I’ve struggled with clinical anxiety disorder since I was a teenager. For me, this has manifested as frequent panic attacks during various seasons of life, and near constant hypocondria- fearing every little pain or abnormality that I feel in my body. And every year between December and January, my anxiety seems to flare, often resulting in what is now an almost ritualistic visit to the ER where the nurses inevitably end up telling me something like “it’s just a headache”, “that’s just tension from stress”, or “that’s just your IBS flaring up” and sending me home, breathing a sigh of relief that all is well and death is not immanent.
Just a few days before Christmas this year, with a book deadline looming, three Christmas services to preach, work projects to finish, and a cross-country trip on the horizon (I now have developed travel anxiety!), I was feeling absolutely worn out. I had been experiencing pretty constant tension headaches and nausea for about two weeks, and consciously I knew this was just my anxiety acting up. But somewhere, deep in my subconscious, I heard an inner voice telling me “something must be wrong” and I began wondering if it was time, yet again, for a trip to the ER. But I resisted.
Yet on the evening before my first Christmas Eve service, I felt like I was in a complete fog. My energy was low, my stomach was cramping, and my head felt like it was being squeezed on and off throughout the day. I breathed “This is just anxiety- you’re fine”, I told myself. I continued on through the day. As evening arrived and the clock drew nearer to me needing to gear up for my three church services, I felt a zing across the left side of my head and then intense pain. “This must be something bad”, I said. I popped a Tylenol and sat on my couch, rocking back and forth and wondering what to do. Eventually I decided that I was better safe than sorry, and I walked a few blocks to the Emergency Room. As soon as I sat down in the waiting room, I felt my anxiety beginning to lift: “At least I am safe here if something is wrong”, I thought.
While waiting for the nurse, I opened my phone and clicked on the “Memories” tab that shows pictures from this day on various years. To my surprise, two photos popped up, one from 2016 and one from 2019 that showed me that on this very day in those years, I was also in the Emergency Room- for the very same anxiety that had brought me to the hospital on this evening. I began to laugh at myself; how powerful and absurd our psyche can be. Clearly, I have seasonal anxiety, and it’s rather amazing that it always seems to flare on this very day over the course of many years. Once the nurse saw me, they confirmed I was just having a stress headache or migraine related to anxiety, they gave me a shot of Motrin, and sent me home- now feeling relaxed.
The past few weeks have continued to be anxious ones- despite taking a long-needed two week vacation to California to soak up some Vitamin D- and I’ve realized that so much of my anxiety is related to the ending of a year and the beginning of a new one. When we pause and begin to think of all that we’ve done- and all that we’ve yet to do- it can be overwhelming. Yet in a culture that demands that we continue to keep moving, producing, and progressing, there seems to be little ability to slow down, take the pressure off, and just experience being. As an Enneagram 3, this is especially difficult- I really don’t know how to rest. At some deep level, my sense of worth is tied up in my productivity, and when I am not producing, I feel deep fear and anxiety that I am going to be in danger of losing it all.
But as I’ve shared my story with friends, I’ve realized that while my anxiety may be particularly heavy this time of year, this is something that many people experience. In our capitalistic society, where it is harder than ever to earn a living and even harder to feel like you’re making “progress” towards goals, many people are becoming run down, overwhelmed, and completely dejected, especially as we stand on the brink of a new year with 365 days of new goals, resolutions, and expectations. For some, goal setting can be empowering and helpful- but for many others, these goals feel like massive stones placed on our shoulders at the start of the new year, which makes it nearly impossible to start of the year running the race that we feel is expected of “healthy, productive people”.
While I have set goals for myself for this year (again, Enneagram 3 here!), upon reflecting upon my own health and rhythm of life, it’s become clear that the only real goal I need to focus on in this new year is to learn to be. To grow comfortable not having to keep doing more, producing more, and checking off an ever growing to-do list to feel like I am a valuable human. For most of the last decade, I have ended one year and began another feeling tired, anxious, and overwhelmed because of some false idea that I’ve adopted of who I should be and where I should be in life. This has resulted in many a trips to the ER, many a days laying in bed feeling drained, and a lot of dread instead of joy as I face the ending of one year and the birth of another.
But I know, deep down, that this is not how life is intended to be. We all know that life isn’t about what we produce or accomplish- but the way we experience each day. When we live as if we are human machines, our only goal is going to be to push ourselves as hard as we can each day until we burn out. This results in sickness, anxiety, and depression, which then in turn, slows us down all the more and makes us lose focus on the important things in life: our health, our relationships, and cultivating a sense of peace and purpose beyond our work. We miss out on the joy that is available each day when we just slow down and allow ourselves to experience it.
As we stand on the brink of a new year, I am resolving to slow down in 2024. To say “no” to more in order to make space for the things that really matter in life. I am resolving to let my inbox fill up a bit more, and not spending endless hours doom scrolling as a way to numb my sense of burnout. I am resolving to opt out, as much as possible, from the ridiculous expectations of our capitalistic culture to constantly produce and instead, learning how to rest and embrace the pleasures of life, even if it means “less success”. I am resolving to listen to my body, receiving it’s symptoms as “data not danger” at my therapist said last week, trusting that when I feel uncomfortable, it’s a sign that I’ve unnecessarily put too much on my plate that is keeping me from truly enjoying life.
As nice as these resolutions sound, I know that they will be hard to enact. I have been trained to run at a million miles an hour- and you probably have been too. But practicing pumping the breaks and making time for rest and connection can help break us out of the cycles of “doing” to finally embrace the wonder of being. As woo-woo as that might sound, this wisdom is found at the heart of virtually all of our world’s spiritual traditions. It’s a fundamental part of what it means to be a human, and it’s high time that we resist our conditioning to be “productive” to actually experience life in all of it’s textures and colors. There is no objective standard that demands that any of us reach any particular goals at any time- all of our standards are imposed, by ourselves, by others, and by those we compare ourselves too. But if I’ve learned anything in my life thus far it’s that when we actually slow down, take care of ourselves, and trust our own journey of unfolding- it’s then that the universe begins to open the right doors and provide the perfect opportunities for us to flourish.
So this year, I am resolving to slow down, to rest, and to be. To manage my anxiety by managing my own pace of life and the arbitrary expectations I place upon myself. And it’s my hope that you will join me as we rebel against our capitalistic conditioning and recognize that life is more about our experience of it than what we produce. So let’s reclaim our experience of the good life together, shall we?
Happy New Year, friends!