Leaning In

It’s the busy season. Again

I seem to have an instinctive counter-balance to busy-ness, or just an outright aversion to it.

I find myself pulling back, away from constant activities.

From what I understand of myself— I feel like if I get carried away by the undercurrents of life, then I will lose my ability to pay attention.

I need to pay attention intentionally.

I need to know— not just feel— that I am aware and in control as much as possible to all I say and do.

Because when I don’t, when I just give in to all that stuff, that’s when anxiety comes in and it weighs down my consciousness, it trips me up and knocks down my confidence.

Anxiety blind sides me, and knocks the wind out of me.

Physically, I have to pre-plan, to think through obstacles.

Mentally, I need to pre-plan.

Emotionally I need to pre-plan interactions with most people.

Spiritually— I don’t need to pre-plan. God meets me where I am.

Throughout my life, I’ve developed this thing where instead of avoiding most pain (not all pain), I tend to lean into it to test how much I can stand, and if I can push through it or if leaning into it makes it unbearable.

Watching the video for NF’s new release—Fear— I am wondering if I were to lean into anxiety and fear, if it would respond the same way as pain.

I try very hard to hold on to and maintain self awareness. I worry that if I get pulled along with that current of busy-ness, if I interact with other people more often without pulling myself back, I won’t be able to hold on to that self awareness.

I find often I feel I’m expected to explain myself, to defend my actions, and try to “blend in” without causing any “waves”.

So, I step out of that current.

I am aware of when anxiety will begin its rituals of suppression. Sometimes, I even get a physical numb kind of sensation.

That’s when I step back, and away.

I don’t want to even be near where the current is pulling me.

I just want to isolate.

It’s so much easier to lean into self isolation than into anxiety.

Anyway— these are just thoughts I’m having as I watch NF’s new video.

Because to me, that’s what I see him (NF) doing. He tried to free himself from it. And now he is leaning back into the darkness that once plagued him.— while he is seeking God. And God is going to deliver him from all of that. Because— God never leaves us or forsakes us.

Leaning into something is not the same as giving into it.

Leaning into it is pushing back.

It’s standing up under the pressure of it— even when we might feel we are being crushed by it.

It’s testing the resistance of that anxiety or fear.

And— it’s knowing God is bigger, stronger and we belong to Him— He will conquer it, fight our battle against it, for us.

Because nothing can separate us from the love of God— no thing.

Pray for NF as he has transparently shown he is struggling.

God is already working, already planning how He will bring us all through to the other side where His freedom belongs to us all.