Interrupt Anxiety with 10 Minutes of Stillness

 

Two days ago I shared some of my tangled story with anxiety on instagram. Click here for the link. I also gave a 59 second introduction to a practice I call #10minutesofstillness the day before. Watch here. A few asked for more. I’m listening.

(Full video explaining the 10 Minutes of Stillness is at the bottom of the email.)

The story behind #10minutesofstillness:

Andrew and I had been serving shoulder to shoulder with this people for nine years on the edge of Lake Michigan when an argument threatened to scatter our parish. Two families sat on opposite sides of the aisle.

They were [are] beautiful people. Stunning. It was a privilege to minister with them, a privilege to place the Eucharist inside their empty palms, a privilege to throw burgers on the grill and play corn hole in the summer, a privilege to do kingdom work.

 

Together. Nine years. It was a lot of life, a lot of life done side by side.

 

You know the story. An argument becomes a lightening rod for fear and then all of a sudden people who have prayed and cried together, fought and stood together are no longer talking. Worse yet, they ARE talking, just not to you.

 

Sunday mornings they make excuses to stay home.

 

That summer we were afraid our small outpost of the Kingdom was going to be crushed with a devastating wave…in slow motion. Our livelihood, our home, our life in this small picturesque town was about to fall crashing down.

 

Ashes. Ashes.

 

Those two months I woke with my jaw tight with anxiety. I ate anxiety with my mini-wheats. I walked down the sidewalks toward the Farmer’s Market gripping anxiety tighter than the bags I brought home.

 

Until I began practicing these two things, #10minutesofstillness and Ann Voskamp’s gratitude practice in her book, One Thousand Gifts.

 

But here’s the thing, my anxiety was so debilitating that I needed an on-ramp to gratitude. Anxiety had me caught by the ankles. I couldn’t jump into gratitude. I was stuck in a swirl of fear.

 

But, I could sit down and run my fingers through the grass.  I could sit down and open my ears to the creaking of the swing as it went back and forth as my little girl pumped her legs. I could lie back and watch one puff of cloud make its way across the sky.

 

 

I could lay back onto the earth taking my place in it.

I am dust and to dust I will return and sometimes the stuff of earth as we turn it over in our hands, smelling the damp soil, becomes a doorway to peace.

The on-ramp to gratitude turned out to be something I could literally taste and touch, a grounding in the senses. One sense. One minute. No judging. No making meaning. Just information. I began to retrain my brain to stop spinning and rest.

The ten minutes:
1. hearing
2. sight
3. touch
4. smell
5. taste
6 All five at once
7-8 Gratitude
9-10 Practicing His Presence

When I moved into gratitude, I staggered into a feast but what I was not expecting was that this on-ramp would deepen my ability to experience the present moment. I was Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz going from black and white to technicolor.

 

And did you know that gratitude and our capacity for relationship are smack dab right next to each other in the brain?

Gratitude ushers in relationship. 

Enter His gates with thanksgiving. It’s all making sense now.

These simple gratitudes were like laying out a placemat right next to me, setting the table. I would point out gifts and find He had pulled out a chair and sat right down. And when we walk with the Presence, the layers of hell all smooth right out and we find we’re walking the streets of heaven.

Because wherever we find the King, the Kingdom is near.

And this precious church? One day those simple words, “I love you,” became an electrical shock and life rushed right back in.

We witnessed resurrection.

And friends? I wish you could have been there the following Sunday. The welcome. The hugs. The words, “Peace be with you” “and also with you” spoken while looking into each others eyes, tears streaming. Corporate repentance. True, beautiful, humility. Then we resealed our communion as we shared the common cup.

And I could have held my breath that whole time. I could have lost an entire summer. But this: at night I would sit on the back porch with a hot tea in my hand, a cool breeze playing around my shoulders, and with my head back searching for a shooting star. And whether I saw one or not, the truth is that I was present. I sat down in the canvas of a captain’s chair and my anxiety was forgotten…for at least ten minutes. And the next day? Twenty. And the next? A few glorious hours free.

 

 

Read more about the practice of #10minutes of stillness:
Going from Stressed to Rest
and
The Simple Genius Plan to Create Calm in Chaos

If you want more Ten Minutes of Stillness and a video to lead you through or access to my weekly lectio divina ministry subscribe on the right or shoot me an email at mtrsummer@gmail.com .