That’s Me in the Corner: My Anxiety Made a Jabroni Outta Me

He was the most electrifying man in sports entertainment!

He would probably still claim that he is. He may also be running for President at some point, who knows?

In the late ’90s, as I completed my college degree at Arkansas State University, I was a wrestling fan. Well, in these parts it’s known by a slightly different name.

“Rasslin'”

I would flip between WCW and WWF events on television.

I was electrified by his charisma and banter. I didn’t need a story line. I could always “smellllll what the Rock was cookin'”. He was fun and hilarious to watch and helped get my mind off working full-time to pay my way through college as a full time student.

And when he would cock his “Peoples’ Eyebrow” just prior to unleashing “The Peoples’ Elbow”, I would jump up from my couch in delight, in my two bedroom, married-student house with a cool tile floor and a window heat and air unit … with squirrels occasionally taking up residence in the attic.

He was, and still is my favorite ‘rassler’. However, I give a solid nod to Sting, Hogan, and Goldberg as well. The Rock thrived on layin’ the smack down on jabronis.

I share this because my anxiety recently smacked me around like a jabroni.

Looking back, I can see the things I did wrong that cost me that battle. I’m talking today about those things and how I could have handled it right.

Fight or flight?

My understanding of my own anxiety starts with this basic premise. It is an exaggerated form of that choice. Anxiety makes every situation in which I feel trapped as though I’ve got to fight or flee in order to survive. When did this choice gain such a footing for me recently?

How about a once-in-a-century cold blast coupled with apocalyptical levels of snowfall?!

The situation was so bad and widespread that several states were impacted, not just my local community. We were under the threat nightly of power outages … and even had some brief rolling outages in the area … as our power systems were maxed out.

My company works in the power industry, performing repair and maintenance on power plants. I knew that with these facilities being maxed out that it would only take a couple of critical failures to plunge millions across the nation into a cold, dark, storm.

I could see on my twitter feed how bad things were in parts of Texas and was highly concerned about the same in our neck of the woods.

Fortunately, my job could be done from home so I worked remotely, using as little power as possible. I was praying continually that God would help us through what was becoming a nightmare.

However, my mind was laying the smack down on me, setting up “The People’s Elbow”. That dropped when I discovered BOTH a leak in a drain pipe in my crawl space and a frozen water line in the attic.

CRAP!

Well, that’s the cleaned up version … anyway … our family of four (two teens included) was restricted to one bathroom while waiting for the snow to stop falling and for the foot of snow to melt. The leaky drain and frozen line both impacted the master bathroom.

Fortunately, I was able to safely thaw the overhead water line without any issues. I kept a heat lamp on it until we could get some insulation. I crawled under the house and wedged the drain line joint shut. I didn’t have any glue.

I was a mental wreck.

What was going to happen next?

I filled every container I had in the house with filtered water. We hung blankets over our windows. We used candlelight. We cooked a week’s worth of food one night. But we knew that if we lost power, we lost heat, because we have only electric heating.

My anxiety was playing out every worst-case-scenario in an inescapable disaster loop in my mind. I couldn’t get myself to stop and breathe even though I knew that was the only maneuver of escape at my disposal. We were trapped until the snow stopped and melted.

Confined and panicked. The snowpacalypse hit me with “The Peoples’ Elbow”.

I was down for the pin … one … two … three … ding, ding, ding.

Why is it that admitting our failures is the most difficult thing? Those admissions arrive with built in mental and emotional torment. We can FEEL the judgment of others cascading down upon us as we share.

Talking about this now, I feel weak and ashamed, unworthy to call myself a man. Yet, I draw strength from knowing that I’m not alone and that processing this out is healing for myself and others.

One of the things I did do correctly was, well, work. I realize that sounds strange, but as I was focused on my work I wasn’t focused on my predicament.

Although, in the back of my mind, a nagging thought remained. Was I wasting necessary time working that should have been spent preparing for all of the scenarios plaguing my mind?

OK. I got it. I failed.

What did I learn about myself?

The only true failure is in learning nothing from failure.

First, I learned, or more likely was reminded, that my anxiety is triggered by feelings of entrapment. I don’t like feeling trapped and unfortunately, that feeling brings out the worst in me. I recall, as a 13-year-old, crying myself to sleep after breaking my arm because I couldn’t cope with the anxiety of being trapped in a cast.

I’m ashamed of this admission.

My “trap anxiety” doesn’t always produce negative results. Following my rotator cuff surgery a couple of years ago having my arm so restrictively bound unleashed my “trap anxiety”. However, on that occasion I was able to channel my anxious energy into my recovery and managed to get the arm back to 100% flexibility.

Second, I learned that my anxiety enjoys putting on a show of restlessness. I couldn’t stop pacing, fidgeting, wringing my hands, and just finding busy work to keep moving. I was annoying myself so I’m sure the fam was irritated by it as well. As a matter of fact, my wife told me to sit down and relax several times.

I mean, really, what was I solving in my pacing and hand-wringing?

Nothing!

I couldn’t stay asleep either.

Every little noise would awaken me from my fleeting slumber.

Third, and probably the most bothersome, I learned that my drive to protect my family was stuck in overdrive. I couldn’t control my mental attempts to solve every worst-case-scenario that came into my mind. Protecting and preserving my family became my primary task.

I kept replaying the various scenarios, rather than just REST!

It really is sad that I was completely unable to enjoy the beautiful and peaceful snowfall. Instead of relaxing on the couch, watching the flakes fall, I was pacing and stressed out.

As you can see, I failed miserably. I can find very little salvageable about this experience. Now, I’m not saying that the instinctive motivations of fight and flight and to provide for and protect my family are wrong. I’m saying that when my entire being is overcome by the anxiety over them that I’m handling them wrong.

So, what could I have done better?

For starters, especially coming from a Christ-imbued perspective, I could have just prayed. I know the verse and the promise by heart. It’s one I want to share with you guys today.

“Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time, casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you.”
-1 Peter 5:7 NASB 95

My unwillingness to be humble before God led to an increase in my anxiety. Humility is not natural for me. I want to fix issues. I want to solve problems. My lack of humility kept me from truly “casting” all of my anxiety on Christ.

The concept of “casting” is something with which I should be quite familiar.

As a life-long baseball fan and aficionado it should come natural. When you have the baseball, you THROW the baseball to the other player. You get rid of the ball. It’s no longer in your possession.

That’s what this scripture calls us to do. Throw it to God like a baseball. Let Him have it and stop being anxious over it. We have to lose possession of our anxiety in order to overcome it.

Why?

Because He cares.

He gives a crap.

Now, for the non-religious in my audience, the advice that can be drawn from this is to simply let it go. Let the anxiety end. You don’t have to be anxious to solve your problems. Let it go.

Sorry for going Disney on you. I’ll stop (chuckle).

However, thinking this through brings me to the reinforcement of this concept in scripture.

“Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
-Philippians 4:6-7

Again, I should have given my anxiety to God. I should have let it go. I’m not supposed to be anxious about anything. That’s what that whole ‘nothing’ word is about!

But, in order to let it go, often our nature requires us to replace it with something. This verse encourages us to have thanksgiving. What an amazing concept when you really think on it for a moment.

What if every time we’re anxious, we chose to stop being anxious and shift our focus onto the things that we’re happy about and thankful for instead?

As a Christian, if I spend a lot of time in thanksgiving I recognize my place in the universe. I’m humbled. My anxiety wanes.

If you aren’t a Christian and don’t believe in religious psychobabble let’s try something different. We’ve already covered step one, let go of your anxiety. Now for step two.

Focus on the positive things in your life.

It’s the same concept of giving thanks.

Anxiety points us toward all of the negatives so instead we’re going to focus on all of the positives.

The great thing is that you can start simple. If you’re breathing that is already a positive. Think about the simple things that you are happy about in your life. Stay focused. Don’t let the negative self-talk dominate this exercise.

Drawing back to that passage I can find peace, God’s overwhelming and all-surpassing peace, will protect my anxiety-drawn heart from the very anxiety with which it is plagued.

However, I don’t believe that only Christian folks can have peace.

I believe you can as well.

God designed you and desires that you have peace whether you believe in Christ or not.

When anxiety strikes, let it go, stay positive, and relax.

Relax.

What do I mean relax?!

The whole point of anxiety is the impossibility of relaxation!

True, but the interwebs are swimming with a plethora of techniques to help you get there. Find one that works for you and do it.

The next time anxiety has you on the mat, like The Rock, and kicks your arm into your side while crossing it’s arms and cocking it’s eyebrow, just know that you don’t have to remain on the mat waiting for the elbow. You can pick yourself back up.

It’s not going to be easy.

But it’s not impossible.

I’m not sure what I’m writing about next week. I’m praying and meditating over several ideas. Pray for me and keep me in your thoughts.

Grace and peace!

If you liked this post, you just might enjoy my book, What He Said: Living the Sermon on the Mount, Transforming American Culture.

If you want to follow my journey, you can read each of the previous posts below:

Part 1 – That’s Me in the Corner: Sharing My Journey

Part 2 – That’s Me in the Corner: Source of My Anxiety

Part 3 – That’s Me in the Corner: Power in Vulnerability

Part 4 – That’s Me in the Corner: Sex Turns Fatal When the Tail Wags the Dog

Part 5 – That’s Me in the Corner: My Final Baptism

Part 6 – That’s Me in the Corner: Walking in Satan’s Shoes