Perfect love displaces fear. I think fear can displace our awareness and experience of perfect love. It cannot displace God's love, but it sure can displace our awareness of it.
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Knowing you're in anxiety's grip is actually not as easy as we think. We tend to bear down and try harder instead of pausing.
One way to notice it: you are no longer aware of God's presence and God's love.
It could be that your anxiety has displaced your awareness.
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Warning Signs:
- you start to think it is all on you/all on your shoulders.
- 'if it is to be, it is up to me.' An anxious statement if ever I heard one.
- An impending feeling of doom or hopelessness.
- Rigid thinking, either-or locked in thinking.
- double binding.
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Chronic Anxiety has a 'gospel.'
'it is on you, there is not much you can do, you are not ______ enough, YOU are not enough, there are only bad options, try harder, do more of the same.'
Recognizing Chronic Anxiety's message helps you displace it with the actual Gospel.
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Even though we have the Gospel, we often don't access it. We spend most of our time living by our false selves, not by the Gospel. I have been doing this work for decades and I still spend more time living for false self, than I do resting in my identity in Christ.
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So it is essential for me to practice radical self kindness as spiritual transformation can be slow, slow, slow.
We think we should be further along by now.
That last sentence is yet another evidence of anxiety's grip.
Should, should, should.
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But what if you stopped 'shoulding all over yourself.'
What if you were at least as kind and patient with yourself as God is?
Perfect love displaces fear and Chronic Anxiety.
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Displacing it can be a learned spiritual practice.
1. Notice that I have lost touch with God's presence and love. 2. Name what I think I need that I don't really need. 3. Die to that.
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4. Jesus died so I don't have to ______ anymore 5. What if I were at least as ______ to myself as God is. 6. Pull out your life giving list and do something on that list. 7. Pause and breath, breath, breath.
God is as close as the air you breath, in and out.
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This is a slow, learned spiritual discipline.
A couple of disclaimers:
- There are at least 5 types of anxiety. I am only talking 'chronic' anxiety which shows up based on false belief, false assumption or false need.
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PTSD, GAD, Grief, Acute anxiety etc are all based on real triggers and require a different set of tools.
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Finally, I rest most when I remember that not only is God with me, but God is AHEAD of me, already at work in the thing I am anxious about. God is there too. So when I walk into an anxious situation, I am walking into a situation where God is, and God is at work.
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I've been doing more study on the constant critic(s) that every church leader deals with. Its amazing how a steady group of 2-5 critics can really tax a leader's health and impact them way beyond their numbers. ie, more than 3 feels like 'legion' to a leader.
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All vocations face criticism of course.
I wonder if church criticism is unique because:
a) church leaders tend to conflate personal identity and church health more than most.
b) critics falsely think they know about leading a church because they attend a church.
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For example, doctors and teachers face criticism. People come into a Doc with diagnosis from Internet etc. But I wonder if attending and serving in a church makes someone more confident that they know when they really don't know.
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My chaplain supervisor said, 'The ER doesn't cause the dynamic in a family, it simply reveals and then heightens what it already there.'
Close families got closer, tense ones got worse.
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My early reps in Family Systems Theory were about reading the family dynamic in the first 3 minutes.
Once you learn to notice anxiety between people, it is amazing how quickly you can notice healthly or toxic dynamics.
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I think COVID is the equivalent of the ER. It isn't causing starved souls in pastors, it is revealing the condition of our soul health and amplifying it.
This can feel threatening but is actually a gift.
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A top source of anxiety for a church leader: a text or email from a member or leader saying some variation of, 'I want to meet as soon as possible. It is about the church.'
A thread of what happens in the leader's inner world and how to begin differentiation
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First the leader's mind typically goes into overdrive. Anxiety floods you and you begin to fill in what you don't know (what they want to meet about) with what you think (many various possibilities about what is could be.)
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This is your way of trying to manage anxiety: filling in the gaps, often to a pathological level, before you meet.
But being in anxiety's grip is like drinking salt water. It will never lead you to quenching that thirst, it will just get worse.
Murray Bowen predicated 'societal regression' in the 1950s - the simple concept that anxiety is contagious in groups, therefore it spreads in societies. Our society's anxiety feels at a breaking point. We need leaders with calm presence and resolve more than ever.
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Step 1 is noticing when we are getting infected by the anxiety of others.
Step 2 is to pause and reflect before acting. I know being 'proactive' is a huge part of strong leadership, but stronger leadership is actually, 'pause and reflect before moving.'
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Sometimes action and git 'er done is a sign of anxiety in a leadership.
Step 3 is to clarify values. What are you social media behavior values? How do you stay connected to hostile and anxious people? It takes real work.
1) New. 2) Scarcity. 3) Ambiguity. 4) Criticism from trusted or untrusted sources. 5) Not knowing what to do/having to do something.
I suspect we're in for a stouche this next week or more.
Breathe deep, leaders.
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Now is the time to practice Differentiation of Self.
A simple 3 column list is helpful:
What is mine to carry?
What is theirs?
What is God's?
First column is your responsibility, second two columns are what you pray for.
Also
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In the face of significant personal and cultural anxiety, it pays to put some life giving activity in the bank. You'll no doubt be spending that account down in the next few months.
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