Calming Down Brain Freak Out

I took the kids to the park tonight. Good job me. 

Abi and I played soccer there. Natalie and Owen joined us. Owen was wearing flip flops, which don't  make the best soccer shoes. 

Sigh. I need to take a breather. Another day done. I'm feeling a bit of overwhelm today. I took Abi to  her flute lesson, and while I was waiting in car, I wanted to have quiet time to think and process a few thoughts and emotions, and instead I ended up talking to Corey. He started by saying he's not getting as much work done there in Guatemala as he thought he would, how he seems to have just as many interruptions and distractions as he does at home... He invited a family he met at church there to come over and swim, and they invited cousins, and instead of just being there for a few hours, which is what he thought it would be when he extended the invitation, but they spent the day. They were late coming, and arrived at lunch time, so Corey bought them lunch, and spent the day entertaining them, which is a double whammy cause he's spending money we don't have AND is not not getting work done. He blames it on his sense of "duty" - it didn't help my stress to hear that, my brain starts to panic and worry. Then talked to Corey and Wes about what Wes should do for school, we waited a little late to figure this out... as I'm talking to them, (still sitting in the car waiting for Abi at flute) I get three calls from home to let me know that some insulation fell out of the unfinished ceiling at home, which they think is poisonous or something, and I got two facetime calls from Sophi's friend and I felt like I was going to snap. Too. many. interruptions. My brain freaking is out over all the things. I can see it trying to run around in circles with it's arms up in the air 

I did have a few minutes tonight to read this in Sheri Dew's God Wants A Powerful People" book, page 177-78 - CS Lewis:

“There are things, say in learning to swim or climb, which look dangerous and aren’t. Your instructor tells you it’s safe, you have good reason from past experience to trust him, perhaps you can even see for yourself by your own reason that it is safe. But the crucial question is will you be able to go on believing this when you actually see the cliff edge below you, or actually feel yourself unsupported in the water. You will have no rational grounds for disbelieving; it is your senses and your imagination that are going to attack belief. Here, as in the New Testament, the conflict is not between faith and sight. We can face things that we know to be dangerous, if they don’t look or sound too dangerous, our real trouble is often with things we know to be safe but which look dreadful. Our faith in Christ wavers not so much when real arguments come against it as when it looks improbable, when the whole world takes on that desolate look, which really tells us much more about the state of our passions and even our digestion, than about reality." - Pursuit of Knowledge by Reason or Faith

I can also see myself doing this with food. I had a Laura Dixon coaching call today, we talked about under eating and how our brain freaks out with fear response. Our brain (or as CS Lewis says, our imagination) is being very loud and robust, not rational, not calm. We don't have to dismiss it, but we also should not listen to it. Last week after Fast Sunday, I went without food for 36 hours. I wasn't really hungry, and I felt pretty good, like this is a way to make progress, but I was also having thoughts of "Oh sure, you can lose weight if you JUST NEVER EAT AGAIN - Yeah sure! Just don't eat this week, as if that's realistic! Are you not going to eat FOR THIS WHOLE WEEK!?! OR Maybe we'll never eat EVER EVER AGAIN??!?!?" and she pointed out how our brain likes to be pretty irrational. And I and calmly say "No, brain, I probably will eat this week. But I'm not going to eat yet right now, in this moment. but I'm not talking about this week, just right now or today." Something Craig Manning said "Fear is always in the future." So I need to just focus on today. Today I am ok. I need to keep my passions in check and stay focused in the reality of the present moment. So those are a few of the thoughts I'm trying to process tonight.