Embracing Anxiety

Get to begin a two part series this morning.

Real health and authentic well-being.

Emphasis on real and authentic.

Real health and authentic well-being.

Because I don't know about you,

But one of the things that has kept me from real and authentic health and well-being is superficial health and well-being.

What I think health and well-being is supposed to look like.

And yet I've learned over time that part of real and authentic health and well-being is recognizing your limitations.

I acknowledge that I will probably never look like Brad Pitt.

I left it open with a probably,

But probably not.

There's probably always going to be some measurement system out there that tells me I'm overweight.

I will probably never get to bed every night at 10.

30.

I have an impatient streak that probably won't go away.

It's kind of nice to admit these things.

It's a curious paradox,

But sometimes when you admit your insecurities,

It's the fastest path to a sense of security.

Have you ever noticed that?

On that note,

I'd like to confess a few things.

I'll confess a few insecurities with you this morning.

The first is that I am not a perfect person.

Now I know you know that about me,

And God knows I know it about myself,

And yet I can't help but always try to be perfect in so much of what I do,

Often exhausting my health and well-being.

Two,

I desire very much to be close with you.

But I am afraid to be intimate with you.

I'm afraid that I might say something that could offend you,

Or that if you saw the real real me,

You might not like what you see.

And lastly,

I'd like to confess to you today that I am often terribly not present.

I love to be with you.

I want to listen to you,

And yet I struggle to give you my full attention because I get distracted in what's coming up and what's happened.

It's very hard for me to be present.

Oh,

I feel so much better.

Do you relate with any of those?

Yeah,

Do you have some of those too?

Again,

When we can admit our insecurities,

It can sometimes add to our sense of security.

Real health and well-being is about accepting our limitations and even,

As I'm talking about today,

Embracing them.

We also want a real and authentic spirituality.

We don't want a superficial spirituality that thinks that being spiritual is all about having God erase every challenge in our lives so that we can live a carefree existence.

I love something that I read from Martin Luther King Jr.

Once.

He said,

A positive religious faith does not offer us an illusion that we shall be exempt from pain and suffering,

Nor does it imbue us with the idea that life is a drama of unalloyed comfort and untroubled ease,

As good as that sounds.

Rather,

It instills in us the inner equilibrium needed to face strains,

Burdens,

And fears that inevitably come and assures us that the universe is trustworthy and that God is concerned.

Our spirituality is a positive one,

But it's also a pragmatic one.

And I'm not saying be your challenges.

I'm not saying become your anxiety today.

I'm saying befriend them.

I'm saying embrace,

Especially this term anxiety so big in our culture today,

Because when we really listen to it and understand it,

It too can propel us into a greater way of living and success.

In the early 1950s,

Alan Watts wrote a book called The Wisdom of Insecurity.

Good title,

Right?

And it speaks so much to the age of anxiety.

And yes,

There was a lot of scary things going on in the world at that time,

But it was also a time of a great increase in individual consciousness.

So it's so wonderful to be more aware of what makes us happy and joyful and pleasurable.

And yet the other side of that is the more conscious you are,

The more conscious you are of pain or of sadness.

So it can create a lot of anxiety.

I think that we live in a new age of anxiety in the sense that there's so much going on around us.

These pandemic times,

Whether you wear a mask right now or haven't worn one in over a year,

It can create a lot of anxiety,

Right?

The political divisiveness and the fringe politics that can cause us to lack trust or even destroy certain institutions around us,

Global warming so much.

It's like Noam Chomsky said,

Paraphrasing,

If you're not a little bit anxious,

You're probably not paying attention,

Right?

There's a lot to be anxious about.

And yet we shouldn't try to push that away.

There can be some power in listening to every aspect of ourselves,

Even the fearful voices,

To find greater strength.

Judson Brewer has a new book out called Unwinding Anxiety.

Unwinding Anxiety.

And here's a doctor with all the know-how in the world,

Knowledge of drugs,

Etc.

,

Etc.

,

Every way that you can treat anxiety.

And he keeps going back to the number one tool,

Mindfulness.

Mindfulness.

Don't just do something,

He says,

Sit there.

And the first thing that he calls us to is to become aware of those things that trigger anxiety for you.

Do you know what some of those are for you?

What triggers your anxiety?

For me,

Feeling like my plate is over full and I'm not going to get everything done?

Yeah.

Someone's being snippy with me.

What else?

What is it for you?

It's an interactive service today,

Folks.

What do you got?

Medications.

Medications?

In patients.

I'm sorry?

Traveling.

The news.

Being around people.

Sorry,

Dear.

You're in trouble this morning.

Yes.

So be aware of those triggers.

And here's a little homework.

Actually,

Spend some time today.

What are those things that trigger your anxiety?

And you maybe even feel that anxiety come up.

It's a safe place.

What's that come up?

And then what is the behavior you engage in in response to that anxiety?

You know,

That three Oreo limit becomes eight for me.

That glass of wine becomes most of the bottle of wine.

Someone's impatient with me.

I'm impatient with them.

I get grumpy.

I withdraw.

I allow anxiety to possess me instead of possessing it.

What is it for you?

Distracted,

Yeah.

Hard to be present.

What was that over there?

Anger.

Insomnia.

Oh,

Yeah.

Anxiety.

Oh,

I can feel it all.

And what Brewer really invites us to do is when that anxiety is triggered,

Whether you engage in the behavior or not,

Just be mindful.

Just be aware.

Because for a lot of us,

That behavior,

Which may have initially felt healthy for us,

It maybe helped us,

Can sometimes increase that anxiety.

Because he then asks us to think about what's the result.

Too many cookies.

I got a stomach ache.

I don't get enough sleep.

I'm an angry version of myself.

I'm not who I really am.

I'm distracted and not present.

We can begin to be conscious,

Even if we're engaging in the unhealthy behavior of how it is really making us feel,

So that when we keep getting triggered,

We can make a better choice.

It's not the anxiety's fault.

It's the response and the reaction.

I love something Brewer says.

He says,

When conditions happen,

I think of the mind-brain as more akin to a violin string that has gone slightly out of tune.

In this situation,

We don't label the instrument as defective and throw it away.

Stay away from your trash cans,

Ladies and gentlemen.

But instead,

Listen to what is wrong and tighten or loosen the strings a bit so we can continue making music.

Let nothing take you away from bringing yourself into harmony.

And to be able to have the trust in yourself,

To know that even if something scary comes up,

There's something to befriend there and listen.

Because the heart of who you are is working for you and not against you.

Can you know that for yourself?

I am working for me and not against me.

And anxiety at that point becomes no longer the raging monster that's possessing our lives,

But it becomes the call to listen,

The call to be more mindful,

The call to be more present.

Going back to those three confessions I made to you earlier,

I want to use them or transform them into tips for better embracing anxiety and living a better life.

And so the first tip is to learn to be perfectly imperfect.

Learn to be perfectly imperfect.

What a mess.

This is perfect.

And we're science of mind people,

Which means that we believe in the underlining divine perfection back of everything.

Doesn't mean we think everything's perfect.

I like how the Buddhist teacher,

Shunru Suzuki,

Said it.

He said,

Nothing we see or hear is perfect,

But right there is perfect reality.

And as spiritual practitioners,

I know this may sound a little mystical or weird,

Part of our calling is to cultivate a spiritual awareness,

Awareness of the sacred,

Awareness of that underlining perfection,

And to consciously weave it through the messes of life.

Constantly weave it through conflicts and relationships,

Constantly sew it in,

Even in the midst of a challenge.

And as we bring awareness of the divine perfection,

It can result in a kind of grace and a type of harmony and unity that can help us live better lives.

Almost a lifelong congregant here at Mile High Church is Nicole Dolby,

An incredible individual.

How many people know Nicole?

She's going to be here today.

Her family is watching on TV,

And I'd like to ask them,

I know she's watching right now,

What it feels like to be in the room right now with a published author of an incredible book called The Courage to Be You.

And it's life strategies,

But even better,

It's life stories from Nicole that have helped her have and find the courage to be her best self in life.

There she is.

And she just tells a simple story of when she was a kid going to her friend Veronica's house to make blue slushies.

And they get all the stuff in the blender,

And it's not quite blending.

And so Veronica takes a spatula and sticks it right in,

And blue slushie went everywhere.

It was all over us,

The ceiling,

The counters,

The oven,

The floor,

The stovetop,

The cereal boxes on top of the fridge,

The kitchen table and chairs,

The cabinets.

I'm pretty sure we found some on the outside of the windows.

It took over two hours to clean everything,

Which felt like an eternity.

When we were scrubbing the floors,

But at the end of the day,

No one was hurt,

The kitchen looked spotless,

And Veronica's mom took us to 7-Eleven when we finished to buy us new slushies.

What has seemed like a catastrophe led to some good laughs and a funny story to tell as we got older.

She's learned a great message in ministry,

Which is all of your screw-ups and mistakes become wonderful sermon material later on.

Nicole goes on,

The lesson I learned?

Life is messy.

We can choose to cry about the messes we make and feel helpless,

Or we can laugh at ourselves and remember not to stick a spatula in a moving blender next time.

Let us not take the messes of our lives as signs that there's something wrong with who we are,

But as opportunities to be aware of the good that is in life,

The resilience that is within us,

And step into cleaning up that mess with clarity and confidence being in it but not of it.

That's one of the biggest mistakes we can make with challenge as well.

Do you know that if you have a challenge in your life that that is not a negative statement about who you are?

That it is that opportunity to demonstrate that best that is within you.

So embrace the mess.

Doesn't mean we have to like it,

But know they're going to happen and step into them with greater clarity and with a better version of yourself.

Secondly,

Use your fear of intimacy to bring you closer to those around you.

Again,

Sometimes admitting an insecurity can help lead to greater intimacy,

To greater closeness.

There are so many different versions out there that describe the many layers of ourselves.

I enjoy all of them in religion and in psychology,

But the one that's probably most meaningful to me comes from the poet Mary Oliver.

And she says that there are three aspects of ourselves.

The first is the child that we work.

The child that I was.

And everything that has ever happened to that child has happened.

Things that he wasn't at choice about.

Experiences of hurt or rejection or abandonment.

And that hurt,

It can become less loud over time when we do our spiritual work,

But in some ways it never goes away.

And it can be triggered.

It can be brought forth.

The child that we were.

And in some ways we can never heal that child,

Although we can heal our relationship with that child,

She would argue.

Second,

We have our social self.

That's the self of cocktail parties,

Of spiritual community,

Of social media,

Of our work life.

And this is a very manufactured,

Although we can do it authentically.

I love another term Alan Watts used to use called being a genuine fake.

I'm always working on being a good genuine fake.

But that social structure is an important part of who we are.

And the third,

And this is the one I love the most,

She describes as that part of us that longs for the eternal.

That each and every one of us has a part of ourselves that longs for the eternal.

That sacred self.

That spiritual self that seeks to experience its unity with the divine.

So that child that we were has anxieties that can be triggered at any time.

And if we could find the courage to communicate in our own way with someone that we're getting closer with,

That that is up for us,

It can bring us closer together.

Doesn't mean there's anything wrong in the moment.

It just means that something is actually coming up to pay attention to,

To love,

To give compassion to ourselves and let other people in so that they can love that inner child too.

The social anxieties I would argue are all self-created.

It's how we're living.

And so by looking at our self-image,

Remembering the truth of who we are,

Taking more responsibility,

Having wiser,

More compassionate responses to ourselves can help us unwind from those anxieties in a way that they can be greatly limited in our lives.

And then there's that spiritual part of us,

That part of us that's always longing for the eternal,

That transcends all anxiety.

It's so important spiritually to know that there is a part of you that is free from all fear,

From all challenge,

From all difficulty,

That can observe it without judgment but is always at one with that infinite grace.

And when we can remember that part of ourselves,

It doesn't erase all the other anxieties,

But allows us to hold ourselves in it in a kind of wholeness that can bring a greater harmony and way of living into our daily experience.

Accept all those aspects of who you are.

Lastly,

A little tool that I use for myself.

Whenever I am not now,

I am in distrust.

Whenever I am now,

I am in trust.

Think about it.

How many of us are thinking about what's for lunch?

What's going on later?

What happened yesterday?

It's important to think of all these things but sometimes recognize that a general anxiety can be kind of a defense mechanism against being in the now.

Whenever I'm not now,

I'm distracted or I'm somewhere else,

I'm in a place of distrust of this moment.

And when I am in now,

It's weird.

It's like there's these greater layers of my being that are in process that I don't have to do.

I'm just called to live.

I'm just called to be present.

And all of the stuff that I'm worrying about all the other time,

There's other intelligence and other aspects of me that is working to bring about the best results if I don't stick the damn spatula in the middle of the blender.

So to be present for me is to be in trust,

To know that there's that power greater than I am operating at all times.

And to be in not now is to think I need to be in control or I need to fix or that there's something wrong with now when there never really is.

And what I would argue is this thing called anxiety changes when we're in a place of not now versus when we're in a place of now.

When we're in not now and anxiety takes us out of the present moment,

It controls us instead of us controlling it.

But when we're in now,

Anxiety becomes a kind of alarm clock to listen,

To be present,

To help us be a better who we are.

Gangaji,

A great spiritual teacher,

Was once holding a satsang,

Kind of a group of students that come together and ask questions.

And a young man asked about overcoming overwhelming fear that he was experiencing.

And she said,

Tell me what the fear feels like.

And he went on to tell her and share all the stories about the fear and the damage it was doing in his life.

No,

No,

No,

No.

What does it feel like in your body right here and right now?

And he said,

I kind of feel it right here somewhere in my gut.

Yes,

It's this little tinge.

And he goes on,

He's wanting to talk about it more.

And she says,

No,

No,

No,

Just describe it for me.

And he goes,

It's just this little tinge.

It's like this little tickle.

And he starts laughing.

He starts laughing uncontrollably because he realizes in a moment all of the damage that he's allowed this little tickle to create in his life.

Maybe there's tears of joy and tears of sorrow.

But it shows you the stories,

The identities that we can sometimes build around our anxieties that are hurting us.

And if we can just come present to feel the tinge,

To know we're powerful enough to recognize it,

To listen to what it has to tell us about our life and who we are,

And then to keep moving forward.

What did Brendan Behan said?

He said,

Our fears are paper tissue thin,

And a single act of courage would allow us to walk right through them.

And that ability to be present and to be now gives us all that ability we need to do just that.

I think Rainer Maria Rilke was right when he said,

Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act just once with beauty and courage.

Perhaps everything that frightens us is,

In its own deepest essence,

Something helpless that wants our love.