How the Disasters Affected Me

Last September, I was invited by my local church leaders to attend a preparedness workshop offered by the city of San Antonio, TX. At this meeting I learned about the plans the city has to prepare for disasters. I learned about different recent disasters and how to get notifications during upcoming disasters. I also signed up to volunteer with the Red Cross. At the time, my local church leaders were also encouraging us to be more active in our communities.

Damage to a home in Port Aransas, TX after Hurricane Harvey

I trace my involvement with the Red Cross to these events but in addition, I must mention that I attribute divine intervention to my choice to volunteer at this time since I have so many young children at home. In December or January, I began to wonder what kind of disaster God was planning to send on my area. Not knowing the answer, I held that thought.

In August, we had three hurricanes hit the United States one after the other. In addition, Mexico experienced two earthquakes greater than 6.5 magnitude on the richter scale. Then we had a series of fires in California that burned many acres and displaced 100,000 people. While each disaster was regional, the effect was far reaching. Every disaster affected the local population as well as the family and friends who live elsewhere. In a sense, they have affected all of us. As one friend posted on Facebook before Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico, “I don’t know if I have the emotional energy to handle another hurricane.”

Self Esteem Is a Choice

A rainbow is a projection of light through water droplets

Self esteem is often acquired as a child from the opinions of others. We see ourselves as a projection of our parents approval. Thus, if my parents approve, I am good. In the dating years, we can’t help but place value on the reaction of our beloved to the projection of our self. In both cases, the projection is not the true self. Our parents approval projects to us a level of competency just above where we currently are which makes us think that where we are is not good enough. Our beloved’s approval is based on what parts of our self we choose to reveal. The beloved may or may not value what we reveal. We take a risk in revealing and then are crushed by the rejection that often happens.

True self esteem is just as it says esteem of self. It cannot come from the projections of others. It is self validation based on personal goals and achievements that we alone recognize as such. We choose to self validate or to continually push for outside approval. 

The Battle of Jericho Revisited

Joshua led the Israelites in a decisive battle against the walled city Jericho.  After sending spies in to scope it out, he received divine help in overthrowing it.  His instructions were to march with the Ark of the Covenant around the city once a day for six days.  On the seventh day he was to march around the city with the Ark of the Covenant seven times and on the seventh time, the shofar (ram’s-horn trumpet) was to be blown and the people were to yell loudly.  Miraculously the walls fell down.  This event became memorialized in the Jewish calendar as the Feast of Trumpets.

I want to explore how this story could be applied allegorically to other situations.  There are many kinds of walls.  We build them to protect ourselves.  (See Hiding from Love by John Townsend).  Sometimes the walls we build end up inhibiting our freedom to move forward in life.  

For example: I have a fear of being abandoned.  So when I meet a new person that I’d like to have for a friend, I experience anxiety at the thought of rejection.  I approach friendship tentatively.  If there is any competition, I withdraw.  This fear has become ridiculous in that it prevents me from present happiness.

In order to break down the wall of fear, I might need to circle the problem.  I might read a book on the subject.  And reading can give essential insights into difficult problems, but it might take more circling.  I might need to consider my self-defeating thoughts.  I might need to accept my characteristics which are off-putting and decide that whatever others think, I love myself.  I might need to set some goals for meeting people and learning to be vulnerable (See Daring Greatly by Brene Brown).  And still, the walls may not come down.  

How many of us give up when one or two of our solutions are unsuccessful?

And what about that going seven times on the seventh day around the wall?  As we become more and more focused on a problem, we begin to gain emotional momentum.  This momentum is in the faith and hope needed to overcome the wall (See Getting Unstuck by Pema Chodron).  When we yell, with God’s help, the wall will come down.  

I think that often we have conflicting motives.  We want something but another desire conflicts with it in some way.  The yell that brings down walls comes from the unified voices of all our desires.  No longer are we conflicted.  No longer is there anything else that we want.  

God works miracles when we are finally ready.

Image credit:  By the Providence Lithograph Company [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Is Longsuffering a Virtue?

In this post:  Spiritual help to control emotions, using logic to overcome anxiety

I don’t think that it’s a virtue to suffer.  I think there are a few virtues that are developed in longsuffering.  This post is about one of the virtues that I found.

Long-suffering is mentioned in the Bible usually in a string of virtues like this one…

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith”

Galatians 5:22

Everything sounds happy — except that long-suffering stuff.

From my life...

So my kids can sometimes drive me crazy when they try to do a task and need so much help that it would have been faster if I’d done it myself.  Like the time one of my kids was assigned to put away the food processor.  He took it apart, put the base away and asked where I wanted the bowl.  Well of course they are stored together.  However he couldn’t get the bowl to attach to the base because there is a safety mechanism in the lid.  And then he couldn’t get the whole thing into the cupboard without jamming it in sideways and when it looked like he was going to break it the way he was messing with it, I about lost my temper.  You know, expensive tool — dumb kid.

So after getting a bit miffed, I took myself aside for some emotional self-regulation.  In this case, I did some fine motor detailing of my toenails with a paintbrush.  Another time, I took myself for a walk.  These are strategies for dealing with emotional flooding.  Everyone gets angry.  Not everyone knows how to recognize the signs of flooding and what to do next.  When you stop at the first sign of flooding and give your amygdala a chance to calm down, you are exercising a virtue of emotional self-control.  It is this virtue that, I think, is behind longsuffering.  When I retain control of my emotions, I can suffer long without suffering.  It’s an amazing power, if you think about it.

In the Bible verse I quoted, it says that the Spirit helps us to be longsuffering.  I stay close to God and the love that flows from Him and when life gets bad, He’ll help me to remember to stay in control of my emotions.  

The reason fine motor skills help when trying to self-regulate is that concentration at a detailed level uses the left hemisphere of the brain and shuts down the emotionally flooded right hemisphere.  A long walk helps to release endorphins but it also gives me the chance to breathe slowly and realize that I’m no longer in a high stress situation.  The amygdala is no longer needed and my reason returns.  Even just turning on a fan and listening intently to the white noise of it’s motor whirring can calm the emotional side.

I’m a novice at this virtue.  I can see that my anger is unhelpful.  I can sometimes see when I’m “flooded.”  I have started to practice the self-regulation techniques above.  I can see that they help.  I wish I could self-regulate to the level that I didn’t let my voice even show the least bit of annoyance.  That would be awesome!  

Read more by searching “emotional flooding” or read this article...

Watch Out for Emotional Flooding

Why Asking is Healthy

In this post:  Healthy responses to a need, squatting in neediness, anxiety builds up, trusting God

My 6 year old daughter started to cry this morning.  
“Mom,” she said, “I couldn’t do my job yesterday because I don’t know how.”  
“What is your job?” I said.  
“Sweeping the kitchen.”  
“Sweeping the kitchen is fun because…uh…you get to sing while you do it.  Let me show you.”

She learned to sweep today and she taught me something.  If she had asked for help yesterday, she wouldn’t have felt sad enough to cry today.

Asking is a healthy response to a need or want.  Murmuring is a toxic response to a need or want.  

The Children of Israel were expert murmurers. “And the children of Israel spake unto Moses, saying, Behold, we die, we perish, we all perish.” (Num 17:12)  They were squatting in a state of neediness instead of building the reality they needed or wanted.

Nephi, a Book of Mormon prophet, showed us a healthy response to unmet needs.  “Nevertheless, I did look unto my God, and I did praise him all the day long; and I did not murmur against the Lord because of mine afflictions.” (1 Ne 18:16)  He both looked to God and expressed gratitude.

Sometimes we need peace and it is the one thing we don’t have in life.  If we ask God for peace in a specific form and He offers us peace in another form, we still don’t have what we want —but we have what we need for now.  If we don’t ask, the resentment or anxiety builds up.  We cry.  Maybe we don’t cry today or tomorrow.  Maybe we hold it in, but eventually the stress comes out of our mouth.  How often does it come out in a complaint?

Murmurers are people who don’t ask, they complain.  

Asking the right question can be as important as asking.  There are children who rigidly ask for one thing over and over whether or not it’s good for them.  Like candy.  If I gave my kids candy every time they asked for food, they would not be healthy.  I offer them food in another form.

In the book of James it says, “Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.”  (James 4:3)  Surely God knows when his children ask for things that would not be healthy for them.  He would not be God if he unwisely gave us everything we asked for.  We have to trust him.  As we ask, we don’t squat in neediness, but we look for ways to build the reality we need.  God often guides us to build rather than coming down and building for us.

Beaver courtesy Papapishu

There’s a great little story to illustrate asking the right question in the book, The Phantom Tollbooth.
“‘Why did you know that if a beaver two feet long with a tail a foot and a half long can build a dam twelve feet high and six feet wide in two days, all you would need to build a Boulder Dam is a beaver sixty-eight feet long with a fifty-one-foot tail?’
“‘Where would you find a beaver that big?’ grumbled the Humbug as his pencil point snapped.  
“‘I’m sure I don’t know.’ he replied, ‘but if you did, you’d certainly know what to do with him.
“‘That’s absurd,’ objected Milo, whose head was spinning from all the numbers and questions.
“‘That may be true,’ he acknowledged, ‘but it’s completely accurate, and as long as the answer is right, who cares if the question is wrong?  If you want sense, you’ll have to make it yourself.’” (Phantom Tollbooth p. 175)

If the question is wrong, it doesn’t matter if we have the right answer.  But even the wrong question is better than no question.  By asking, we are starting to use our brains.  We are starting to think.  Creativity gets going and we find we have multiple possibilities each of which might work.  

Some questions won’t get resolved in this life.  Many people have a list of questions to ask God when they get back home.  Even without “the answer” God can give us peace in another form and we can practice trusting him.  Our ability to trust him makes it possible for him to guide us to the right question.

Challenge:  Today stop and listen to a complaint and turn it into the right question.