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What To Do When Life Feels Out of Control

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3 Steps When You are Overwhelmed

Life happens. What do you do when it’s not what you were expecting? If God is loving, how come He allows (seemingly) random tradgedies in our lives? When we are in serious pain, it is easy to push a (seemingly) passive God further away. Sometimes it even feels God is aggressively destroying us. How does God stand idlely by? Should our goal be to rid ourselves of pain? What other thing do you instinctually grab for even when the “right answer” is before you? These questions can be summarized down to one other question. Who (or what) do you really trust in? We know the Bible says God is trustworthy. Often God doesn’t feel trustworthy. What can you do when you feel overwhelmed?

Endure Hardship

Endure. Be still. Refocus. We can accept hardship as discipline. Can we? Does it work? What happens when we are already not trusting God, and something (else) terrible happens? God has “rejected us”, so we want to reject Him! Maybe that is good. Because, the God we are angry at is not the true God. We should reject the false God and look to the true God. We can accept hardship in our lives. The trick is to see it in the right light. Most of the time we see hardship as negative – an indication that God has removed His love from us. But Hebrews 12:5-11 turns this around. Hardship proves we are legitimately God’s child.

Fear or Faith

When we are overwhelmed, it leaves the door open for fear. In the midst of feeling overwhelmed, check in with yourself. How high is your fear level? Are you a conduit of fear or faith? Fear has a way of disrupting life and making matters much worse than they are (pretty much true of any kind of darkness). The Bible says perfect love casts out fear. Each day, find some way to open the door to God’s love.

Cast your Anxiety

We can open ourselves by casting our anxiety on God. God knows we suffer, because He suffered too. There is no better way to suffer than to suffer in the presence of God. With our faith, we trust again that God will hear. We pour out our feelings to God, so God can fill us with good things – perfect love. This is not an easy process. Grieving never is. But it is on the path to healing.

Reflections

  1. Is it easier to endure hardship when you know (you really feel) you are God’s child?
  2. When you are overwhelmed, pay attention to how much you responding in fear or in faith. Are you surprised? How much is pure fear?
  3. How do you feel about pouring out your anxiety in faith?
  4. Jesus, help us turn to you when our circumstances do not make sense. Teach us to trust. Amen.

Resources

Hebrews 12:5-11

… Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons. …

Read on Bible Gateway

1 John 4:18

18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

Read on Bible Gateway

1 Peter 5:6-11

… Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. … And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.

Read on Bible Gateway

Experiencing God

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Experiencing God Meeting Your Needs

God made us to have needs. How do you respond when God appears out of reach? It cuts to the core. It’s easy to respond negatively. What’s really going on here?

The Fox and the Grapes

A famished fox saw a cluster of ripe grapes hanging from a trellised vine. She resorted to all her tricks to get at them, but wearied herself in vain, for she could not reach them. At last she turned away, hiding her disappointment and saying: “The Grapes are sour, and not ripe as I thought.”

Wanting Something But Cannot Get It

Has this ever happened to you? You want something, but you cannot get it, and so you despise it? It is easy to despise what you cannot get. Then there is cognitive dissonance – wanting something, but not wanting it. What is cognitive dissonance? It’s a tension. When we are frustrated it is tempting to take an easy way out. It is the place where you reach where you hold seemingly contradictory thoughts at the same time. It is a place of confusion – uncertainty. When you find yourself frozen in your tracks and unable to make a decision, you might be experiencing C.D. Why else would you feel that way? That’s got to be tough – to want something so badly, but realize it’s beyond your grasp. The easy way out is to pretend you never needed in the first place.

More than Grapes

This applies to dating, and a whole lot of other things too. It applies to our hopes and dreams. It applies to our efforts. It applies to our self-worth. How? When we want something, but cannot attain it, it is certainly frustrating! Frustration combined with some unhealthy thinking leads to turning the frustration inward – taking it out on yourself. And wah-la — you are not just despising what you cannot get, you are despising yourself because you cannot get what you want. “I guess I didn’t deserve that anyway” or “I guess God doesn’t want me to have that” or “That must have been a bad thing for me because God isn’t allowing me to have it” “The grapes are sour anyway – I know it”.

Alternatives to Sour Grapes

Are there alternatives? You can get a ladder. Get some help! Are the grapes worth getting or not? Is the land flowing with milk and honey worth it or not? Or “is the land full of giants?” The land is spoiled. Unattainable. God won’t be with us. He doesn’t want the best for us. We are like grasshoppers. We can’t do it. I didn’t want it anyway. I am not worthy of such good grapes. I’ll take the sure bet – what I can achieve on my own.

What else can you do? You can look for lower hanging grapes. The grapes aren’t sour, they are presently out of reach. You can get them eventually. Don’t give up. Be patient. Be persistant. Be determined. Buy time. Don’t take your eye off the prize.

Reflections

Ask yourself – how does the fox feel about himself when he cannot get he grapes? Can he feel very good if he “curses” the grapes? What are the grapes in your life? Would you like some help to reach your grapes? I love helping people reach their grapes through focused determination and insights that help them see themselves as God sees them, and help people see God as he really is – a grape provider. Or, as we are sheep, God is a grass provider.

Resources

Numbers 13:32-33

And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, “The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size. We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.

Read on Bible Gateway

Psalm 23:1

The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters.

Read on Bible Gateway

Cognitive Dissonance

Cognitive dissonance is an uncomfortable feeling caused by holding conflicting ideas simultaneously. The theory of cognitive dissonance proposes that people have a motivational drive to reduce dissonance. They do this by changing their attitudes, beliefs, and actions. Dissonance is also reduced by justifying, blaming, and denying.

Experience can clash with expectations, as, for example, with buyer’s remorse following the purchase of an expensive item. In a state of dissonance, people may feel surprise, dread, guilt, anger, or embarrassment. People are biased to think of their choices as correct, despite any contrary evidence. This bias gives dissonance theory its predictive power, shedding light on otherwise puzzling irrational and destructive behavior.

Read more on wikipedia

The Importance of Self-Care

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From Disease to Ease

How do you know when you are lacking in self-care? When you are in a state of Dis-Ease.

Consequences of Poor Self-Care

A major effect of poor self-care is losing awareness of what you are feeling, usually before it is too late. When you are tired, hungry, overly stressed out, or in bad physical shape, you may be more emotionally reactive. For example, think about a time when you were feeling overwhelmed with your circumstances. Was harder for you to manage your emotions? Did you snap at people who did not deserved it? Did you start crying for no apparent reason? Were you overly anxious and not sure why?
If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, then you likely were so disconnected from your feelings, that you reacted more strongly to a situation that warrented. This results in feeling confused by your display of emotion. Having poor self-care habits will interfere with responding to a situation in an appropriate manner.

The following is a partial list of symptoms to help you identify if you need better self-care:

  • Diminished concentration
  • Confusion
  • Questioning the meaning of life
  • Questioning prior convictions
  • Apathy
  • Rigidity
  • Self-doubt
  • Memory problems
  • Powerlessness – helplessness
  • Shutting down – numbness
  • Hypersensitivity
  • Sleep disturbances
  • Appetite changes
  • Negative coping (alcohol, drug, or other substance misuse)
  • Increased conflict
  • Difficulty breathing
  • Twitches
  • Chest pain
  • Headaches

Greater Awareness – The First Step to Better Self-Care

What is the opposite of self-care? Self-injury. We can harm ourselves by either staying in harms way (enduring abuse) or staying away from loving care (enduring neglect). Sometimes we don’t have a choice. We must complete a task – or – we are too young or weak to escape. How do we survive when faced with ongoing harm? If we must walk through harm’s way long enough, we will desensitize ourselves. We will ignore or forget about the pain and symptoms.

As adults we usually have a choice. Why do so many forgo self-care? It is simply a matter of priorities. We can say we are committed to our ideals, but our true priorities are revealed by what we do. There is a tradeoff between speed and efficiency, accomplishment and longevity. We can accomplish a lot more (in the moment) when we are disconnected from our feelings. But, long-term our bodies will deteriorate, and chances our, we will die sooner.

Better self-care starts with better awareness of our bodies. We’ve all been to the doctor for a check-up. When was the last time you did a self check-in? A check-in is simply sitting quietly to sense what is happening in your body and reconnect what has become disconnected. Ask yourself the following. What am I feeling in my body? Where am I feeling it? Why might I be feeling it this way? Consider these three areas:

  • Sleep: do I feel exhausted or rested and refreshed?
  • Food: do I feel weak and lethargic or strong and energetic?
  • Maintenance: am I in pain and carrying tension (disease) or am I relaxed and at ease?

Many people think of self-care as a luxury, when God intended us to always care for ourselves. Chronic denial of self-care is an indication of a deeper issue. At New Reflections Counseling, we provide a safe place for you to “tune-in” and understand what is happening. If you want help with self-care, contact us at New Reflections Counseling. If it is okay to go to the gym or doctor for physical health, then it is okay to go to a counselor for your emotional health.

Reflections

On an airplane, an oxygen mask descends in front of you. What do you do? As we all know, the first rule is to put on your own oxygen mask before you assist anyone else. Only when we first help ourselves can we effectively help others. Caring for yourself is one of the most important—and one of the most often forgotten—things you can do as a caregiver. When your needs are taken care of, the person you care for will benefit, too.

What is your oxygen mask? What will help you breath easier? What actions do you need to take for better health?

Resources

Luke 10:27
And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.”

Read the entire passage on Bible Gateway