Tag Archives: news

We Can’t Find Five Minutes

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Note: This is the first post in a series of thoughts and meanderings of my mind about how our past shapes our life now, and the way our perception changes as we age. Mainly it is about my faith life and what affects it has on what I do and feel today. This is a part of my life journey I thought I would share in case others had the same feelings. There is no right or wrong. Your journey may be different than mine but I was relieved when I took time out of my busy life and found others who share with me letting me know I am not alone in the journey.

Chapter One: We Can’t Find Five Minutes

img_1600Last year my emotions ran amok. One of my best friends died. There were health problems with my husband and I was exhausted. Through all of this one book helped me. It was Max Lucado’s book Anxious for Nothing. There were days I would only read a paragraph or two and there were days I would read an entire chapter.

Something about this book drew me in, gave me comfort and made me feel as if I could conquer my anxiety and fear with God by my side.

Taking time to read also became an issue in my life. I read books from author friends to give them an honest review but I was so busy spinning the wheels in my head, that my brain told me I had no time in the midst of my chaos and sadness to do what my inner voices said were frivolous things.

I kept writing my column, Something About Nothing, becoming more honest about my feelings on various subjects, but some weeks it was hard to find inspiration. In 2018 I did not put out a single book in either one of my cozy mystery series. I drifted along advertising the ones I wrote the past five years. I could not find the inspiration for a new book. Out in public I would smile and joke but I felt sad inside.

During this time I decided to start a Facebook Group called Slices of Life. It is a private group for those who wanted to read Max Lucado’s book and discuss it. I found I was not very good at leading a book group because no one had the time to read and I was shirking on my duties to lead for that very reason.

This group all has anxiety and fear as I do and I hoped together we could take the journey and find some kinship and answers. I wanted it to be a shared group but I found many could not have the time to find five minutes a day to sit down and read. And trying to find that time made them more stressed. To be fair, I work from my home and many in the group had families and work schedules.

I decided to read a page out loud every day and some liked that but then it became a burden and stress for me because if I didn’t do it I felt as if I was letting people down. Have you ever felt that way? And that feeling left me pondering what it is we are looking for to help us when we can’t take the time to help ourselves.

Tomorrow’s post: Anxious About Everything

Information Overload

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breatheYesterday morning I woke up agitated, stressed and riddled with anxiety. I had just opened my eyes and hadn’t thrown back the covers yet, but I felt the anxiety overtaking my body.

My mind raced with thoughts of the election and the hateful things that were being spewed, the list of online things I had to do to promote my books, the emails I had to answer, the blog posts that needed to be written, a two-page to-do list and the thoughts of my grandson’s anxiety because of the hoopla of the clowns in the news recently. I realized I didn’t want to get out of bed and face my day.

Why was my mind playing all these things out before I even got out of bed? I was tired. I just wanted to cover my head and sleep and not talk to anyone.

The day before I had two friends tell me they were afraid to put a sign for their choice of Hilary for President in their yard because of repercussions from the opposite party, and they were worried about violence being directed at them. I can’t say I blame them. But it shouldn’t be that way. Those thoughts added to my anxiety. My stomach was churning and so I did what I felt I needed to do to recover—I pulled the blankets over my head and stayed in bed.

I could not face my social media. I could not peek at it. I could not deal with what was happening in the world. After a couple of hours of settling under the covers and snoozing in and out, I picked up a book and spent my day reading. I didn’t even answer my phone. Finally around 4:00 pm I knew I couldn’t ignore the world any longer because I had a book club I needed to attend. But I felt better.  I felt I could once again face the world.

I love Social Media but I don’t love what has been happening on my social media and I too have gotten pulled into the debate over the election. It is hard for one that writes for a living to keep her mouth shut and not voice her opinion, but I knew I didn’t want to be in this circus anymore.

I put too much time into debating the pros and cons of who should be President. It made me come away feeling vilified. I have spent too much time reading about the violence taking place in our society, especially the clown scare. The reason that concerns me is that my young grandson is scared. He is now scared of clowns and I and his parents spent the weekend reassuring him. I used to have a clown collection and I loved clowns and now that too has been spoiled for our children. My grandson will never think of clowns as funny creatures anymore. He didn’t hear this from his parents or the news but on the back of the school bus from 5th and 6th graders who heard it on the news.  He doesn’t feel safe anymore.

After my anxiety calmed I wondered what had caused my first thought of the day to be of the vile things that are happening today.  I came to the conclusion that I had been filling my life with treacherous news and it needed to stop. I can’t control the elections or what people believe no more than they can control how I feel. Our experiences are what makes us who we are and what we believe.

I can control what I put out into the world. I don’t need to debate nastiness but I can send out positive vibes. I can fill my life with positive things so I can handle the negative sources and challenges. I can only change what I do. I think that is all each of us can do. We are the only ones that can control what we contribute to others. So I want to fill the lives of my grandchildren and my friends with positive stories and positive vibes. I want to wake up with joy in my heart and not anxiety over the world.

I am going to try and do better. I am the only one that can choose that for me. Mohatma Ghandi said, “Be the change you wish to see in the world.”

What will you choose?