When your comfort zone gets shaken

It’s funny how we can literally get fought on every thing. Like just a little while back I was dealing with this tiny fear in the back of my mind that things are going pretty good, I’m feeling pretty good, there’s no way I’ll be able to keep it up. Things are going to turn upside down. I’ll be let down soon. I won’t be able to stay happy. Or keep this peace I’ve found. And honestly I’ve been just giving it a slight push when it comes along. Not really digging deep into why I’m even having the thought.

Well I’ve just recently hit a breaking point. Pushing the thought away wasn’t working this time. I felt overtaken with fear and anxiety. I read something in a book just the other day that said “Trying to control everything usually starts out as a way to manage anxiety. If you know you have everything under control, what’s there to worry about? Rather than focusing on managing your anxiety, you try controlling your environment.” And this actually helped me figure out the root of where my anxiety was coming from. There was a week in particular coming up that was going to look different than my normal routine (nothing negative, just different) and it triggered my anxiety. I was definitely not purposefully controlling my schedule and surroundings so that I wouldn’t be anxious but I didn’t realize the comfort that I had found in the previous weeks where I’d been doing so well in had become my safety zone. Which therefore made any change in a schedule or normalcy would leave me fearful of losing what I had gained.  Now I don’t think I am backtracking by any means or that I have or will lose the ground that I have gained, ACTUALLY I see it as a step that I get to take to prove that a little change won’t steal my peace. It won’t steal my joy. I can maneuver around in life, maybe a day or two gets thrown off but that doesn’t mean my stability or mindset has to.

I think it’s natural to unknowingly attach yourself to a routine or schedule that you feel like works for you, but you have to know that peace and joy does not have to be circumstantial. Actually it should NOT be circumstantial. Being strong mentally means taking on change. Taking on new. Taking on risks. Not finding a comfort zone and staying there forever. And it’s funny because you might be thinking a drastic change, of course will throw you off. But I’m not even talking about something huge or negative, I’m simply talking about a tiny change in your usual. Like the coffee shop you always go to in the mornings is closed today. Or maybe you work 5 days this week instead of 4. Do you ever experience something like this and feel like your whole day is ruined? Or your whole week is ruined now?  When you come out of a life changing struggle I think it’s very easy for you to find something that feels good or that works for you and grasp onto it like you never have anything before. But we can actually end up transferring our faith from God to the routine or thing or person that we might have experienced along finding that the growth or joy or peace. But if we have PROPERLY healed and grown then it isn’t attached to anything or anyone but God. Which means nothing and no-one can take it away from us!

I think we have to make sure we don’t fall into a pattern, and maybe even make it a point to challenge yourself to change something up so that you don’t find yourself where I did when a tiny thing was changed up on me and I felt like all the stability I had found in the past months was about to be lost. By the way… I hadn’t even experienced any anxiety(from the change) or a bad week yet this was all before hand. This was all before I even walked out the week. So it was solely based on me worrying about the future. Me worrying about what the upcoming week might could be like. I hadn’t even given the week a chance yet and I had already written it off, like it was going to be the end of me.  We cannot live like this. We can’t let anxiety overtake us and rule our lives because guess what?! Had I stayed in that mindset I can tell you for a fact that my week would have been crap. No matter how great it was, no matter the opportunity or the fun I could have had I wouldn’t have got to enjoy it at all. You can’t go into something expecting complete misery and come out all joyful and delighted. Even if you did you know you’d not allow yourself to say you enjoyed it or even recall it being great because of how worked up you got yourself over it in the first place.

So make sure you remind yourself where your peace and joy is actually coming from because it isn’t this perfect routine that you have finally figured out that keeps you satisfied. It isn’t the perfect amount of work. The perfect amount of time with your kids. The perfect amount of alone time. It’s something that you have to work on and that you have worked on. It’s grace that has swept in and gave you what you needed when you needed it. It’s God who has faithfully answered to you in the middle of the night and who will continue to no matter what the next week looks like. And let me put emphasis on it’s GOD who has provided the joy and peace that you have experienced. It’s not something that you have found on your own. Not something that you built all by yourself, although you do have to do your part. And the more of your part you do the more God can pour out even more into you.  When we take all the credit for our joy and peace we put a whole lot of weight on ourselves. Even when we take credit for our successes or accomplishments, that’s a lot to live up to. If we did all of this on our own we have a lot to keep up with. And if we have one down day we’re screwed. If we have one day we mess up or don’t stick to the norm who’s going to hold it all together? How will we continue on? That is why it is so relieving knowing that I don’t have to have it all together because I am not the savior of myself. The weight of my world is not on my shoulders. I have help.  But the sad thing is most of us don’t even pay God any attention. We try doing this life all by ourselves, even when we are hanging on by a thread, we’re trying to figure it out all on our own, and that’s not how he wants us to live. He doesn’t want us to carry our own weight, because when we only have ourselves to trust in is when fear and anxiety begin to creep in. We are human, we have off days, we weren’t made to do this all on our own so why do we? Pride. Pride says I got this. Pride says I have to take this on by myself. Pride isn’t always a cocky know it all attitude it can easily be someone who feels like they’re drowning but still feel the need to hold it together by themselves.  With all that said, I urge you to hand it over to God. The problems, the worries, the joy, the peace. So that when you can’t find it on your own you know who to go to. You always know where to go when you need a little extra peace or joy. And so that you don’t get super worked up because you feel you can’t provide what you need anymore, but instead you can go running to the one who knows exactly what you need. And who is just waiting for you to ask for it. 

Get it together by giving it all to Him. Stop trying to be the hero of your story when you’ve already been saved! Let go of pride and the anxiety will go along with it! We all put our faith in something what are you putting yours in?