Stress is not a choice. Just getting out of bed is stress. Getting out of your pajamas is definite stress and let’s not even talk about checking your email. Then there are the really epic stressors, like finding your life’s purpose. Or raising kids without being both aloof and clingy. Or trying to make it through the day without eating an entire tub of Nutella.
But what if our reaction to that stress was a choice? What if you could chose anxiety or not, like you chose what you’re going to eat for breakfast? I could have the Pop Tart or the protein shake. This choice or that one. Both are right here, both are available to me, and I get to chose which one I grab. What is this is how anxiety worked?
What if life is full of different frequencies and we get to chose which one we’re going to ride today? We can jump on to the Scared frequency. We can take that bucking-bronco of a ride all over our day. We can operate at this shrill, frantic, fire-drill frequency with our kids, with the annoying drivers who come to a full stop before turning into the Target parking lot, and with ourselves. We can download all our relationships and deadlines and goals into this ride of hysteria. And we already know the results. More fear, more yelling, more white-knuckling.
We know this terror-tory well. For most of us, it’s been our life story.
Or, we could chose a different frequency, the Sacred frequency. This is a different ride, more like a road trip with the best kind of friend. We could trust that God gives us the exact right light for anything that might happen today, the perfect headlights. These headlights will shine just far enough to see the next turn, the next detour, the next bit of road. And, miraculously, this will be the exact amount of light we need for the whole trip.
What if we could chose the Sacred frequency to ride today, instead of the Scared frequency? What if we could download the day in small bits, through the eyes of a believer? What if we could upload prayers instead of panic and love instead of losing our minds?
What if anxiety is a choice and most of us keep grabbing the wrong handle, just because it’s what we’ve always known?
What it, today, we could chose the sacred over the scared?
