Conquering a Difficult Day

For some of the most inexplicable reasons, anxiety threatens to kidnap our day, perhaps because of a couple of residual concerns. What should be, at least in theory, a relaxing or manageable day turns out to start as a struggle. There are two ways a day like this will end: as a struggle we endured; or, a struggle we overcame.

This article is about that latter outcome. It’s about finding the specific way to think and act differently. Here, below, are three strategies to consider:

Finding Freedom From Within Ourselves

Upon every challenge, especially those that are self-imposed, there is an opportunity to think differently. Finding freedom from within ourselves is taking a moment’s psychological breath; experiencing the freedom of mind and heart devolved from the strains of the felt life.

This is about feeling safe, however that’s arranged, within our core; just being us.

Sometimes it’s a deliberate mental or emotional escape, even in the midst of grating life. At other times we picture everything we cannot see. Sometimes we can’t see past our anxiety and we need to be reminded how narrow our perspective has become.

The logic of finding freedom from within ourselves is noticing how faithful God has been right up until this point. We’ve endured these things before.

Understanding And Accepting Our Personal Anxiety Insignia

Everyone has anxiety. And the more self-aware we become, possibly the more anxious our dispositions. We become hypersensitive to our feeling and more honest about how and when we feel. On one level this is good; on another there’s more pain.

Understanding how anxiety enrols itself upon us—as dictated by our personalities and our experiential backgrounds—is critical in accepting it. It takes courage to accept that a certain anxiety will be ours all our lives.

Perhaps it’s only when we understand and accept our personal anxiety insignia—how anxiety translates for us, personally—that we’ll be more open to the thought of gently and patiently overcoming it.

Enrolling The Philosophy Of Privilege And The Method Of Patience

We could do with a mode of living that overcomes.

When we incorporate a philosophy of privilege—and that is what our lives are: privilege—thankfulness is the situational mandate. From such thankfulness the method of patience seems natural.

When we think thankfully, patience becomes more our manner. And life is happier.

Patience to suffer well any negative thinking as the philosophy of privilege re-enters our minds ensures panic doesn’t take a corrosive hold. And the temptation to panic is tempered by the truths of privilege we allow ourselves to know, afresh.

Patience is possible in any moment, and when our days are broken down to these moments it’s not difficult to be encouraged to believe in the philosophy of privilege—we’re overcoming. We have this difficult life, yet we can overcome the difficulty one step at a time.

***

From an outlook of anxiety, when all looks difficult, and within us is a flurry of panic, we can find the freedom that exists within ourselves. We understand and accept our anxiety, and we don’t fight it. And we work on the qualities of recalling our privilege and working in patience. We slow down. We smile. We sing, if it helps.

© 2012 S. J. Wickham.