Why Your Stress Management Definition Needs a Reboot

Job, marriage, kids, money, image, things.

We worry. A lot. Too much.

Sometime around the industrial revolution, we coined a term for our worry. We downgraded it to “stress,” and began to treat it like something you can manage, something that can be controlled. And when we failed to call it what it really is, it became a permanent part of our culture, and our day-to-day lives.

We should have called it fear.

“Stress” has the same effect as fear – adrenaline, the “fight-or-flight” response, an inability to focus on anything else until the threat is mitigated.

The biggest problem with “stress” is that it’s not the kind of fear that you’d get from, say, being chased by a bear. It’s not a temporary, one-off thing. “Stress” is a long-term, ongoing event, often called chronic stress – constantly taxing our nervous system, making us tired, grumpy, discouraged, and not-so-fun to be around.

But because we’re so afraid to call it fear, we try to manage our chronic stress – vacations, drinking, hobbies, drugs (legal and beyond), sex, etc. And while we might get a brief respite, our chronic stress will be waiting when the vacation’s over, or the affair gets old, or the buzz wears off – no matter how many stress management coping strategies we might come up with.

A Better Stress Management Definition

If the goal of “stress” management is a very short break from scary things, I guess you could say it works. The marketing world sure seems to think so.

But there’s no such thing as fear management. Fear is a big thing, much bigger than “stress.” It must be dealt with directly, forcefully, with a view towards permanent annihilation.  When we downgrade our fears to something that’s “manageable,” we’re welcoming them into our lives as permanent guests.

The typical stress management definition needs a reboot. The best first step to take is to say to ourselves, and maybe to a few close friends, “I’m scared. Really scared. So scared that it’s making me tired, hard to get along with. I can’t sleep at night because I’m so scared.”

Our “stress” needs an upgrade.

And that’s something that most of us won’t do. We don’t like saying “I’m scared.”

Fear is weakness. How would it sound if you were hanging out with friends and you said something akin to “I really screwed up at work and I’m scared of what people are saying about me. Really scared. So scared that it’s keeping me up at night.” How awkward would that be? Your friends would have to be super healthy people to respond appropriately.

Far better to say, “Jeeze, I really screwed up at work and it’s stressing me out.” Then everyone can say, “Oh yeah, stress,” and seamlessly move to the next topic.

I think most psychotherapeutic professionals would call that weak. Facing our fears, and taking the very important first step of calling them what they are requires strength, as does any step you might take towards the total obliteration of fears.

I realize that I’m talking a big game here. Can we get rid of our fears? Can we find complete freedom from the things that scare the crap out us?

I can’t. I’ve tried.

I’ve lived most of my life with a debilitating fear of being rejected. I was a nerd in junior high/high school, got picked on, laughed at, etc. and frequently went to bed worried about what would happen at school the next day.

I didn’t know who to talk to, or how to talk about it, so I did my best to plod through the trauma – alone.

Years later I went to seminary and started a career as a pastor. I wasn’t very good at it, but got enough exposure to get a good taste of how mean God’s people can be. If you need everyone to like you, don’t go into ministry.

People talked about me behind my back, some laughed at my mistakes and my awkwardness – not because I was worse than other pastors – it’s simply/unfortunately common to the calling. But I couldn’t focus on all the good things that were going on. I was scared – and my stress management coping strategies were a failure. All the old memories of my teen years came flooding in, the unhealed hurts, the trauma. It was overwhelming. So I quit and started a web business, which was much more “friendly.”

A few years later, I was offered a volunteer position as a pastor in the church we were attending. I was honored, took the position, and jumped back into the world of helping others, making mistakes, delivering bad sermons, and knowing that not everybody was a fan.

All the fears came flooding back in, but in the middle of the sleepless nights something new came to bear. I took an inventory of all my “fans” – the people who I’d helped, mentored, pastored, etc. There were many. In spite of my detractors, I was winning, moving forward. Things were working.

I’d always been afraid that if someone didn’t like me, others would follow suit, and I’d be ruined. That wasn’t the case here. I didn’t actually have anything to be afraid of. I also noticed that people who talk about others aren’t healthy – there’s something broken inside that’s driving them to focus on the mistakes and frailties of other people.

I can’t say that I’m completely free from the fear of rejection, but I’m closer to freedom.

And none of that would have happened if I hadn’t admitted, “I’m scared.”

I still have plenty of sleepless nights, a mountain of fear, but I’ve learned two things. First, telling myself and others, “I’m scared” is the best first step I can take towards getting rid of these fears. Second, while I’ll never totally eradicate my fears, I can take small steps towards a fear-free life.

I know, I just said “set your goals high in life and you will go far,” but it happens to be true in this case.

The point isn’t total annihilation, it’s more freedom, but we won’t get more freedom unless we shoot for total annihilation.

And none of that will happen if we’re too scared to say “I’m scared.”

I see people in my Christian camp frequently looking for Bible verses for stress. There aren’t any, but I can assure you that there are plenty of Bible verses for fear.

Don’t take my word for it. Try it yourself. Pick something that “stresses” you out – Job, marriage, kids, money, image, things, whatever. Take an hour alone and admit how scared you are, and how your fear of this thing is running your life, and stealing from it. Don’t downplay it, don’t say things like “but everybody gets scared,” or, “it’s not really that bad.”

Face it, admit it.

Then take it to the next level. Grab someone close to you, sit down with them and confess what you just admitted to yourself. Make it a big deal, formal. This will be awkward. And scary. You’ll really want to downplay it, make it sound like you’re not that “weak.”

If you do this right, what you’ll find is that there’s something powerful in saying “I’m scared.” I have no idea how it works, maybe it’s a God thing, but it works.

These aren’t the only steps to freedom, there’ll be more work to do. But like most difficult things, especially freedom, the process gets much more clear once we’ve taken first steps.

What the #MeToo Movement Implies About Men in America

The biggest complaint I hear about the #metoo movement is that women shouldn’t have this kind of power.

Nobody should have the ability to simply utter something that could ruin a person’s career. But that’s what’s happening. Judge Kavanaugh’s name has been dragged through the mud, so has Donald Trump’s, and a host of other powerful/famous people.

Many claim that these women are merely seeking fame, or hate their victims, or both.

For me, there are two things about the #metoo movement that I never hear, two things that, in my opinion, stink to high heaven.

First, where are the lawsuits?

Crying “sexual harassment,” especially if it never happened, is something that can get you in a ton of trouble. Donald Trump could easily turn around and ruin you financially if he wanted to. Brett Kavanaugh could do the same.

Why don’t they?

If I had a career that could be ruined by an accusation like this, I’d seek legal action. I’d do everything in my power to clear my name, prove my innocence, and hold onto my career – unless I was guilty, then I’d do everything in my power to steer clear of these people, lie to my fans, and try to move forward.

In this #metoo movement, to my knowledge, there have been 0 lawsuits.

The second thing that stinks is the very popular declaration that these women have no evidence and therefore shouldn’t have a voice, or the power that comes with it.

And this is where things get downright silly to me. I hear, over and over again, because of the lack of evidence: “These women are lying,” and, “All they want is fame/power/revenge, etc.”

True enough that there’s a dirth of evidence in all of this – you can’t convict Judge Kavanaugh on someone’s word, even if there are three someones. But, apparently, you can convict these women of lying based on the same lack of evidence.

I’m begging – If we can’t convict someone like Brett Kavanaugh because there’s not enough evidence, can we please stop calling these women liars – there’s no evidence there either. We should be Continue reading What the #MeToo Movement Implies About Men in America

Re Your Kids: Never Quit. Never Ever Quit. Never Ever Ever Quit

If you’re not in your 50’s yet, I promise that by the time you get there you’ll have heard tons of stories about parents who, faced with the rigors of parenting, threw in the towel. They didn’t go away physically, they simply decided enough was enough, and emotionally detached from their relationship with their kids.

And man do I get it.

And I don’t have teenagers, though they’re coming like God’s justice.

And I find myself constantly asking, when my kids hit their teens, will I quit?

I could give you a very long list of personal, very painful quitting stories. Near the top is the time I attempted to start my own church. I gave it hell, spent a year out of state training for the venture (thanx Fellowship Associates!!), raised enough money to pay the bills for 3 years (thanx you-know-who-you-are!!), and started off pretty great. At the end of it all, my mentors and I decided it was time to “transition” out of the very small church that came to be after a couple of years.

I have bad memories of the early Sunday AM when I walked to the school where our church was meeting and taped the “sorry, outta here” sign on the double doors to the gym, then walked home to begin the difficult journey of patching up the marriage that was struggling b/c I spent every waking moment perseverating about the church (thanx wife, for putting up with all that).

There’s a shorter list of the times I didn’t quit, a few episodes where I pushed through tons-o-muck to reap what lay on the other side. It’s fascinating that I don’t regret any of the pain, lack of hope, relational hardship, etc. that always comes part and parcel to perseverance. I’m left with only fond memories, mainly because the good stuff has always redeemed the bad, and become part of the whole story.

I’ve persevered enough to understand that perseverance is a deal-breaking ingredient to any good life – can’t have what you want without it. We’re all going to have to walk through crap – relationally, vocationally, physically, spiritually, etc. if want to live.

No way around it.

Which might explain why so many of Continue reading Re Your Kids: Never Quit. Never Ever Quit. Never Ever Ever Quit