Right now, there is a lot of fear pulsing through our collective veins. In talking with friends and clients, I’ve heard many people express concern for the future of their children, the future of the church, and the state of our country. On top of that, there is the fear of getting sick or passing the virus to someone who is compromised. There is no shortage of things to feel threated by today if we’re looking. I asked my 4 year old the other day what she is scared of and she replied, “Monsters.” I asked if she had ever seen a monster and she said “No, I just feel like they are here.”

The truth is that we are all fighting different monsters. We’re all pretty sure that something is around the corner, waiting to take us out. None of us are exempt from this feeling, though we experience different levels of it. So know that you are not alone.

I want to make the argument that we don’t have to make what we fear go away in order to continue to flourish as people, and to continue to move towards being the person we each want to become, to move closer to the people that God wants us to become.

But before we talk more about that, let’s FIRST talk about the function of fear or — I’d like to say — the gift of fear.

Fear is a biological response that our body has when it senses real or perceived threat. Fear is helpful and beautiful as it’s meant to help us survive and do what is necessary to stay alive. Fear tells our bodies to do everything you need to do to stay safe even if there is no actual threat to our lives. What each person experiences as threatening is completely unique to that person. One scenario will send one person into a tail spin of anxiety, while the same situation hardly affects another.

In truth, you can’t really get rid of your fear. It is hard-wired in you, and that’s a good thing. God created us this way. However, you can learn to live above it. You can learn to get “higher” than the fear you feel.

How?

You get to know it. You engage it, and get curious about how fear shows up in your life. The moment you begin to observe fear in you, you have given yourself some distance from it, a little bit of separation from it, and can begin to see from a little bit higher perspective than you could before.

And so you get know to know this fear, in the same way that you might get to know a person. What is this character like? How does it see the world? What does it want and how does it try to drive you to behave? What does it feel like in your body?

Fear moves through you in the form of biological sensations and thoughts that drive us to protect ourselves and loved ones, and you have the ability to observe it, and get curious as to the way it may lead you to act.

Here’s the thing you start noticing when you get face to face with your own rising fear. It tends to be a very one-dimensional character. Fear has a way of missing the forest for the trees and has no way of seeing the full picture. It can only see in black in white. It magnifies threat, expects the worst case-scenario and catastrophizes the future. Why? That’s its purpose. Its only job is to keep you hypervigilant so that you will stay safe, reduce your risk, and ensure your survival.

What is so profound about doing this very intentional observation of your fear is that you begin to realize that you are not the sensations of fear that run through your veins or the thoughts that run through your mind. You also are not the character that fear would have you play.

You are not a captive to it, nor are you its slave.

So get to know your fear in a non-judgmental kind of way. Acknowledge it, befriend it, extend grace to it, and it tends to calm down. It tends to lessen in intensity when we bring a watchful, kind eye to it as it arises. It feels less of a need to take control.

Anxiety and fear are contagious. Guess what else is contagious? Calm.

As a society, we collectively drink from the same pool of emotions, and everyone also contributes to it in what they bring emotionally. If you bring fear or anger towards others who are fearful (which is essentially just your fear of other people’s fear), then that is what is added and rises in the collective pool from which we all partake. If you bring calm, reason, compassion towards the fearful, then these qualities mix into the pool. The pool changes by the quality of what each of us bring. Each person is responsible for what they contribute.

In short, you don’t have to be fearless to be who you want to be. I don’t think that’s always possible. The trick is to be in a better relationship to fear. Take it with you.  Let it be in your backseat, without letting it drive.

Know that what you do matters. How you respond today matters. You are not small. You influence every person you come in contact with on a day-to-day basis. So we each must ask ourselves — what does the world need more of right now? How does God want to use you to bring heaven to earth?

Go and give that.

Sarah Walters MA, LPC-S

As parents, we all worry if we are doing what is best for our children. How many times have we all agonized over whether or not we are making the right decision for our kids? Right now, a huge question facing many families across America and creating so much anxiety within them is what to do concerning the upcoming school year.

Whether your child is in preschool or heading off to college, trying to figure out the "right" decision can seem excruciating. There are questions about safety. Will my child be safe if they go back to school? What about the issue of emotional health concerns? Will my child be OK going back to a school environment that will be completely different from what they have known? How will relationships be impacted? There is also the question of academics. Where will my kid learn the best? Will my child fall behind if I choose one option over the other? How will I manage work if I don't send my child back to school? It's enough to overwhelm any parent!

While there are no quick fixes for these challenges that we face as parents, I would love to offer a few thoughts that may help calm the anxiety around these concerns.

1. Pray. While we are facing challenging decisions and obstacles, we can take comfort and find hope in the truth that God will lead us if we seek Him. Proverbs 3:5-7 encourages us to, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths." Psalm 32:8 is a very personal reminder that God sees us and that He will lead us, "I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you." If you are married, or single, take time to seek God's guidance and wisdom with your family. As a parent, this is a wonderful way to model to your kids your commitment to your own personal spiritual growth. Pray as a family. Inviting your kids to join you in praying about the decision is a beautiful way to show them the importance of prayer and a practical way we can live out Deuteronomy 6:4-9 to our children.
   
   
2. Remember, there is no one size fits all answer. There are so many voices around this sensitive topic and many strong opinions about what is right or wrong. And let's be honest, we all like to feel like we are right; it is a way we can feel in control, especially amid such chaos. There is always a strong pull in our families, communities, and cultures to ease our anxiety and discomfort by seeking shared harmony. It just feels better to have people be like-minded. In light of this, it can be challenging to make decisions for our own family from a place of our values, beliefs, and life circumstances when it looks different from other people's choices. This week, my coworker and a close friend shared about the confusion and questioning she experienced around this issue. After deciding to send her kids back to school, she heard that 50% of families had chosen a remote learning option. After hearing this news, she began to feel anxious and question her family's decision and if she was doing what was best. Ephesians 4:12 in the Message version of the Bible is a great reminder, "But that doesn't mean you should all look and speak and act the same. Out of the generosity of Christ, each of us is given his own gift." Each family has different circumstances that will inform their decision. Our choices, like the spiritual gifts God gives us, will look different.
   
   
3. Create a plan. Regardless of your decision on how to school, prepare for the year ahead. Having a transition plan and routine for school helps parents and kids move through the unknown with less anxiety. Whether your kids are learning remotely or in person, you can begin planning for school by adjusting bedtimes, setting out clothes for the school day, and making lunches. For smaller kids, driving by the school and discussing questions they may have helps them to become familiar with their new routine. Talking about fun memories your kids have had at school and connecting them with friends through a video call ahead of time can help your child look forward to the new school year. These small steps of exposing your kids to the year ahead of time will benefit the entire family's transition. Also, planning for personal growth as a family during this season will reap benefits that will also impact their learning experience. Ephesians 5:16 encourages us to make the most of every opportunity. This verse encourages me that even in a pandemic, I can be purposeful about my personal growth and my family's growth.
   
   
4. Manage your own emotions and validate your kid's emotional experiences. I have a 22-year-old son in his senior year at Texas A&M (Whoop!). Recently, he was showing me videos and reading the school guidelines for returning to class. I noticed myself feeling fearful about the new abnormal he was returning to and how it may impact him even at 22. 

The start of a new school year under the best of circumstances brings anxiety for most parents. We may not realize when our emotional systems are revving high. Check-in with yourself. How are you doing? Just identifying our own emotional experience can help us begin to regulate it. Regulating our own stress responses as parents is a great way to help calm our family systems. Just like you, your kids are going through an array of emotions. Listening and talking with them about their experience is another beautiful way to live out God's call in Deuteronomy. 

CDC School Decision-Making Tool

Alternative School Option

Staci Reichmanis, MA, LPC

If you are anything like me recently, you too may have thought or felt that the world is spinning entirely out of control. We have suffered through the pain and challenges of the global COVID-19 pandemic, the ongoing wrongs, and sins of racial and ethnic prejudices and add to it the societal instability. It feels utterly overwhelming and hopeless at times.  

A few months back, I remember waking up feeling overwhelmed by all the chaos in the world. I vividly remember driving into work, telling myself, "Certainly today will be better," only to find that our circumstances grew worse throughout the day. Again, I told myself, "Well, tomorrow will be better," only to wake up to more pain and uncertainty. What became clear to me was that I was looking to the circumstances around me for my stability. 

The truth is we all seek certainty. Our brain craves it. Many studies have shown that we are calmer anticipating pain than uncertainty. How fascinating that uncertainty can feel scarier than actual physical pain. On some level, I think we all know this to be true. Anticipating a negative outcome can so often be harder than the result itself. I recently had a personal example of this struggle while waiting for biopsy reports to come back for my husband. In many ways, the waiting was worse than receiving the diagnosis. 

Why is this? When we face uncertainty, the brain reacts with a fight-flight response. It will often overestimate danger and triggers hormones that tell the body to watch out, leaving you anxious and worried about the future.  

So, returning to my anxiety during these uncertain times, I recognized that I was seeking certainty in my circumstances. As a believer and a mental health professional, it could be very tempting to berate myself for these experiences. Instead of ignoring or shaming myself, I asked myself, "How do I face today's challenges with gracious uncertainty?" These thoughts came to mind.

1) Remember Jesus's compassionate instructions to us. Uncertainty isn't new. As we read in the Bible, God's people faced uncertain circumstances throughout history. His disciples, those closest to Jesus, faced anxiety and fear as He told them He would be going to the Cross. With loving words, Jesus spoke to them, "Peace I leave with you; my Peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid." Remembering God's kindness and compassion toward our fear enables us to face them. I believe the degree I can meet my struggles with kindness and compassion is the degree I can offer the same to others as they struggle.

2) Clinging to God's loving word during anxiety anchors us to His faithfulness. I have heard it said of ships when they get into a storm, drop anchor and be still. Staying in the present moment keeps us from future tripping about what might or might not happen. One beautiful way to stay anchored in the present is to take God's word and literally breathe it in. I invite you to stop throughout your day, breathe in His Peace and, breathe out fear. Anchoring God's word to the breath is a beautiful way to hold on to the hope of His word.

3) Stay connected to God and His people. Did you know that when we talk to family and friends, it releases all those good oxytocin chemicals in the brain? I know you’re thinking, "You don't know my family," but it's true. God has designed us for connection, and part of that beautiful design is the benefits our brain receives from connecting with others and Him. Our Church family is also a considerable resource God has given us during these challenges. I encourage you to invite your friends and family to be a part of our online services, or if your health permits, attend one of our in-person services. This connection is vital to our hearts, souls, and minds as well.

4) Give gratitude for the fleas. What? One of my favorite stories is from the book The Hiding Place.  Corrie Ten Boons' sister is challenging her in a concentration camp to practice gratitude. What follows is a less than half-hearted prayer of gratitude for the fleas. What God makes clear later is the reality that Corrie and her sister were able to share the gospel and lead women to Christ before they died all because the guards would not enter their barracks. Later, Corrie sincerely thanked God for the fleas. Part of gratitude is the practice of thanking God amid the fleas. Gratitude may be a challenge for you right now. It's not easy, but it allows us to change our perspective, brings us back to the present, and anchors us to His love and faithfulness.

Staci Reichmanis, MA, LPC  

It doesn’t take long in quarantine for us to take a long hard look at the walls of our homes and go, “when can I get out of here?” Claustrophobia may start to set in as our normal ways of life have been taken away. For many of us, those routines and resources haven’t been replaced with certain concrete paths but rather questions, and this is actually called ambiguous loss.

These losses leave the mind spinning in “what if’s,” “maybe one-day’s,” and all sorts of questions that can’t be answered because closure seems impossible to find. It’s grief with no real way forward. When this happens, it tends to complicate our experience of grief and sometimes prolong us from working through the grief.

Let me describe some of the questions that may be circling in our minds in our current COVID-19 reality.

• The Loss of Normalcy. “What am I going to do all day?” or “How are we going to survive or be anywhere in the realm of productive in the house all together?”
• The Loss of a Sense of Safety. “When will it be safe to go to…the park, the grocery store, shopping areas, a movie theatre, or even a restaurant?” “How am I going to provide for myself or my family?”
• The Loss of Celebration. “Will I get to have a graduation?” “When will my family be able to get together again to celebrate….birthday’s, anniversaries, family historical moments, births, and even deaths?” All of these have become moments lost in COVID-19 time.

So, how can we respond to these losses? What can we do to work through them? Here are some tips for you to consider:

1. Acknowledge This IS In pain and discomfort we often want to just move past it, but this avoidance is as dangerous to our emotional health as a driver running a stop sign. Instead, we can work to practice the art of acknowledgment by “[Being] still and {knowing} that He is God” (Psalm 46:10). Here, allow yourself to name each of your losses, letting them each take their turn. The feelings that you have and your experiences are important to God, so much so that he invites you to “cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7). Our anxiety tends to dissipate and calm down under His kind, compassionate eyes. Though we can’t change our normalcy to what it once was at this time, in the stillness of acknowledgement of the pain in light of God, our grief starts to move to a good rhythm instead of feeling cluttered, lost or trapped in time.
   
   
2. Practice Self-Compassion. Self-compassion is the essence of grace and the practice of letting grace transform your life. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 12:9: “But He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weaknesses.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.” With whatever you are facing today, His grace towards you is a gift that can even transform our perspective and disposition towards ourselves. He encourages us to, “clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience”(Colossians 3:12). Clothe your mind like you would your body, with thoughts filled with grace, such as:

• “You are doing the best you can in an incredibly challenging time that was outside your control.”
• “It’s ok to pause and mourn the loss of a sense of normalcy, and actually it will do my body some good if I can pause and acknowledge before moving on.”

Another member of our counseling team wrote a wonderful blog on self-compassion that I would highly recommend you check out for more information. 

3. Take Hold of our Spiritual Strength. With any of these types of ambiguous losses, one coping skill that research has proven helps calm the waves of uncertainty is found in our faith and spiritual values. Pillars such as Psalm 46: 1“God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble” deepens our faith during difficult times. Faith has a way of serving our souls like a shelter in the midst of a raging storm. Though we may not have all the answers to our questions, at least right now, faith offers us an unchanging resource to tap into with powerful messages such as:

• You are not alone—"The Lordyour God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing” (Zeph 3:17).
• God sees me, loves me, and is with me even when these things are happening to me—"But those who hope in the Lordwill renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint” (Isaiah 40:31).
• God can even use this hardship to shape me in positive, transformational ways—"For we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28).

All of those messages bring us a sense of comfort when we are faced with adversity and uncertainty. It is there that you can find security in something higher than medical supplies or aisles filled with food. It is there that you can make meaningful routines that keep you grounded and taking things one day at a time, surrendering the things we can’t control and taking ownership where we can.

4. Find A Way to Celebrate What Was Lost
   We have all lost some sort of celebration during this time, and we can encourage one another as well as deepen and strengthen our relationships with one by finding ways to make up for what was lost. Scripture calls us to “rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep” (Romans 12:15). One way you can do that is by creating some “Redo’s” for post-quarantine life. This will not only help us identify what we are experiencing, but it will give us something to dream about, look forward to, and create. One of our team members, Amanda Tipps, gave parents some great ideas to do this in her blog.

Extra Resources

Tips on grounding yourself in uncertainty, check out Sarah Walters, LPC blog  

How to Manage Your Mental Health during the COVID-19 Season, Staci Reichmanis, LPC blog.

For more information on Grief, check out this website: https://www.psycom.net/depression.central.grief.html

My wife shared a great Facebook post with me the other day, and I can't stop thinking about it. The post compared our common experience of stay-at-home to riding out a storm. The fascinating point is this: we're all experiencing a storm, but we're not all experiencing the same storm.

partly cloudy

For some of us, this is a period of rejuvenation. Life's pace is slowing down a little bit, priorities are becoming clearer, and we're using technology to connect with friends and family. This seems less like a storm, and more like those times when the rain clouds kind of lighten up, and the sun's rays shine through.

heavy rain

For others, we're waiting for a break in the weather; the rain is present, but maybe not constant. We're ready for the rain to stop and, sometimes, grateful for the refreshment. We're enjoying having dinner as a family every night. Watching movies and playing games. Taking walks. Riding bikes. We're thankful for the opportunity to spend time together, and, if we're honest, kind of ready to have some of our old routine back.

thunderstorm

Then there's the thunderstorm: some of us are haunted by loud, ominous clouds of anxiety or anger. The people we live with are driving us batty and we're fairly certain that we can't stand another day with them. And, of course, we can't focus on anything other than the news. Or our aging parents. Or our children. Or our grandchildren. Or groceries. Or...

hurricane

Still others of us are feeling helpless and hopeless, watching as the hurricane tears apart the life we've built. The roof is coming off, the foundation is washing away, and we can't find any way to stop the damage. Our marriage is crumbling, our kids are floundering, and our incomes and savings are disappearing.

a spectrum of experience

This storm is a wide spectrum of experience - and you may find yourself at many points on that spectrum throughout the day. One minute, you're delighted to be connecting with a friend on FaceTime, and the next you're screaming at your kids and beating yourself up over it. (I know because I'm having that experience, too.)

But here's something we should all remember: all of these experiences are normal, as is everything in between. Feeling these things makes sense in our current climate - but that doesn't mean we're out of options.

Consider what your storm looks like; review these resources and ideas, and, even though it might seem silly, give some a try. You might be surprised.