Stress has become unbearable within the last year so I decided to seek counseling and tools to help me manage it better. Here are the things that are causing me stress maybe they might be something you can identify with.

• The seemingly never ending saga of my tracheal stenosis. Needing surgery every 3 months in order to keep my airway open. Talk about exhausting.
• Feeling stuck in a perpetual wheel of starting moving my body and eating well and then slam into the same wall of defeat of my trachea and breathing issues when I have to stop.
• The emotions of dealing with my health conditions. All of them, Wegener’s, RA, and tracheal stenosis.
• Money, of course, money.
• Fighting the two sides of my mind, one I call the warrior woman Jamie and the other I call vulnerable Jamie.
• Using food to deal with my emotions.

I’m sick and tired feeling like a victim of my body and mind. This week I woke up angry, really angry. I talked to God in my journal about it. I feel much better. I’m learning to allow the anger to come and let it out and be still at the same time. It isn’t easy. I struggle.

My counselor recommended a couple of tools to help me practice being still. I’m going to talk about one of those tools now, meditation. Although, my counselor is not a Christian, and I am. I use my belief of Jesus when she tells me to be still, to meditate. God tells us in his word to be still and know that he is God. That is meditating.

Since all I know about meditating is the negative connotations that I have listened to in my conservative Christian upbringing. I decided to do a bit of research on what meditating actually is and how it helps the mind and body.  I also talked to God about it. This is what I learned.

Meditating is an act of connecting your mind and body through being still and breathing and sometimes movement. You listen to your breathing, you listen to your body and become aware of your surroundings. You are present in the now and not the past or the future.  There are many types of meditation. They are: guided meditations (where someone talks you through the process), Mantra Meditations (where you say one word or phrase over and over again), mindfulness meditation (where you focus on your breathing and your body), Qu-gong (an Asian exercise you do slowly and with breathing), Tai-chi (another Asian exercise practice you do slowly and with breathing), and Yoga (an exercise from India that you do poses while breathing and focusing).

The benefits include: Changing your perspective on a stressful situation that is going on. Becoming self-aware of your surroundings and emotions and listening to Jesus. Taking the opportunity to focus on what you are doing now and not living in the past or the future. Having negative thoughts disappear and becoming calm and hopeful.

My experience so far, when I did my first meditation with my counselor in her office I felt better. I didn’t feel nervous afterwards. I was calm and relaxed. When I got home I downloaded a couple of apps onto my tablet that I found. One of them I did not like. The other one was the sounds of nature. My favorites are the ocean and the rain. Taking 5 minutes to sit, close my eyes, listen to the rain fall, or a whale sing, or the water crash onto the shore brings a since of inner peace. I hear God better. I feel ready to tackle whatever stressful decision or project I need to get done for my day. This is an amazing tool for my toolbox.

I’m learning to slow down, to allow myself to be vulnerable. It is time to allow Jesus into my heart fully and let Him heal my wounds. I have a hard time being vulnerable. I know that I need to in order to release my pain and become the warrior that God created me to be. Let me be clear, I am still struggling. I cry. I scream. I cuss up a storm. I eat to feel better. I sometimes don’t want to face another surgery and just say screw it. I’m learning that those feelings are okay. That my frustrations are okay to express. The sin comes when you allow the emotions to destroy your relationships, destroy yourself, or destroy the assignments that God places in front of you daily.

My question to you my dear reader, how do you become still and know that God is God?

Here are some apps I found for meditation:

Head Space

Calm

Buddify

The Mindfulness App

Smiling Mind