Monday, April 05, 2010

LESSON LEARNED 5: ANXIETY IS THE SOURCE OF INSECURITY

Previous lesson learned

I was a very anxious person before I received my Salvation.  I often seek advice from friends, rarely from my parents, and never from God.  Wrong move!!!  When I testified how God could change people and take away bad habits of those believers around me, I craved for that "new Yanny" too.  So I prayed that God would teach me to not be anxious.

As I train with God in these past 4 years, several verses have been my encouragements; and they smile at me daily as I work on my computer: 1 Peter 5:7; Phillipians 4:6-7; Proverbs 3:5-6; and Jeremiah 29:11.

This training also requires lifestyle change such as: plan ahead (no procrastination), pray a lot, give thanks on little things, and let go let God.

The training progress?  Most of the time, I found myself more joyful in comparison to the first 22 years of my life.  But I still find myself relapsing to the "old Yanny" every now and then.  One recent relapsing example is the last week Yanny.  

Never in my life that I had to deal with legal authorities (lawyers, police, and claim adjuster) as intense as I had to last week.  Legal stuff has been out of my comfort zone.  Talking about it would drain me out.  I would stay away from it as much as I could.  But when justice was unjust and no one could help me to take the stand, I was driven to take it on my own.  The thought that I'm dealing with people who talk legal as if I drink water intimidated me (a novice).  I grew anxious day by day to fight for justice (yeah, you heard me right; I was playing HERO).  I started to shoot in the dark.  I didn't know who got hit by my shots.  My anxiety resulted in my insecurities about little things:
  • When I got a call from my apartment manager that the Case Police Officer came to look for me, I had many questions running in my mind, "Why did he come?" "Why didn't he return my call?" "What does he need?" "What did I get myself into?" "Why do I have to deal with all these when I'm the one hit?"  Later I found out that the officer was just looking for my ID # to finish the Police Report.

  • On Friday, my boss called me to a meeting room.  These past 2 weeks, I've been typing, writing, and working with my left 5 fingers and right pinky due to my injury.  So when he called me, I ran questions again, "Why?" "Is it because I'm not that productive at work?" "Is it because I haven't been meeting his standard?"  When I went to the meeting, he actually asked for my feedback to improve certain process in my group.  Duhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

  • Right before Good Friday Service started, I got a call from a 408 number.  I didn't pick it up because I was afraid the call would be from a legal authority and could potentially ruin my Good Friday mood.  I let it go to my voice mail; but s/he didn't leave me one.  I didn't bother to call back.  Later I found out that the call was from the Security Company hired by my organization.  Apparently, the office alarm went off on Friday; and the Security Company had to send police to come and check.  Since I am on the Master Contact List in my company, I got the notification call.  We later found out that it was the janitor who set the alarm off.
It was insane how little things that happened last week made me so insecure.  I kept *bam bam bam bam* shooting in the dark.  It's so not worth it to grow the anxiety tree.  Look what I became last week!

It's a good training session as always.  Great reminder.  So when Marcel and I returned from the Good Friday Service, we're determined to give ourselves a break from the legal stuff for the weekend.  We did.  And we enjoyed the longgggggggg 3.5-hour nap on Saturday!  Marcel also had a long sleep last night and gave me the first morning smile in 2 weeks!

Ahhh, let go let God is always the way to go!

May this be a blessing!

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