Freedom (on the inside)

When I got back from the gym earlier this morning, I was greeted by 30 e-mails requiring answers, three voicemails, four bills needing payment, about 15 minutes of paperwork related to qualifying for non-profit status, and last but not least, my book . . . which still requires some love and attention before it is completed.

I suddenly found myself overcome by an overwhelming feeling of anxiety. It felt as though I was choking.

“Suck it up,” I told myself. But what would battening down the hatches accomplish? It would suffocate me, stuffing the scared feeling down while I robotically muscled through my responsibilities. I knew from experience that ignoring my anxiety would just wreck havoc later on—in various nefarious and incalculable ways.

So, I decided to try something different.

I wrote God a prayer for help.

I didn’t write to God because I expected God to change things for me. On the contrary, I wrote it because I know that when we engage in real earnest prayer, the one who prays is changed.

Five paragraphs into my stream-of-consciousness-prayer, a favorite Robert Frost quote came to mind: "The only way out is through." And a thought occurred to me, "What if I embrace my feelings? Why not just sit with the panic . . . lean into it?"

So, I did.

I placed the fleshy part of my palm on my cheeks, my fingers covering my eyes. I bowed my head toward my chest, and I cried. I wept. I dove in to the feelings. I allowed my panic and fear to wash over me.

To my amazement, it didn’t last forever. In reality it lasted all of 40 seconds.

Then, looking like a two-year-old who has just finished a tantrum—with tears still damp on my cheeks—I felt my countenance lift. The feelings of panic had disappeared.

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Do you see how this experience relates to our free-will discussion?

We all know that we are able to choose how we react to the external forces in our lives. How do we react when we’re at a restaurant and our salad arrives with the wrong dressing? We have choices: rage at the waiter, politely request a change, accept it and enjoy something unexpected, or other options.

Are we not able to choose how we react with regard to our internal emotional lives?

Feelings we were neither expecting nor desiring, like salads with wrong dressings on them, will come.

What will you choose?

Are you willing to feel sad when you are sad . . . to feel angry when you are angry . . . and to feel overwhelmed when you are overwhelmed?

Or will you ignore your true feelings by pretending everything is fine . . . even when it’s not?