social (media) anxiety

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Are any of these true for you?

-Notifications from social media sites make you nervous

-When you get text messages, even from people you care about, you feel the urge to avoid answering them

-Even though you want to share your thoughts with others, it’s like pulling teeth to write a blog post

If none of these apply to you, it may seem strange to you that anyone would feel this way.

But maybe one or all of these do apply to you.

Maybe you’ve experienced the Catch-22 of social anxiety:

you want very much to connect with others,

yet the very act of connecting with others makes you feel nervous and avoidant!

I’ve known for a while now that I deal with social anxiety.

But only recently have I made the connection that it affects my electronic social life as well!

Now that I’ve realized I have social (media) anxiety, I can challenge it the way I do my “real life” social anxiety.

Do you experience social (media) anxiety?

If you do (or even if you don’t), I’m curious to hear what you think.

Yours thoughtfully,

Jenna

peace is proceeding.

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Sometimes peace hurts.

Sometimes peace means feeling all the painful things all over again.

Except with peace, your spirit doesn’t hurt.

Because your heart is open.

You have let go.

What will happen? It’s never certain.

This you have accepted.

Whatever may come, you will be there.

You have committed to steadiness within yourself no matter what happens.

No matter how much it hurts.

No matter how much you miss what you’ve lost.

No matter how many pieces your heart has broken into.

This is why we can’t predict who will find peace.

Because peace does not depend on circumstance.

It does not require complex theories or figuring out.

Peace is proceeding.

One breath at a time.

Because you exist, and for no other reason.

Remember, above all, that peace is your friend.

You need not be lonely anymore.

pleasure/pain

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what would it mean
to take it in turns

to take it all
in stride

not waiting for
the perfect vacation
beach breeze, palm trees
to relax

but to pause
here and now
amidst the chaos

stand still
watch it whirl
watch it all come and go

if you can’t help but want
the pleasant things

if you can’t help but prefer
pleasure to pain

you’re not alone

but i invite you to imagine
just for a moment

what it would mean
to let go of preference

if it made no difference
whether the next moment
brought pleasure or pain

if you believed you stood to gain
and stood to lose
equally from both

can you let go of needing
to feel a certain way?

i know it’s a lot to ask
and i am no master

these are just things
i’ve decided to consider

i’ve decided to ask
what if.

what waits within

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where is the grief
inside you living?

what waits within
like song inside a bird

what seizes your heart
in spasms of fear and glory
waiting, waiting
to be heard?

tell me, tell anyone, tell someone
even if only
in the faintest of whispers

until you touch the place inside
where grief melts into music.

to the artist of spirit

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your art is the roots.

let it lie dark
and rich like the mud.

your breath
is your navigator.

show others the way through their breath
their limbs
their movements
make them like trees
make them bright as stars.

let go of “purpose.”
do it because it moves you.

someday is not your concern
for your time is now.

in time
your shallows shall swell
with the tide.

what you have so heavily resisted
shall become your bread and butter

and the heaviest burdens upon your back
shall become your ballasts.

go.
move.
it is the only way
if you are to light the way forward.

rooting

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child
no matter how deeply
you have been wounded
remember:

one day a seed
will come along

take root exactly
where it hurts the most

slumber
in darkness until
you open up

and allow enough light
to reach it;

once you do that
nothing will stop
its furious
motion

its transformation
of dark matter
into something altogether
unexpected.

imaginings

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All of the things people have ever imagined. Dreamed. Rehearsed. Envisioned. Without actually doing them. All the books half written, or unwritten. Songs unsung. Dances never danced. Where do they go?

Is there a home for them somewhere?

That’s what God is to me. A home for our imaginings.

it is what it is.

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Because it is.

That’s why.

This is the life you were given.

It has meaning simply because it exists.

Don’t run from it.

Face it.

Face the ugly parts,

the beautiful parts,

and especially the parts

that are beautiful and ugly at the same time.

Don’t try to reason with it.

Life does what it wants.

It won’t ask for your opinion,

and worrying won’t alter its course.

Life chooses us.

Our own choice lies in response, not in circumstance.

There is comfort in realizing you don’t have to orchestrate it all.

Given time, most things take care of themselves.

When we feel we have been denied something,

we miss what we have been given.

Honor:

the wound, not the victimhood;

the emotions, not the drama;

the pain, not the resistance to it.

Your coordinates in time and space are merely a starting point.

More important than what you make of it

is how you allow it to move you;

what you allow to bridge the gap

between form and possibility.