I worry a lot. But in recent years I've been able to find my footing. Yet worry still lingers in the dark corners of my mind. Two months ago, I became re-acquainted with my old friend. I was jolted out of my sleep with burning chest pain, unable to catch my breath and couldn't swallow. I thought "WOW, this is THE BIG ONE" as Fred Sanford told his son Lamont in the TV show "Sanford and Son."
It wasn't the big one. The crazy thing is, I've never had the "Big One". Over the years the "Big One" has never come. But worry doesn't care about facts. So the thoughts of what happened that night kept my mind on a DEFCON 5-high alert. I found myself mentally scanning for an abnormal signs in my body. Shortness of breath, heartburn and a lump in throat, all became threats.
One definition of worry is "an incessant goading to the point of despair." For me, this goading moves along a predictable pattern. Troubling thoughts turn to fear and fear turns to anxiety and anxiety turns to research on WebMD. But this time I recognized the journey towards despair and pulled out. In the past, I would've jumped on the internet and read up on GERD and barium swallows. Worry is like rust-it eats away at my peace of mind.
Life is a series of moving moments and worry robbed me of living fully in the moment. So I changed the pattern: when the troubling thought comes, I don't fight it, I allow it to come, identify what it is and then let it go. The thought doesn't hang around long enough for worry to get a foot hold. It comes-I acknowledge it and it goes.
I also reconnected the comforting words of Jesus: "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Peace removes worry from the moment. And the peace that Jesus gives us is a peace that passes all understanding. In times of worry or in times of happiness, moment by moment, peace can be ours. Just ask and receive.
Today, what's your worry?
How many "If Only's" go round n round in your head? If Only's can be reflections we think about and then move on. Or they can be regrets that anchor us in the past. Reality has a way of crashing into my if only's and leads me in a different direction. There is one "if only" I have that creeps up now and then.
It began when I graduated from High School. I was only 17 at the time. My friend John and I were to enlist in the Navy together-on the buddy system. He was 18 and ready to be shipped off. But I needed to have my parents' signatures and after much back and forth with the folks, they didn't sign the papers. John sailed off and I stayed home-shipped wrecked.
This "if only" pops up with friends who were in the military and are now in a second career with military benefits to fall back on. So round n round it goes: "If only I went into the Navy at 17." But it didn't happen. And If I hang on to that regret, it will turn into resentment and keep me anchored in port-not being able to move on.
The if only's that are hard to swallow are the mistakes we made-Or the risks we took that fell through-Or the marriage we messed up. The poison of guilt and anger spills over into our conversations and daily lives-my life becomes tainted. I view all things through the dark lens of "if only."
My friend's mom passed away from a massive heart attack while she was standing over the kitchen sink washing dishes-in one moment she was gone. That morning my friend had an argument over the phone with her mom. Things didn't go well, in what was to be the last conversation they had. My friend mulls this if only over in her head constantly-"If only I could have told her I loved her" she says regretfully. I can only imagine my friends pain-one conversation that goes round and round in her head and keeps her in a perpetual state of "If Only."
Not now, but in time, and walking in forgiveness, my friend will come to understand that one conversation does not make a lifelong-loving relationship she had with her mom. That one conversation most likely was repeated a hundred times in their relationship-it just happened to be the last. That's a tough one. Life is unpredictable and the "if only's" are temporary places we visit and reflect but then move on and eventually we do.
