Fear and Panic as Teachers

Lately I have been going through a strange passage - one characterized by high anxiety, a sense of dread and tendencies toward panic. I have had claustraphobic nightmares, images on TV of people or animals with anything covering their faces scare me big time and I often have a sense of forboding. Of course, the latter scares me more as I wonder"Is this is a sense of knowing!?" When panicky I feel like I'm not getting enough air and my heart palpitates. Not a fun time!

As I tend to this medically I have learned much about my life. Medicine has provided an anti-anxiety drug which seems to be helping; it's takes a long time to work and then very gradually. I have gone through several boy-I-would-rather-be-somewhere-else!-tests at hospitals, which have ruled out ailments I have scared myself with when panicking. One thing was discovered: I have a severe case of sleep apnea - I stop breathing while sleeping - apparently alot. Eventually I will have a machine to be hooked up to at night which will attach to my nose and force air so that I won't stop breathing. Sounds attractive, doesn't it? Luckily I sleep/live alone; no one has to sleep with elephant girl! I can see that the sleep apnea could cause at least some of my clautraphobia and anxiety. Nonetheless, it has been what I have learned non-medically which impels me to write.

This seige of anxiety started almost 2 months ago to the day. I wonder if this suffiecient time to provide a wise prospective - yet I feel I have learned so much. As I have been seeing doctors and the medicine is building up to theraputic levels, time and life go on. Life provides these opportunities to learn. In some recovery circles there's an expression: an AFGO [Another F-king Growth Oppportunity]. And here I am in the midst of one.

Fear can be one hell of a teacher! I guess there are many fears but my bet is they pretty much wind up as one - fear of death - the unknown. That is my experience anyway. Death and its fear seem to cut through the crap of life so that you decide and face what is important to you. For me it meant going back to a process of resting in the hands of a loving force. I believe in God but not in the way that many of us have heard of God. I believe in a God that is beyond our ken; I believe that most people and often religions underestimate God. I trust in a spirit that links all of humanity and living things; a spirit that is the epitome of all virtue: love, truth, beauty... ad infintium.

So, fear and anxiety have taught me to constantly let go to the divine loving presence - a presence that is like the water for a fish. It can be a wonderful thing to trust that if I do what I can I will be buoyed up by the grace of that spirit. I'm old enough to look back and see how things work out while we are unaware of it. It makes me grateful for my 61 years. I lament the 20-somethings who take their own lives because they don't have this vantage point.

So, as I let go to love, my vision also improved. It was a rather rude kind of insight when I realized how in the passed year or two I had become so passive. I accepted my increasing physical limitations nonchalantly. So what if I have to drive the 2 blocks down the street to the stores! I have the wonderful companionship of 2 delightful dogs; but how much do I play with them? My friends are dear to me; how active has my kindness to them been. How many friends have I not been in contact lately? When was I going to get back into doing my fabric artwork? As I progress with this insight I wonder if some of the anxiety is related to the fact that I was letting life slip away - at least at some level or in some way. That's scary and I believe it is only as I get some distance on it that I realize how scary.

So those damn teachers of Fear and Panic have set me on my way again. I'm working out for the first time in my life! I seem to be eating less - naturally. I've completed one fabric collage and almost finished another. I went out to a concert out of town and stayed overnight for the first time in years. I carry on with my little dogs and entertain their friends.

Yet, there is still something more wonderful about all of this. I'm not sure I can articulate it well yet. I'm a person who is generally on a quest - something to make me a better me - following it with a passion. That passion, I'm beginning to realize, had gotten lost. As an artist - at least at heart - I had longed for the elusive "Flow" - to be connected to the creative source. The letting go and being connected to the creative source is where it all comes together for me. In my searching about anxiety I found a reference to flow as "self-forgetful spontaneity". If that isn't the opposite of anxiety I don't know what is! So, F & P have set me on a quest - hear the strains of The Impossible Dream in the background - a quest to lose myself in art, in the moment, in life!

Neighborhood Party

Last night I went to my next-door neighbor's party.  They are a couple, brand-new to the neighborhood, whom I welcome as neighbors - I have already benefited by their presence - from the generous exchange of favors to the fact that one of the couple is the reason I know what a blog is and have one!  Despite this, did I think to take a housewarming present - even though those words were on the invitation flyer?  No, so I did some rationalizing which I won't detail here.   In writing a morning-after-party thank you, I praised the hosts on setting a tone that facilitated a simply good party.  This - I hoped the message came through - was truly meant as praise.

It takes talent to have a simply nice party; the spirit of the hosts -- their casual attitude and ease and hospitality -- make it happen.  The monks of long ago took vows of hospitality. [Some still do to this day.]  In addition to vows of obedience, chastity and poverty, they took a vow of hospitality.  It meant to really welcome each person they met with the same love as if it was God in disguise or, more in keeping with the golden rule, the same love as they had for themselves.  So, all those monasteries and abbeys that were all over Britain and Europe would provide food and shelter to travelers.  But they did so from the deepest part of their spirits -- where they are connected to all things -- as a reflection of that connection.
                                                                                                                             
I've been thinking of hospitality from this point of view lately.  I've been reviewing my strengths and hope that this is one of them.  There was a time when I had a singing partner and we sang at nursing homes/assisted-living centers and adult day care centers.  My partner, the accomplished musician, played keyboard and sang alto to my soprano.  We performed a short program and led singalong.  Because my partner was at the keyboard I was the one interacting more with the people, both during the singalong and after.  As she packed up the keyboard, I went to each person to say it was good to be with each of them for that time together.  The folks we sang to might be as lucid as you or anyone or in various states of vacancy or detachment.  What strikes me more now more than before is how much I was speaking from my a heart a gladness of having been there and sharing music with them.  It was a wonderful feeling of agape - of loving the people just because we have our humanity in common.  THAT must be what true hospitality is!  And I want to share more of that.   How does that fit with my having absolutely no thought of taking a gift last night?!  Duh? Certainly generousity is an integral part of hospitality. And, I do know that hospitality is something I strive for having in my everyday life. 

I'm looking for ways; does living alone make it more difficult?  It seems so.  My latest thought is to volunteer for Food and Friends, taking meals to seriously ill people.  I'd really like to do it but feel I need a partner again.  This time it's about the logistics of parking and my not-so-adept parallel parking skill etc.  Well, my singing partner came into my life serendipitously.  And, I shall remain open to any way I can share true hospitality!

Me and My Blog

Hello, world!  Here I am with a blog!  That's quite a surprise to me.  I look at my blog as a personal journal which I am stashing away in the attic and maybe someday, someone will read it.  Also, it's like putting a message in a bottle and letting it drift out to sea.  I don't expect a response but who knows.  Blogs are something soooo new - who knows!  It's called chez suz - suz's home - because over the passed several years I have been much more at home than when I was working - I retired early.  Since then I have tackled new challenges: singing, piano, fabric art - tra-la-la-la-la.  Artistic expression will always be my quest.  However, I find that the real spiritual challenges are really the mundane things of day to day living.  So, I plan to write about finding adventure right here.  That looking at " what's on your plate" right here, right now is whereone finds the fire to push my spirit on to soar!  Over the most recent couple of years I have been involved with long seiges of  illness and house renovations and through it all I had this when-this-is-over mentality.  I did find challenges -spiritual and otherwise - during that time but maintained the w-t-i-o mentality.  So, the renovations arn't finished and another health problem is here but I'm finding my challenge is to accept both those things and flourish anyway.  I hope this blog will help me solidify this.