Tell people you feel weak and it encourages others who feel weak

How often have we felt ashamed of being or feeling weak?

We hear our inner critic rise up in his demonstratively raucous voice, “Look at you, you’re hopeless... [amid other things your personal inner critic says].”

Is it true that other people are only proud of us when we’re strong, when we’re achieving, when we’re easy to get along with, when we’re making a success of ourselves?  Yes, some do.  And maybe their voices are like our inner critic — i.e. important to us.

But there are other voices, and many of them.  Important voices are these!

Important because they think truth without speaking for fear that their truth won’t be honoured, just as it seems your truth isn’t honoured.

Important because these are the voices that would lift you in a heartbeat — like Sadness in Inside Out lifted Bing Bong — if only they would speak (like Sadness chose to)!  See how simple Sadness made it.  She just sat there.  She was simply present.  She didn’t try to fix anything, because there was nothing she could fix.  There was nothing to be fixed.  All that was needed was presence.

Important because these voices are the power of God through human compassion and soundwaves, giving power to the truth, making Jesus real in the moment.

We don’t like to be weak.  Nobody does.  There’s pain in weakness.  In it is all sorts of messaging that feels anything but human but feeling weak is about as human as one gets!

Imagine the strength others glean when they’re weak when just one person says, “Life is hard right now” or “today feels like hell” or “I have no drive whatsoever today” or “I cannot believe how I feel” or “I just cannot stop crying.”

There is always another person on the other side of our social media who is feeling at least a little the same way.  Our declaration of tears might meet with their being triggered, or they might feel just a teensy bit better about their anxiety attack because you said today is hard for you.

There’s no magic in encouragement.  It’s simply about being honest with each other and choosing to speak for the voice that’s quiet that you might not hear, while ignoring the inner critic and those we think might have critical thoughts toward us.

Understand and then accept your emotions right now

This article is a place marker for a progression of thoughts as they come.

First and foremost, in this day of anxiety, we have the role and opportunity to listen to ourselves, to understand what we’re feeling, as a means of accepting the emotions that are being stirred up, simply because of all that’s happening.

When our world is changing by the day, and our leaders are communicating caution in ways we’ve never really heard before, our common experience — whether we acknowledge it or not — is to begin to panic.

“What if I’m not ready... what if my vulnerable relative or I get sick... what now, having lost my job yesterday... where in the hell is this going?”

All these questions and more flood our minds and our hearts and we are swept along on a tide that goes in a direction we do not know.

Many of us will be having dreams or nightmares that speak of the unknowns.  It’s simply how the mind copes when we cannot process our thoughts in our awake time.

Now is the time to be honest.  We will get through this.  Yet we need to remind ourselves very often, “Ah, there’s anxiety again... what am I feeling and why?”

We must begin to think of our emotions as important indicators of our mental health.  Our emotions aren’t bad.  They help us know how we are really experiencing this time of sheer uncertainty.

So, don’t shut them down.  We need to find a quiet place for a few seconds simply to say, “What is it that I’m feeling... God, help me to know so I can respond to my heart and give it what it needs,” which is reassurance.  We are safe with God.

We are good for nobody, least of all ourselves, when we sink into panic.  And it happens when we take in raw information that makes us feel really scared.

Instead of panicking we can ask ourselves why is it that we are responding this way.

We get our mind curious about our breathing difficulty, muscular tension and the preoccupation of our mind on negative thoughts, amid other symptoms.  We use our mind to join together with our heart, to listen to ourselves.  To slow down.  We smile even if it feels wrong.  We feel peace ebb in as we relax our muscles.

When we listen to ourselves, then we are able to listen to others.  If we are reading this, there is high likelihood that others need us.  What a blessing to be safe harbour for others.  But we need to know where the harbour is to help from there.

We remind ourselves that what we are feeling we will continue to feel.  The feeling of shock, now that we know it, is then predictable.  It will return, but we can know that we will survive it.  However unpleasant these feelings are, we will get used to this.

We are safest when we are honest and especially when we can be honest in community, so we must stay in touch with loved ones by phone/video call right now to support and to receive support.

Photo by Nick Owuor (astro.nic.visuals) on Unsplash

These changing times will change us, but not for the worse

The ambient anxiety is palpable, but it is not affecting us the way people might expect.

So many people I’ve talked to have worried about the reactions of panicked people, but have you noticed how few they really are?  The vast majority of people are appropriately concerned — even if they weren’t represented on some crowded beach that’s now been closed.

I’ve connected with one of those Coronavirus Care Facebook pages in my city, and I’ve been astounded around the level of community cohesion that’s happening.  Sustaining it you might think would be an issue when the present crisis deepens over the coming months, but early signs are an inspiration, and I suspect an army will rise.

Very truly we’re heading into double whammy perfect storm of loss, both in terms of human and financial loss.  And yet, somehow, we as a society are standing up to attention.  We are facing this giant.  We are taking it seriously, finally.

We recognise that the only way we get through this is by pulling together.

The callous critic will, for once, be quietened down, because their day has passed.

This doesn’t mean the time and place for criticism has passed, just that people will require it to be free of cynicism.  People everywhere will be looking for leadership.  As a society, we will demand good news stories to offset the horrors, to keep us buoyant in hope and belief, and we have the ingenuity to create innovations from revelations, which is to make the best out of the worst situations, because God is with us and for us!

For the rise in the ambient anxiety there is a deepening in our typical spirituality.

Nobody’s taking life for granted right now, and that’s such a blessed reality, not that any of us is thankful for the unparalleled suffering that people are commonly bearing right now.

There’s a time coming where very many people will experience what they’re completely unprepared for.  This will mean a mobilisation is required of all those people (you know who you are) who have prepared for this very moment in history.

An army of helpers will turn up and help the depressed, the vulnerable, the desperate, and those driven deep into fear by violence.  This is the wartime many have subconsciously been waiting for.

Those who are brave, who are prepared to put people first, ahead of money and ahead of the priorities of government, will, by their faith, be the leaders of this age we’re now coming into.

The compassionate will rise in these times, because they understand and connect with suffering.  So this won’t be a time of cataclysmic catastrophe, though we will need to endure many coming nerve-rending shockwaves.

These changing times which have shocked us out of our comparative decadence will change us, but not for the worse.  As a society we will be conformed within the crucible of the suffering to come.

But it won’t defeat us.

Photo by alex bracken on Unsplash

Just a long list of ways to be kind when everyone could use some

How do we respond to these most unprecedented of times?  How do we not overreact or underreact?  What can we do to manage ourselves and to help others?

This list is something that my 6-year-old son (who is turning 7 in five days!) and I brainstormed.  We hope you like it.

The main idea is not to replicate these ideas, but to let kindness seep deep into our hearts, so when the opportunities arise, we will go with the leading of God’s Spirit to be generously kind when we can, as much as we can.

1.             Include others

2.             Be a friend to someone in need

3.             Ask if they want to play a game

4.             Actually play the game

5.             Pay more than the other person expects

6.             Give without the person knowing who gave to them

7.             Overlook an offence and smile from your heart instead

8.             Always listen to the other person

9.             Let someone who’s tired, sleep

10.          Carry some tasty food to someone who has no money

11.          Vacuum their carpet, do their dishes, scrub their bathroom floor — if it’s safe to do so

12.          Read them a book of their choice

13.          Do some research for them

14.          Video call them

15.          Have dinner with them and talk about some things — if it’s safe to do so

16.          Give them some of your (washed) clothes

17.          Leave a gift at their door with an anonymous note (ensuring it’s clean!)

18.          Wait for them out the front of somewhere (if you’re safely allowed out) so you can walk in together

19.          Offer to buy them an ice cream (if it’s a child, if they’re allowed to have it — check the parents first)

20.          Speak calmly and smile and be as non-scary as you can be

21.          Give them some pencils and paper to write or draw with

22.          Have a play date together (be creative online if need be)

23.          Sew their buttons onto their clothes for them

24.          Tell someone the time in your conversation in case they wanted to know

25.          Give them a piece of technology if they need it (cleaned, of course!)

26.          Play them a song on the piano (if you know how to do it and they would appreciate it)

27.          Give them some virtual flowers

28.          Tell them how nice they are

29.          Buy them something to eat

30.          Get them a job if you can

31.          Buy them some toilet paper or give them one of yours

32.          Share some humour with them to brighten their day

33.          Provide them with a torch or a bed or an umbrella

34.          Work together to get the job done

35.          Clean their windows — (no issues with social distancing then!)

36.          Sit with them in the same room if you can

37.          Have a coffee with them — even if a screen separates you

38.          Help them plan to buy a car

39.          Drop them off and pick them up when they need to get around

40.          Buy them a pair of shoes

41.          Just say hello

42.          Wave to people with a smile and look into their eyes instead of hugging

43.          Share you ears instead of your opinion

44.          You could pray for someone

45.          Paint one of their walls — a colour of their choice

46.          Do something for them they cannot do for themselves

47.          Notice something small that they’ve done and acknowledge it

48.          Buy them a sewing machine

49.          If you have two watches that can tell the time, give one to your friend

50.          Give them a video tour of your house

Photo by Jonas Vincent on Unsplash

Kindness and forgiveness at the most stressful time of our lives

To say we live in stressful times is an understatement, and despite so many putting on a brave face and sharing all their wonderful humour, deeper down everyone it seems gets the gravity of the COVID-19 situation.

When we are stressed what shows up most of all is the underlying anxiety we cannot alleviate. Nobody likes being anxious, and we are forgiven for feeling very uncertain in these times.

It really doesn’t matter what our faith conviction is when we face how our bank accounts will plummet or consider the possibility of losing our loved ones.

When the ambient stress levels rise so significantly like they have done, we can expect there will be even more conflict than normal:

·      on the roads, 

·      in our workplaces, 

·      in the disagreements we have about how to manage this situation, 

·      in our homes, 

·      and especially in shopping centres (of all places!).

The everyday disagreements we have with the people we know and otherwise trust put extra strain on our relationships, and if we are not committed to keeping a short account, we may put such relationships to the test.

Sometimes relationships fracture, and yes, even over a single event of disagreement!  This is always such a preventable tragedy.

And I’m sure you’ve noticed how knowledgeable we all seem to have become in that last few weeks!  (One way we can see we’ve lost our kindness is when we prove how right we are to those we’re in conversation with.  Well, we may be right but sometimes the way we say things is deadset wrong.  It reminds me how Paul said, “Knowledge puffs up while love builds up,” in 1 Corinthians 8:33.)

Now is the time when we can acknowledge how much stress we are under and how much stress others are under, and we can afford to be a little more lenient with others in terms of how hurt we feel over transgressions that we could easily forgive.

We can be kind in our responses with others, acknowledging that their responses may well be pre-packaged in understandable levels of fear.

If we are honest, and it doesn’t matter how Christian we are, we might also acknowledge that we have many things that we are uncertain of; our plans for instance, and our worries for our elderly relatives, notwithstanding the tenuous times we face financially.

One of the great things about being alive in such unprecedented times is we get to see how much a shared and cohesive humanity insists upon working together.

As we forgive each other of the uncharacteristic transgressions we do to each other, we acknowledge and accept that these indiscretions are the fear talking and the stress releasing.

As we do a kindness for someone who is otherwise being rude, we get to show them the grace that a stress-evoked response needs.  And when we’re proactive in being kind, it may alleviate another’s anxiety even if for that moment.

People just need kindness and space
right now, to think, to process, to be.

Not being able to forgive someone who has acted in an uncharacteristic way because they’re stressed simply may show us how much the stress and strain of the current situation is taking a toll on us.

We will get through these times if we work together and forgive, and as we also apologise where we need to.

More thoughts here on forgiveness and apology.

Photo by Andrea Tummons on Unsplash