Use Your Hands – Three Things Thursday

If you have children or work with them, you’ve probably said, “Use your words, not your hands.”  But today, we are throwing caution to the wind and assuming you’re mature enough to use your hands AND your words.

Today, my home state decided the wisest course of action to slow the pandemic spread is to cancel in-person classes at school for the rest of the semester.  My tiny human was a little nuts the first week that school was paused for three weeks.  Now that we know we’ll continue the semester with assignments from home, she was a lot nuts trying to go to bed tonight.

To be honest, so was I.  Everything in our schedule is upside down.  I’m a naturally empathetic person, and I can’t even peek at social media right now where everyone’s dogs and cats and family updates usually perk me up – right now it’s full of people experiencing the same loss I’m experiencing, and I can feel too deeply the lost senior year antics, the teachers missing their students and working like crazy to figure out how to make the next two months happen virtually, the students who miss their teachers and classrooms and friends and routines, all the people out of work, and all the people working through incredibly stressful conditions at essential jobs.  It’s a lot, and it’s hard for everyone right now, no matter what your situation.

If you have been feeling a little too much of the worry of the moment (or had a mild panic attack like I did tonight), here are three things you need to know right now:

1. It’s okay to feel the feelings.  It’s okay to mourn for the loss of your daily routine and to freak out a little bit at all the things that are different right now, including the inexplicable hoarding of toilet paper and ground beef.
2. Once you feel the feelings, tell them the truth.  Let the crazy thoughts and emotions and anxiety parade by, but don’t get out there and march with them.  Wave as they pass by.  And as they march down the parade route, imagine yourself as the cheesy news anchor announcing the float, telling you bizarre facts like how many coffee beans were used in the construction of the float, and then sending it off with a great one-liner like, “But I know no matter how many coffee beans they used to make that float, it’s still not running the show.”  That’s a silly example, but a real thought exercise might sound like this in your head: “Here comes stress.  Stress likes to show off with flashy things like anger and overstimulation, but stress is going to keep walking right on by.  I’m going to wave goodbye to stress because it needs to finish the parade route, and I can control my actions.”  You aren’t your feelings.  You aren’t your thoughts, though that’s a tempting line of thought, given Descartes’s catchy, “I think, therefore I am,” philosophy.  You are a created child of God, which leads to…
3. Philippians 4:6-7: “Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.”

Slow down, breathe for a moment, and get some perspective. I don’t care what this pandemic or anything else going on in your life holds for you, God will hold you together through it. These verses are a blueprint for how to survive.

So I just listed three things that obviously had nothing to do with the introduction.  That was a bonus list.  The three things I started out to write for today is a set of mental health exercises to use if you’re feeling the stress a little too much right now, and they all use your hand as a cue.

First, trace your hand on a piece of paper.  I’ll wait.  No, I’m not kidding.  Any paper will do.  I only had fluorescent green handy (see what I did there…), so that’s what I’m using (as well as subpar phone photography).

Our first exercise is just breathing.  Breathe in through your nose while you count to five, hold it for a count of five, and breathe out through your mouth while you count to five.  Use the hand print as a visual to focus your thoughts onto just your breathing.  If you want more meditative visualization, remember that we are God-breathed creations, the Bible is described as God-breathed, and every breath is life.  We are breathing in God’s provision, savoring it for a moment, and then letting go of everything that’s past.  Try this for a few breaths, or a few minutes, until you feel your heart rate settle and the stray thoughts that run in like saboteurs slow down their attacks.

Now, using your hand as a counting reference, list five things that you’re thankful for right now. If you like the physicality of ticking them off with your fingers, go for it. Whenever you feel like anxiety is trying to take over, list five things you’re grateful for or five things that bring you joy. It’s not going to change the circumstances, but it’s going to change your perspective of the circumstances by reminding you of good things in your life.

And the third exercise is one of my favorites (and the reason you need an actual tracing of your hand on paper).  In the space outside your hand, write down all the things you can’t control that are taking up space in your thoughts.  In the space inside your hand, write down things you can control.  What’s the difference in the things in your grasp and the things you can’t hold on to?  If you can’t control the things outside your hand, how much mental energy should you devote to them?

We tend to think of worry as something that just happens to us because our circumstances are big and scary.  But… Worry is a choice.  While we can’t control every thought that pops into our heads, we can control how much we let them run around unchecked.  The second we let all the things we can’t control run the narrative in our thought patterns, worry is running the show.  We used the parade imagery in the first list, and even though it was a parade of negative thinking, there was order and we were telling the floats what to do, right?  Now imagine for a second what that parade would look like without a chaos coordinator.  Think Barney ’97.  Total disaster.

Let’s use Philippians 4:6-7 as our thought process model.  Don’t worry; let the thoughts pass by without letting them run the show.  Pray about everything; that’s certainly something you can control, so if it’s not already in your handprint, maybe you should add it.  Tell God what you need; he already knows, but you still need to express it as a need for him.  Thank God for what you have.  Feel that anxiety turn towards peace.  That’s what putting your life in God’s hands will do.

Alright, I now have two lists of three things, and since I have moderate perfectionist tendencies, I feel the need to end on another list of three so we have three three things because two three things will not do.  So… here are three things that bring me extra stress relief:

1. Bee Badminton. Tis the season for carpenter bees. I hate them making swiss cheese out of my porch, so I whack them with badminton rackets. Bonus fun – now the dogs like to help by catching the ones I hit and eating them. It’s now a team sport.
2. Potato Pelting. One of my dogs has a barking problem. At night I can stop her by shining a flashlight on her, but, alas, my superpower beam is useless in the day. I usually stash some tennis balls in the kitchen that I can chunk at her to redirect her attention, but, alas, all the balls are in the yard. Today I discovered some tiny potatoes that hid in a dark corner of the kitchen until I forgot about them. They’ve all sprouted and are useless for eating, but they’re the perfect size to chunk at the loudmouth dog – heavy enough to be able to throw accurately for decent distance but light enough not to injure the dog. And I’m composting (badly, I admit, but it’s composting nonetheless, and you won’t convince me otherwise).
3. Writing. I was tempted to chuck it all, even the potatoes, tonight and distract myself with television and solitaire until I got sleepy. I feel much better now for having done some mental work to settle down and praying for a while. Now that I’ve dumped my brain out on a page, I feel like I’m me again.

One final hand photo to prove I may write like I have my crap together, but I can’t even trace my hand without getting Sharpie ink all over myself. This is one of at least five similar ink spots. I can barely be trusted with scissors, so I promise if I can make it through life, you can, too.