Tag: Life

The Hardest Thing In Life

On By dotluvs2writeIn blogging, Musings, Religious4 Comments

silhouette of woman facing sunset

There are many difficulties and challenges in life.  Generally speaking, they are usually these:

Financial.  Loss of jobs, debt, etc.

Emotional.  The ups and downs in relationships with family and friends, bullies and adversaries.

Physical.  Illnesses.

Death.  The loss of a loved one.

School.  Working hard to get good grades and finish a degree.

Job.  Stressors in the workplace.

But, for me, none of those temporary hardships and painful experiences is as challenging or as tough as living the Christian life.

It’s a lifestyle that is worked on daily.  One of constant striving to repent, changing my thinking and actions.  It can get very exhausting and frustrating.

Being a Christian, living the life of a Christian, isn’t just believing in God and reading the Bible.  Sure, that’s necessary and included, but it requires more from us.

Cooperating with God’s grace so that we are transformed. 

Image result for public domain pictures of walking path toward the sun

There’s a saying by St. Athanasius that says “God became man so man can become like God” (paraphrased but the gist is correct).

In order to become like God, (called theosis in Greek explained here), there are tools and practices that help us get there.

In the Eastern Orthodox Christian faith, these tools and practices are:

Prayer, fasting, almsgiving, Confession, attending Church services, reading the Bible, books about the Saints, and Other spiritual material, and spiritual mindfulness/warfare.

Image result for public domain pictures of Greek Orthodox Christian Jesus Prayer Lord Jesus Christ Son of God have mercy on me a sinner

All of these practices are like exercises for an athlete training for the Olympics.  With God’s help, we are training our minds, bodies, and souls, in preparation for encountering Him when we depart this life and hopefully enter into His Kingdom.

St. Paul talks about this race we must run until the finish (the end of our earthly lives).  God says that we are saved when we endure until the end.

This transformation of our minds, hearts, and bodies is a life-long journey.

All of this effort is exhausting at times, especially the mental battles via spiritual warfare.  You’re fighting with the enemy’s temptations, and your own ego/pride.

Incidentally, you have to die to live.

We died and rose with Christ in the fount at our baptism.  But being a Christian means I am to do this daily.

We as Christians, are to be continually changing, growing spiritually and holy in Christ God.

This means we are not supposed to be stagnate.

We are not supposed to be the same person we were a year ago, a month ago, a week ago, a day ago.  By our cooperating with God, He is transforming us into holy beings.

Without God, we can do none of this.

In a culture that is all about ME and the EGO, it is a very difficult activity to repent daily and make the effort to cooperate with God’s grace.

It’s much easier to stay the way we are, which isn’t fully human.

Staying as we are is not how God initially made us to be in the beginning before the Fall.

Christ, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, made this transformation of union with God and holiness possible through his incarnation, crucifixion and resurrection, reconciling us to God the Father.

Yet, at times, I wonder why I’m doing this because I don’t see my progress. Why am I not changing?  It feels at times like I’m idling, just sitting there in my own sinful mud puddle, flailing about.

feeling-the-effects-of-chronci-stress

A few weeks ago, pondering all of this, I could understand why people become atheists.

The Christian life is tough.

You feel like running in a hamster wheel getting nowhere a lot of the times.  I teeter between hating myself and self-love/arrogance/conceit.

This perpetual battle drains you of any energy or will to want to continue.

But you know you can’t quit.

You want to be with God, you want to love Him, you want to love others.

You can’t quit because you know Him.

monk contemplating with prayer rope

There are still occasions where I’m still trying to fix myself without turning towards Him.  He is in the background instead of the foreground.

“We ourselves cannot get rid of any of our faults. He takes them away from us, one by one.” – Mother Gavrilia

I am corrupted by the culture in which I live, where I want results quickly, if not immediately, and I know intellectually that’s not how it works in the spiritual life, the life of a Christian.

“God works in eternity. Not in the hurry of our temporary life. Everything will happen as and when He wants.” – Mother Gavrilia

But this awareness needs to travel from head to heart to soul.

I get encouragement, love, and guidance from my spiritual father and love and understanding from fellow Orthodox and various Christian friends struggling along with me.  I follow the Orthodox Christian practices listed above.

If it weren’t for the Church, I’d be twisting in the wind with no roots or steady moral compass.

I know this because I was there decades ago before I was a practicing Orthodox Christian.

However, this ongoing inner struggle is a balancing act, of moderation, as always.  And for me, moderation in anything has been difficult most of my life until the past decade or so.

I was the All or Nothing sort.

I would pursue something hard and obsessively, or I’d just quit/drop the activity.  As a result, I’ve had to reign myself in when going overboard and pull myself up when apathetic or despondent.

But discovering this tendency and monitoring myself has only been possible through God’s enlightening my mind and heart, and His help.

God's mercy quote by St. Isaac the Syrian.jpg

Christians find passages in the Scriptures and sayings by the Saints that give them hope and encouragement.

Mother Gavrilia, a nun who died in the early 1990s, is a not-yet-declared Saint, in my opinion.

I read the book about her life many years ago, and it was life-changing.  She changed my whole worldview.  I quoted her twice already in this blog post.

Here’s one of my favorites:

“God often does not desire the act but the intention. It is enough that He sees you are willing to do His command.” – Mother Gavrilia

She is saying making an effort to follow God’s Commandments daily is all He expects from us.

I cherish these words.  It washes away the frustration and weariness of my daily struggles.

“When you know Him, you want to be with Him, be like Him, learn to love Him, all people, and all of His creation.” – Me.

 

 

Too Many Gadgets, Too Little Memory

On By dotluvs2writeIn blogging, Cultural and Political, Musings, Past Life Activities9 Comments

electronic stuff

We bought a new car in March.  We hadn’t bought a new car since 2005, and before that, 1999.  So, you can imagine how bewildered we were….correction, I was…my husband took it all in without so much as a blink….when the car salesman introduced us to all the gadgets on our new car and how they worked.

To be honest, I was intimidated by it all.  The alert beeps for your blind spot, for warning me when any exterior part of my car was close to touching another car or any other object or person, the annoying humming sound that vibrated me into panic mode if I wandered an inch over the dividing lines on the highway, and all the lit up little icons on the dashboard and little screen.

It was overwhelming at first, but once I drove the car the first time, I relaxed a bit, even if I didn’t know how everything worked outside your regular immediate buttons and such.

It got me thinking about the technological advances over the years and decades since I was a child.  I grew up during my elementary school years with my parents purchasing one of the first VHS recorders.  My growing up years was also the time when TV remote controls came out and cordless telephones.

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Pong, the first video game I remember came out, followed by Atari, for which my parents bought.  Who could forget playing those video games with those ancient joysticks that caused hand and thumb pain within a couple hours?  Good old Atari games like Astroids, Centipede, Pac-Man, Maze Craze, Space Invaders, Frogger, and Pit Fall.

atari video console

In the music realm, boom boxes were in, that were a combination of radio and tape cassette player, with a mic jack and two speakers.  And the Walkman became popular shortly after, I think.

boom box

Dad’s Commodore 64 with its permanent blue screen sat on his desk in my teen years.  When I was sixteen, I used that computer to type up my first novel.

commodore 64 computer screen

I remember when my parents bought me a cell phone around 1993 for me to have in case my car broke down.  It was bulky and weighed a ton.

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And I distinctly remember my first caller ID.  None of my friends or family had one at that time.  It was so cool being able to see who called at that time because I lived in my apartment then and could tell when a guy I liked called, but he didn’t know I knew.  Haha!

Image result for public domain pictures of the first caller IDs from 1993

And then came the CDs, DVDs, desk top computers, etc.  All of those new gadgets were pretty cool.  They didn’t make us too lazy.  But I’d have to say, that’s changed.

I’ve been watching many TED Talks on our addiction to our computers and phones, and also, the gadgets that think for us, like our car’s lights shutting on and off on their own, the doors locking and unlocking on their own, warning lights and beeping sounds to alert us to a danger of a car too close to ours, and the like.

Our cell phones keeping our appointments, waking us up for work in the morning, storing all of our friends and family members’ phone numbers, telling us how many calories the meal is that’s sitting in front of us at lunch or dinner.  You know what I’m talking about.

These are all very convenient, easy, and helpful.  But they also make us lazy and lose our ability to remember/memorize things, such as an appointment date or a friend’s phone number.

I don’t even know my family member’s cell numbers, except my husband’s.  I don’t know my sister’s or my mother’s by heart.  That is truly pathetic.  When I was a teen up through my thirties, I could dial a number no more than twice, and it would be stuck in my memory from then on.  Because I don’t have to remember these numbers since they’re stored in my phone, they aren’t memorized.

Now, I realize when one gets older, a little help in the memory department is needed, but our brain’s memory can be boosted by walking or doing jigsaw puzzles, for example.

So, I ignore focusing solely on the camera on the small screen in my car and physically look behind me when backing up, and make sure I still look toward the blind spot before moving into another lane.  I manually lock my car doors when I get into my car most especially in parking lots.  I think it’s the safe thing to do for us women going grocery shopping and other places by ourselves.

I don’t think we can rely so much on computers.  They do malfunction at times, have glitches, and can be hacked.  Obviously, you can guess I’m not one of those people who is anxiously awaiting buying or traveling in a driverless car.  I think I’ll skip that, thank you very much!

In my psychology course I took a couple of years ago at my university, I learned the twenty-first century sedentary lifestyle is not normal or healthy for the human body and mind.  We are meant to move and move around often, and use our minds critically.  If we’re not careful, we’ll become like the folks in the Pixar movie, WALL-E.  Was that not a glimpse into the future, or what?

WALL-E pic 2

We have to find ways to exercise these days.  Join a gym.  Join an exercise class.  Buy exercise equipment.  Pencil in jogging several times a week.  When in the generations before this age, people walked or rode their bikes to work, worked outside, walked to stores, opened their cars’ hatchbacks, manually rolled up and down their cars’ windows, lifted their garage doors, and got up to turn off their TVs.

Since being a sloth is too familiar to me, I struggle to get up the energy, and it’s even harder because of my time spent on the computer for too many hours a day.  It is my goal to keep doing things that jog my memory, such as walking and doing jigsaw puzzles, and doing what I said above with regards to my car.  I even started doing tai chi two weeks ago.  It brings me stress relief and serenity.  Do you do anything to keep your mind working and body in motion to counter today’s sedentary lifestyle?

 

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Anxiety Bores Impatience

On By dotluvs2writeIn blogging, Illness and Medical Treatments, Inspirational, Musings, Past Life Activities, Religious4 Comments

silhouette of woman for anxiety blog post

When I was twenty-two, I was diagnosed with general anxiety with periodic panic attacks.

Anxiety and panic, for me, are two different things.  Panic attacks hit me in my head first, causing dizziness, followed by quickened heart rate, some perspiring, fear, and the like.  With anxiety, it starts in the chest and causes helplessness, an impending sense of doom, as well as quickened heart rate.

Everyone who suffers from anxiety or panic attacks may share in some of the symptoms, but experiences them a bit differently and also has different triggers that set them off.

Mine is TIME.

I remember in my early twenties explaining this visual of my trigger of time as a rodent running on a wheel, getting nowhere while time and the world churned ahead without me.  I desperately wanted to catch up but was helpless to in the moments of panic attacks.

mouse on wheel

When I had my first panic attack at age twenty, it felt like my head was going to spin right off my body, my heart raced, and I feared loss of mind and control.  And as panic sufferers know, we become worried about it happening again, which perpetuates the panic feelings.

Eventually, after having a handful of full-blown panic attacks, I learned to be aware of when one was coming on, and talking to myself (in my head, not out loud) about it in a reasonable manner.

talking out of anxiety and panic

At that time in my early twenties, for four years, I was on an anti-anxiety medication for my anxiety and a tranquilizer for panic attacks.  Both medications did the job of curbing my anxiety and panic attacks.  After getting off the medication, my system seemed improved.

Since this time (over twenty years ago), I’ve faired pretty well, but since the onslaught of peri-menopause, my anxiety and panic attacks have been kicked up a notch, causing some disruption in my life.

At the end of June, I did some stupid things because of my anxiety, like mistakenly canceling my debit card.

I looked over my husband’s and my checking account and discovered a debit card purchase for a DVD from an unknown company.  Worried and panic-stricken thinking  somebody had gotten my card number, I went online and disputed the purchase.  Immediately after I did that, my card was canceled.

It was at that moment I remembered the amount of the purchase and realized I did purchase this DVD.  It was just that the company name didn’t match the place I ordered from.

silencing inner critic

Peri-menopausal fog brain mixed with anxiety is a recipe for chaos.

I called the bank the next day, and a new card was sent out for two-day delivery.

If I’d just waited and thought calmly for about five more minutes, I’m positive I would have remembered the amount and the place from which I purchased the DVD.

This was the day Whole Foods opened in my area, and I wanted to be there for the opening (I know, that alone is nuts).  Obviously I didn’t have my debit card, but I did have my checkbook.  That was a mistake because they didn’t take checks, so I had to run home and fetch my credit card that I’ve been desperately trying to pay down.

I could have just waited until the next day when my new debit card arrived and gone to Whole Foods then and not gone through all of this.  But NO, I was anxious to go RIGHT NOW!  If I didn’t go then, think of all the things I’d miss seeing on Opening Day!

scolding myself

Every time my anxiety hits, I become impatient and pushy.  After the incident, I’d hate my actions and how I irritated my family members.  Imagine this anxious impatience…it feels like a tornado of confusion, frustration, fear, and anger sweeping through you.  At least it does for me.

depressed-silhouette-woman

After experiencing this impatience three days in a row, I broke down in tears of frustration and anger, really strongly disliking myself for my stupid actions and idiocy.

Where did my brain go?

The next few days and weeks I sat analyzing my actions and behavior. I finally saw this pattern of impatience and that it was actually tied to my anxiety.

It only took me 28 years to figure this out.

gif of duh or rolling eyes

In any case, this was a breakthrough for me, a relief.  I’d finally figured out what I was doing and why I was doing it.

But how was I going to stop doing it?

Anxiety pounces on me unexpectedly a lot of the time.  The behavior and havoc almost always play out before I am aware of it.

Friends who suffer from anxiety and/or panic attacks, how do you experience them?  How do you deal with them?

Being a person who tries to follow Christ, making an effort to be Christ-like daily, even though I fail most of the time, my anxiety causes me to forget to ask Him for help when I’m going through this.  Too many times, I try to control these attacks all on my own.

give your burden at the Lord's feet

This is the crux of my problem.

But I suppose I had to discover what I was doing before I could reach this point.

So, now that I know this, I am making the effort and becoming more aware to ask God to help me through these instances of impatience and anxiety.

I’m not really a fan of praying for patience, because…well…then your patience is tested, and I fail 99% of the time.

BUT…

In reality, it’s through those tests of my patience, that I am provided the chances to be patient and make it become more of a habit, and therefore, become more of who I want to be, which is a better, calmer, loving person with a closer relationship to Christ.

In the past few weeks, I’ve been able to apply patience to at least three occasions, by talking to myself, as a type of mental coach, and through God’s help.

Here’s to a new path toward a less anxiety-ridden life.

mountain path towards light

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