“Stress. What if it is not out there? What if it is inside of me….being birthed in some fertile breeding grounds where circumstances are mutated into stress.”  This is where we started last week. Why? Because it is the key starting point in dealing with my stress. It immediately takes me to a fork in the road in terms of how I am going to respond to the stress I am experiencing.

If stress is inside of me, an internal response to some external demand, whether real or perceived, then the antidote is not a much longed for, or even demanded change of circumstances, the antidote is more about me than my circumstances. The fact is I, (and you!), live in a world where circumstances will always be ripe to trigger stress. Always. Every day. Wherever I am. I can’t escape it. Why? Because Jesus says so. “In the world you will have tribulation…“ (John 16:33). Then he adds an amazing truth, that the tribulations that surrounds us do not have to create stress in us. They do not need to steal our inner peace. “But take heart; I have overcome the world…in me you may have peace.” Jesus is saying peace is not found in changing my circumstances, but it’s found in a person. In Him.

Consider this, John 14:17 in The Message:

“I am leaving you well and whole. That is my parting gift to you. Peace. I don’t leave you the way you are used to being left–feeling abandoned, bereft. So don’t be upset. Don’t be distraught.“

Are there unhealthy environments that we need to detach from? Sure. Are there demanding situations where we need a respite to focus on some of our own needs? Yes. But those respites can be useless, even harmful, if they take me to unhealthy places, to those toxic breeding grounds of stress, where I will have time to live out the familiar lies that I think protect me. Places where my lies can protect me without the interference of circumstances.

I have a number of inner breeding grounds. I have them listed. And numbered. They remind me of a family vacation we took to Yellowstone National Park. We hiked on wooden pathways to areas of smelly, bubbling, mud pots. Some of the boiling mud pots were huge and gave off a strong stench of sulfur. Others were smaller and harder to find, not quite so smelly but just as deadly were we to step off the walkway.

I am going to share with you my smelly, deadly, bubbling mud pots — the core lies that when threatened create stress. And anxiety. But first it would be helpful if you did something, and then I want to do something.

First, A LITTLE EXERCISE FOR YOU: Get a piece of paper that you can put in your journal or your Bible, and over the next week ask God to reveal to you your Yellowstone mud pots…then write them down. What is the core lie you believe that you are afraid circumstances will reveal? Make a list. Then we can compare as we journey along.

Second, I WANT TO DO SOMETHING FOR YOU: For those of you who have subscribed to this Laying it Down community by sharing your email and first name in the boxes to the right of this blog, I want to send you some additional material to help you go deeper. I want to send you a list of the symptoms of stress – the psychological, physical, behavioral and spiritual symptoms. Then I want to differentiate for you the difference between stress, anxiety, burnout, and depression. If you have not yet “subscribed” go ahead and do it and I will make sure this resource is in your email inbox early this coming week.

 

 

Be sure to check out this week’s “Monday Gospel Quotes.” They deserve some deep personal pondering.

https://billtell.com/787-2/

Stress. What if it is not out there? What if it is inside of me…being birthed in some fertile breeding grounds where circumstances are mutated into stress? I invite you to journey with me to my inner breeding grounds where stress is birthed…and where it finds it’s faithful companion anxiety. It is in these well fertilized breeding grounds that stress and anxiety, left unchecked, can so easily grow into burnout. And finally metastasize into the darkness of depression.

I know. I have journeyed this road…all the way until darkness was my only companion (1). It was not a quick journey. They seldom are. Perhaps never. The nutrient rich bogs where stress and anxiety can begin to send out their roots and malicious tentacles take time to develop. They need a lot of fertilizer…toxic fertilizer. They need to become places where the tentacles of lies and untruths can grow strong enough to twist and turn the circumstances of life into ugly and threatening monsters.

The lies were planted early. In my youth. I carried them with me and fertilized them for decades allowing them to cause me to live in a continual state of stress. The stress was so familiar often I did not recognize it. But continually defending myself against the accusations of the well rooted lies was exhausting.  Then, all it took, was the right circumstance where my lies grew into horrible threats and I was camped at the doors of burnout. Fighting those heightened threats took so much energy that it was as if those doors offered no resistance. I ushered myself into severe burnout. The psychological, the physical, and the behavioral symptoms of severe burnout were all there. It wasn’t long until I found myself in the dark woods of depression.

It was deep, dark, and intensely frightening. I was unfunctionable.  I was given sick leave from work. I was in desperate need of medical intervention. Then intensive counseling. At the six-month point I decided I could cope with work again and returned to the office. I lasted one day. That one day gave me another six months of sick leave.

Stress. Anxiety. Burnout. Depression. I have journeyed the road. I have been there. In the coming weeks I want to take you with me and show you the toxic breeding grounds where the circumstances of life were twisted into lies about who I was. About my identity. About my worth. I have a number of noxious bogs to share with you. And then I want to take you with me from the darkness into the marvelous light that only the truth of the gospel can bring.

Hang on and fasten your seat belt. Some segments of the journey may be frightening for you because they are going to be very familiar to you. Like you have been there. They may look like places you frequently return to. I think you will relate. Actually I know you will. We have a common enemy with common tactics. He is not only a master of fine-tuned lies, he is the originator and the father of lies (John 8:44).

Here is a prayer you may want to insert into your Bible or copy in your journal and make a regular prayer as we journey together in the coming weeks.

“Lord, you know the deep inner patterns of my life that keep me from wholeness, that keep me filled with stress. Would you please do a restorative work in my life…set me free from the sin and the lies that hold me captive. Take my foolish living away. Would you please help trust the truth that you speak to me.”

A PSALM TO PONDER:  Ponder Psalm 91 in one of your quiet times this week. Note all the ways the Psalmist kept circumstances from turning into stress. Is there a foundational principle here that you could articulate and write out?

AN ACTION TO TAKE: You are not the only victim of stress. We are all surrounded by friends whose lives are filled with anxiety. Invite them to be a part of our journey by sharing this blog with them.

 

(1)  Kathyrn Greene-McCreight has written an insightful account of her battle with depression in Darkness Is  My Only Companion.