of peace. At those times I forget how scared I was. What was at stake. How I nearly broke down, almost lost myself and nearly died. I go back to ignoring my worries and skip through life. Until I start to feel the fear and it starts all over again.

Saturday morning

4:19am Saturday morning. Heading out the door. Driving to Orange County. My thoughts are swirling as I think about work and love. The questions I ask in both circumstances are similar. Do I focus on perseverance or self-preservation? Do I remain loyal to an employer or a lover? Is my partner loyal to me? When I feel uncertainty do I hold on tighter or let go completely? Do I have the ability to make a logical choice or do emotions rule my action? What is my identity in a relationship? Will I ever find peace or will I always be frustrated?

Salvation please

7:25pm Friday night, I want to be saved. To find success. Or even stability. My mind is exhausted. I think a million thoughts that add up to nothing. I have written over 1000 posts. Do they matter to anyone but me? I should solicit an audience, try and connect. Someone needs to knows I am alive. That I have thoughts. That I feel emotions. Why do I stay hidden yet want to be known? I wear myself the fuck out

Burned by bad theory

11:24am I burned myself with a bad theory. I hypothesized if I stopped romanticizing leisure I would have no choice but to embrace work. If I embraced work more consistently I would be more productive and successful. Maybe that is true to an extent. But has the value of “success” outweighed the loss of relaxing rejuvenation? I feel I sacrificed what truly made me happy for minimal gain.

Confluence

There is this confluence in my life where a lot of things happened together. A nexus. One was the five years of being the chaplain. I loved that job but after five years it had become stale. I wanted to try something new. Second, I became a parent. That changed my world outlook and made me more anxious. Third was the financial crisis. That disrupted our lives. I felt I had to make more money. I have gotten into a worldview rut. I don’t mind the things I have done. Sales, travel, operations. But I would like to feel that security and enjoyment of being a chaplain again at work. I am exhausted

Mindful

9:38am I am being mindful of how my thoughts create stress and fear. Especially familiar thoughts that produce familiar feelings. It seems I can’t be happy. That I will search for thoughts until I can find something that worries me. Then being worried is the state that feels familiar. It doesn’t feel good. I don’t like it. But it is known.

Fear and anxiety thielicke

“Fear always refers to something definite. I am afraid of getting wet because of certain meteorological factors. Or I am afraid of a political complication in view of certain observations and developments.”

“…anxiety refers to a a state which the question what is feared is either secondary or is not even asked. The indefiniteness of the threat is of the very essence of anxiety.” Helmut Thielicke, The Silence of God, pg 4