Settled

I mentioned panic and anxiety attacks on Monday. I asked a friend to pray for me. She asked another friend, who stepped in strong on my behalf yesterday. I told the truth; they spoke it back. There is no feeling like that helplessness, hitting the point where I have absolutely nothing left to give and I have to rely on others for their help, their grace, and their willingness to be real in my life.

I also have to learn to say no. And I hate saying no. Because I want to say yes. Because everything I need to say no to right now was a yes just a few months ago. But when you cannot function past the moment without feeling as if you are going to lose your mind, things have to go.

I farmed out a wedding for post-processing. I emailed two design clients to let them know I might not be able to work on their designs until September. I bit the bullet and publicly declared a leave of absence from my main blog – and all the branding drama that I have associated with it. And I went back on medical leave from the business and the branding. Because two days back at work was too much for my body.

When I woke this morning, I felt more hopeful. More refreshed. I started kicking myself. “You don’t need to rest today. You shouldn’t have pushed all that off.” And then I got tired, and I thought it might be a good idea to just rest. But my brain didn’t stop there. I kept thinking of things I forgot. Keep trying to figure out how to get better here so that I can come back full steam. I found out some DVDs I’d mailed had never been delivered. I remembered earlier conversations when I was feeling worse and wondered if that feeling bad was even legitimate.

And then I noticed the knot in the pit of my stomach. The feeling that all of my life was going to come up over top of me and I wasn’t going to be able to breathe.

I’m not one to not think. I’m not one who can’t objectively view and handle my problems. But right now, with my body doing what it is doing, I absolutely cannot think past the moment that I am in. And IN THIS MOMENT, I have to be on the couch. I have to be what I am. Right here. Right now. Limited. Sick. Hopeful.

It is a physical picture of so much more.

I used to corral myself toward perfection. I had a to-do list that was five lives long. And then I got my heart broken, and things that wrapped up so neatly in my head got hung out in the whys and the waits and the I-don’t-knows. Suddenly living meant more than perfection. It meant more than doing everything right the first time or spending my life making up for my mistakes. It meant that as long as I was breathing, I could still grow, relationships could shift and change and heal, and hope deferred was something to wait for, because it wasn’t over if my dreams didn’t come true just the way I’d dreamed them.

But I still live too much in the “have to get this right.” The branding is the worst battle I’ve ever fought on this front. I want God to be a part of my brand. I want to be this kind of person and that kind of photographer.

I’ve wondered how people who don’t choose to be real live the way they live. I have judged and dismissed others because they claimed to be authentic and held themselves back. But I’ve had moments where I have held myself back. Where I’ve deliberately chosen to present me as something I want to be rather than the mess that I am. I rationalize. I don’t want to be a burden. I want to be professional. I want to have an airtight brand that will pull in every client I want. I want to make sure that my followers won’t unfollow me and that my friends won’t unfriend me. I want to be so sweet and kind that people will love me and definitely see Christ in me.

But when it all falls out, I have a snarky sense of humor, I’m kinda cynical about a lot of stuff, I say things without thinking, my teeth stick out, and I haven’t really decided on a visual brand yet because I’m trying too hard to make it perfect. I’m repelling potential clients and thinking about quitting photography altogether because I definitely can’t be (and don’t WANT to be) what the industry requires, and I’m dropping stuff out on my Facebook that have people annoyed with me and getting upset because I don’t sound enough like Christ should sound. And I get judged as I judged others. Jesus was SO not kidding.

I cannot live outside of the moment I am in, anymore than anyone else can. I cannot possibly take every voice and every caution and every caveat into account as I go forward into life. My body right now draws this truth into sharp relief – if I even attempt to fill the moments with thoughts of tomorrow or the next day or the next year or ten, my body freaks out and starts firing neurological stress signals that trigger my adrenals to fight-or-flight and I either sit very still and quiet RIGHT HERE or I scream and run.

If living in this moment means that I bake cookies because I want to spend time with my kids, if it means that I sit on the couch and watch something, if it means that I am not thinking and stressing and trying to cover every base and serve my identity over my God – or if it means that I say yes to a shoot and no to something else, if I want to edit, if I want to design – I can’t be every place at once. I have to choose.

And I am learning to choose, to live here and not there. The only place my heart settles is in knowing I have God’s grace for this, no matter what the rest of the world thinks, no matter how helpless I feel to accomplish what I want to accomplish. “Jesus” seems too simple for a girl who overcomplicated spirituality, but simple is what I have to have right now. Simple as in Jesus loves me, this I know. Simple as in “it is finished.” Simple as in “If any man is in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things are passed away, all things are become new.”

I find myself becoming less. Not by choice, but by truth. I remember how Jesus prayed, “Sanctify them by Thy truth. Thy Word is Truth.” Jesus, the Word, the Truth – the only reason I have grace to know God in this place I’m in – He is my sanctification, not any growing perfection that I can accomplish.

I’m trying to live in the new. I am stepping back right now, evaluating what brings me joy, what my dream really is, why I am doing what I am doing, and what are the real risks I am taking? I have no choice but to embrace that my body is doing what it is doing right now, and trust that it is a GOOD thing, this tearing open of the old wounds to heal and rebuild for the new.