Beauty

What beauty can I behold?

I'll get back to you on this question.

We've got 5  days off together, him and I.

So we're hitting the road.

I'll post when we get back home.

Until then....

Thanks for reading,

Love, Lolly

Thanks

As I stated in yesterdays post, I'm going to try to answer a question a day from
a list I found on a blog post at (in)courage.com
Today's question is-
What Thanks can I give?

In all honesty I know that my list should be unending. It should be ten miles long. Infinity long.
But with this weird ass panic/anxiety thing plaguing me, I miss a lot of the things I should be thankful for. Some mornings I find it hard to be thankful for anything. Sleep deprivation makes me cranky.
I'm also trying to not "Should" myself so much.
You know what that is, right? Shoulding yourself or others?
It goes something like this....
You should be thankful. You should apologize. You should eat healthier. You should stop wearing clothes like that. You should read this book. You should stop swearing. You should listen to me.
You should be done by now. You should have called me. You should sit down.
You should be quiet.
You should know. You should not have said that. You should go to church.
You should leave.
The word should is like a weapon and it is often used for blaming and shaming.
I should stop using this word.

Back to the question of the day-
What Thanks can I give?
Listed in no particular order, I give Thanks for:
Milk on my cereal. Black flip-flops. My morning coffee. Cream for that coffee. Grand-kids. Shiny rocks. A Hummingbird in my garden. Comfy shorts. Blow dryers.  Praise music. Advil. Cranberry juice. Clean sheets. Sunrise. Lungs. Libraries. Slicing Apples. Wind chimes. Dogs. Bible verses. Jesus. Sisters. Shade trees. My laptop. Baby teeth. Cheese Popcorn. Cartoons.  Clouds. Instagram.
Green eyes. Green tea. Green grass. Blue eyes. Blue skies. Blue Moons. Rainbows.
I give thanks for every single breath I take. For Tap water that I always take for granted. Salt. A messy house. A clean house. Four seasons. Chinese Take-out.
My family. My best friend. My Blogger friends. For waking up this morning.

And Thanks for reading,
Love, Lolly

These are the questions

I copied this from (in) courage-
I broke it down and rearranged it into a column of questions.

What has God tasked me with for today? 
What thanks can I give? 
What beauty can I behold? 
What grace can I share? 
What prayers can I pray? 
What injustice can I right? 
What forgiveness must I ask? 
What bitterness must I confess? 
What joy can I feel? 
What sorrow can I cast on Him? 


Here lately in my life I've felt undone. Overdone. 
Completely out of sync with myself.
Anxiety and worry are at the top of my To-Do list every day.
What if? is the question that I drag around with me all day long.
I never seem to find an answer to that question though; only more What if's.

When I read that blog post above it shocked me.
It made me realize that I've been asking myself the wrong question this whole time.   
Instead of asking myself What if?, I need to start asking myself the above questions.
Those are the questions I need to be answering, not the unanswerable and scary and unpredictable What if this happens? questions that rattle me and my peace of mind.

So...I'm going to try working on these questions and answers over the next ten days.

1. What has God tasked me with for today?
He's given me two grandchildren to play with and take care of. I will feed them breakfast and comb their hair and take them outside to play in the yard, maybe ride our bikes or take a walk around the block. When the humidity gets to be too much, we'll come back in and eat lunch and watch a movie on Netflix. Maybe we will build a new city using Lego's or play restaurant with the toy kitchen and play food. 
My anxiety causes me to have a short fuse and I am tired of being so snappish at them.

Today I will apply this Vow that I found on line-

My Vow to Soften

I’ve had enough of my hard edges.
I’m tired of straining my voice.
I’d like to loosen up and laugh a little more,
Be a positive rather than a negative.

I’d like to feel the upward curve of my lips.
I’d like to surrender control of things in which I have no control.
I’d like to let things unfold in their own time, in their own way.
I’d like to participate joyfully in this fleeting life.

I’d like to be softer
towards him,
towards her,
towards me.

I vow to listen to opinions – I don’t always have to be right.
I don’t always have to agree or have the last word.

I vow to hand over the hairbrush, the pile of laundry, the school project,
the task before us. “How would you do it?” I will ask.
I vow to step aside and respect a new approach.
Success might be difficult to see at first; I vow to keep looking.

I vow to be more accepting of quirks and mannerisms.
I vow to be more accepting of tastes and styles unlike my own.

I vow to remember he is in the process of becoming; she is in the process of finding her way.
And they are more apt to do it if I stop telling them how.

I vow to regard “weaknesses” as hidden strengths.
Inner gifts can be nurtured when I stop plotting ways to alter, change, and “improve”.

I vow to greet my family and myself with a loving smile, no matter what happened yesterday.
Grudge holding only hurts us all.

I vow to pause before correcting.
I shall take a moment to consider if the mistake even needs to mentioned at all.

I vow to stop nitpicking until it bleeds.

I vow to demand less and inquire more.

I vow to listen
Consider
and expand my thinking.

I vow to be a voice of encouragement in a demeaning world.

I vow to be a silver lining spotter in my family’s little world.

I vow to be softer today than I was yesterday—a softer voice, a softer posture, a softer touch, a softer thought, a softer timetable.

I vow to be softer towards the imperfect human being inside me and beside me.

By being softer, I can hear more, learn more, feel more, and love more.
At last I will fully see.

I will see his colors.
I will see her colors.
I will see my colors
Perhaps for the very first time.

The colors might take my breath away
Bring me to tears
and offer long-awaited peace.

I shall soften in order to illuminate the colors of the soul.

I shall soften so the human being within me and beside me can shine.

© Rachel Macy Stafford 2016

Here's to peace and vows and living in the present,
Thanks for reading,
Love, Lolly

Dismissed

I tell my doctor that I am still experiencing symptoms.
I tell her I have had a sore throat for a week. I ask her if I can get a strep test.
She will forget about this 5 minutes later and I will have to remind her of this at the end of my appointment as she is getting ready to leave the exam room, with her hand already on the door knob.
She grabs a tongue depressor and her light and tells me to open wide.
I do and her next words to me are "Well that's not very wide. I'll have the tech come in and swab you."
She checks my blood pressure and tells me that it is high.
She doesn't address this issue any further.
I tell her that I have had 5 really bad panic/anxiety attacks since my last visit 6 weeks ago.
That is 5 attacks in 6 weeks.
I tell her it's hard to fall asleep because I keep "popping".
As soon as I feel drowsy, my chest constricts, then it feels like my heart is trying to jump start itself.
It makes my whole body jerk or pop. It also kick starts my adrenaline.
"That's normal" she tells me.
It's NOT normal for me though.
"Does anything help alleviate these symptoms?" she asks.
Yes, I tell her. I found this meditation practice that has you place both hands upon your heart and press down slowly and breath deeply 5 times.
"And that works?" she asks incredulously.
She wants to know if I feel this restlessness in my legs at night time.
No, I tell her. This is not Restless Leg Syndrome.
I tell her my feet can hardly sit still during the day, that it feels like I have too much caffeine in my system, that my foot is constantly tapping or moving back and forth as if all of the excess energy my body is producing is being funneled into that one spot in my body.
I tell her I can hear the blood rushing through my head and that I hear my heartbeat in both ears.
She doesn't check my ears.
She says panic attacks can be a normal thing too.
But they're NOT normal for me.
She asks if I've ever tried any kind of anti-anxiety medication.
I tell her no. I'm not interested in taking anti-anxiety medication.
I want to know WHY I am having these attacks, that I want to find the cause of them.
"Sometimes people just have anxiety," she tells me.

I'm not sure what I expected her to do or say or what testing I wanted her to order.
But I wanted more than I got from her.
I felt dismissed.
It felt like she poo-pooed everything I said.
It felt like she just wanted to push anti-anxiety meds on me.
It felt like she kept correcting me.
It felt like she wasn't listening to me.
I didn't feel comfort or empathy or sympathy from her.
It felt like she wanted to be anywhere else but in that room with me.
She made me feel like a hypochondriac.

I wanted answers. I wanted her to work with me. For her and I together to trouble shoot these symptoms and come to a common goal of either eliminating them without the quick answer of anxiety meds. and/or at the very least to diagnose the cause of them.

Maybe I was expecting too much.
Maybe I need to find a Naprapath doctor, or one who practices functional medicine.
Maybe I need to do Yoga.
Maybe I need to find more information on different types of meditation.
Maybe I need to stop complaining.
Because in all honesty, if I complain to her about anxiety and she offers me medicine for anxiety and I refuse that course of treatment, what IS she supposed to do with me?

Last night I bought a bottle of wine and drank two glasses.
I slept through the night without any kind of popping or anxiety.
I'm aware that it would be real easy to medicate myself in this way,
7 days a week, but I don't want to go that route.
Having lived with a drinking man for 28 years I know what that can do to a body and a marriage.

I'm thinking that I will try to find another doctor. Not right now. But for my next yearly physical maybe it would be a good idea to find another doctor, one that listens better. I don't know.

My throat is still sore, my ears feel full of fluid and today I am coughing.
As Charlie Brown used to say...
                                                                                              

Thanks for reading,
Love, Lolly

an update

 I lay here trying to sleep but feel too keyed up and anxious to free fall into slumber.
It feels like I am having palpitations. 
My body keeps jerking as if it's trying to kick start my heart. 
My brain refuses to cooperate with any part of my body...instead rushing head long into the dangerous territory of the what if's.
My thoughts are incoherent and racing. Nothing makes sense.
I've moved to the couch so I don't keep waking up my husband with my restless tossing and turning.
It is 2:00am. 
I feel cold and slightly uncomfortable on this living room couch.
I can see a green glow from the digital clock on the microwave in the kitchen. It is so bright.
I hear the neighbors car door slam. I hear what sounds like scratching in the duct work.
A mouse maybe? I hear snoring from our bedroom. I hear the blood rushing in my ears.
I long to be back in my bed and to be sleeping soundly.
I need to pee, again.
I am so frustrated with these damn panic attacks.
I want them to either kill me already or to just fucking stop.
I know the panic attacks won't kill me but the symptoms still feel like I'm about to die.
Racing heart, shortness of breath, trembling legs, incoherent thoughts, difficulty swallowing, numbness and tingling in my face and hands*.

I learned of a meditation technique where I place one hand upon my heart followed by the other and I press down and take slow deep breaths. It seems to work for a while.
Which in all honesty makes me believe that this is indeed panic attacks I am having and not MS or a brain tumor or some other horrible plague.
But I still have no clue as to the trigger. 
Why am I awakened by these things in the middle of the night? 
What is it that is trying to make itself known to me and why in the name of all that is holy is it necessary for these racing thoughts to show themselves at the ungodly hour of 2:00am???
The other night I said to God- 
"Ok, God, you've got my attention. It's 2:00am. Whaddya want?"
He didn't answer me.
I laid there trying to pray but my racing thoughts kept getting in the way.
In the morning I am groggy and on edge. Sleep deprivation is no small thing.

Since my last post in June I have had 3 severe attacks. 
I almost made my husband take me to the ER at 4:00 in the morning one time but felt stupid because the symptoms were vague and hard to pin down. 
I have never felt so ill and ill at ease in my life.
Each time, along with the other symptoms mentioned above*, my legs went numb and my flight instinct kicked in. It was uncontrolled panic. I was afraid to fall back asleep those 3 times. 
Hold my hand, I begged him...and I held his as if it was a lifeline to keep me tethered to this world.
A few hours later the symptoms are completely resolved. That's it. Just gone.
I don't consciously feel nervous during the day. I'm not worrying or obsessing about anything. 
Well NOW I am cuz now I worry about getting woke up every night feeling panicky.

I will say that I have noticed that some of my daily devotionals have been rather supportive. 
Each one has been about  trusting Him and walking with Him and seeing the light with Him.
If you have Jesus Calling by Sarah Young  read the pages from June 23 through July 2. 
They have been especially helpful to me.
And also I found the following Bible verse to be uplifting as well.

At the same time the Spirit also helps us in our weakness, because we don't know how to pray for what we need. But the Spirit intercedes along with our groans that cannot be expressed in words.
~Romans 8:26 God's Word Translation

So here I am with my wordless groans and my complaints and my panic attacks.
I'm feeling sort of regular today. Which is good. I slept through the night last night which is better than good.
I go to the Dr. at 1:30 today. Let's see what she has to say about these attacks of mine.

I'll keep ya posted.
Thanks for reading,
Love, Lolly

High Anxiety

I've emailed Birdie for advice on anxiety.
It's just about killing me and   I. Don't. Know. Why!
It's gotten so severe in the last three days and I am having difficulty functioning normally.
I had a full complete physical exam in May and checked out ok. But I wasn't having the anxiety then.

Truthfully I don't know what to do about this. It is attacking me in the middle of the night. The house is dark and still and very quiet which makes it worse. I woke my husband up the first night it happened and made him talk to me. Bless him, he called into work and stayed home with me until I felt better. He went to work at noon since my symptoms were entirely gone by that time.
I have never had it this bad before. And it scares me.
My God! I think to myself...Is it a brain tumor? Do I have MS? Am I having a silent heart attack?
The symptoms are gone in the light of day. No palpitations, no fear, no trembling limbs, no chest pain, no trouble swallowing, no nausea, no feeling of doom....nothing.
Grand kids still come over every day. We play, do crafts, I do laundry in between bike rides and trips to the grocery store. I make breakfast, lunch and dinner. I walk the dog.
But when bedtime comes around I begin to feel afraid.
I don't want the symptoms to come back again.
They are god awful.  Why do they only attack in the middle of the night?
I'm trying to figure it out on my own by the process of elimination.
I'm down to drinking only one cup of coffee a day. I stopped drinking all alcohol. No chocolate either.
I had a great idea for a different post but find I cannot concentrate on anything except for the way I feel which is tired and anxious and uncertain.

I'm sorry to be venting about this here. But I don't know what else to do.
I asked Birdie if she thought writing about it would perhaps make it go away.
Or maybe journaling would help me to sort out why all of a sudden I've got it this bad.

So this is me getting started with the writing down of the beginning and maybe soon another post about how I'm doing in the meantime. I'd appreciate your prayers.

Thanks for reading,
Love, Lolly

Morning

Genesis 1:3-5New International Version (NIV)

3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.

 4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness.

5 God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” 

And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

I never considered myself a morning person. When I was working 40+ hours a week mornings were always so damn painful...metaphorically speaking.

I hated morning.

I'd have to get up at 5:00am in order to be the first of 5 people in the shower. 

(We only have the one bathroom)

And let me tell you 5:00am never felt, to me, like a normal time to get out of bed.

I was always so tired during the day. 

I worked 12 hour days, 4 days a week, while occasionally eating lunch on the run. 

Mostly I fueled myself with a steady diet of coffee and cigarettes. 

Back then I smoked a pack of cigarettes a day. 

Good lord but that is a lot of smoking before, but mostly after working all day.

If I'm honest, I never really felt well back then only driven or amped or hyper.

And I thought that since I was always moving I was getting stuff done.

I did get stuff done but there wasn't any heart behind it. Or kindness. Or thought really.

I was on autopilot. Ticking things off of my to-do list like a general.

I felt little joy and my soul was shriveled up like a raisin.

On the morning I was fired, 8 years ago, I didn't want to be working there anymore and truthfully, they didn't want me to be working there anymore either.

It felt like a severing though. I felt cut, raw, hurt and injured.

Now it just so happened that my sister and her family were traveling to Florida that morning.

When I called to tell her of my firing, she invited me to go to Florida with them in their car.

I gladly accepted and soon found myself wedged into their conversion van in the last open seat, 

along with 5 other people and assorted pieces of luggage, shoes, snacks, bottles of water and beach supplies.

I was happy to be heading south to the Sunshine state. I was a little crowded and a lot carsick but otherwise my destination is what kept me happy and smiling.

On the second morning of our trip I found myself alone, sitting outside of a Cracker Barrel restaurant somewhere in bumfuck Arkansas, drinking a nasty cup of to-go coffee, smoking a cigarette and crying. (The rest of the family was inside eating.) 

I didn't know what I wanted to do. I certainly didn't want to be eating at that Cracker Barrel I can tell you that! I felt panicky. I regretted taking this last minute trip with my sister's family, because all of them squished inside that overly full van, kept arguing with each other.

It was driving me insane driving with all of them.

I wanted silence. I wanted to go over my firing in my mind and pick apart every word that had been said by my bosses and by me. I wanted to nurse my indignation and my heartache. I wanted peace in my mind, in my heart, in my soul. And I wasn't getting any of it.

The third morning of my trip found me awake at, you guessed it, the ungodly hour of 5:00am.

But I could smell the salt air and I could hear the ocean from the open window of our Condo so I got up and headed outside to take in the view.

That view of the white sand and the blue-grey-green water that meets the sky never disappoints.

As the waves roll in towards shore there is the subtlest sound of Yah-Weh.

Yah as it rolls in, Weh as it pulls back out. 

It's like the ocean is breathing His very name every time a wave comes ashore.

It instantly settled my soul and I took my first deep breath of air in weeks. I felt myself starting to unkink...felt my soul start to expand.

There is something about the smell of the ocean...I wish I could bottle and smell this all the time.

The feel of the sticky sand on my feet, the little tiny birds running running running on the beach, 

even the sound of the seagulls is something that puts me to rights.

Every morning for the entire week I was in Florida was spent on that beach staring into nothing and yet also staring directly into and hearing the very breath of God.

If I close my eyes I can hear it still today. And remember how it felt to be so near the sound of YahWeh and how comforted and held I felt.

Now I get up at 5:30am in the morning and it no longer bothers me. 

It's so automatic I don't even need to set an alarm clock. I even look forward to it.

Because the first thing I do is grab a cup of coffee and then I head to my desk where I keep my devotionals and my Bibles and I say a good morning to YahWeh and I thank Him for the morning, for THIS morning and for other mornings to come. And I am grateful. So very grateful to be up at 5:30am.

                                                 YahWeh

Thanks for reading,

Love, Lolly