Fear of an anxiety relapse

It’s been a while since I have updated my blog and I felt it was fitting that I do it, just after an amazing vacation God blessed us with!  You see, my first EVER panic attack happened in Feb of 2011, while I was on a sunny beach vacation. (Here is the link to my story, I shared it live at Element Church last summer http://youtu.be/IhA2uDX6yK0)  I also relapsed again in September of 2012 when we went on another beach vacation (this time it was to photograph a wedding). So… of course when we planned the vacation for this year (leaving at the end of February, 2014) I had a TON of racing thoughts.  You know these thoughts…like…”why would you book this trip, you’re just going to have a ton of panic attacks”, “you will NEVER enjoy this trip”, “you are not going to be able to control your anxiety while you’re out of the country”….so on and so on! I think it’s so important to STOP right there and address these countless racing negative thoughts!  We ALL have them!  Whether you notice them or not, we all have something the passes through our minds at one point in the day, BUT are you aware of them? Maybe it’s the thought when your alarm clock goes off in the morning of “ahhhhh I’m so tired, how I will have the energy to get through the day.” Or “I don’t like that lunch they are serving, what am I going to eat now.” Or sitting in traffic on your way home from work while you’re thinking “I really don’t want to go home to the big pile of dishes, laundry, homework and kids fighting tonight.”  Do you give merit to these thoughts? Do you allow them to set in and “hamster wheel” them (as I like to call them, the running them over and over in your head).  You know when you DO give them merit or let them in…that these thoughts take up precious precious space in your brain.  You do have a choice and that’s to NOT allow negative thoughts to take up space.  Get into the practice of recognizing a negative thought and redirecting it to a positive thought.  This practice is biblical and highly important to master in order to protect your thought life and to guard your heart from fear!

FEAR!!! Fear is a dangerous emotion!  It can ruin a perfect day, it can make you feel things that truly are not present.  Fear gives physical symptoms in your body, just by allowing it to set in.  Fear always leads into panic and anxiety!  Fear is evil!  The enemy WANTS you to be fearful, always!  Think about the opposite of fear for a moment??? There are many antonyms for fear but a big one is LOVE!  God is LOVE, and HE wants you to feel love at all times.  He wants you to walk in life by love, with love and for love! You are to LOVE at all times, so if this is God’s truth, then there is NO room for fear??  So why do we do it?? Why do we fear??? I would wager (and at least for me this is true) it comes down to not understanding the vast deepness of God’s love for me.  I think if we truly understood how MUCH God loved us that we would never, ever feel fear.  If we truly held on to “I will never leave you or forsake you” and got that deep into our hearts, then when the fears of this life that the enemy tries to throw at us coming crashing in, we could rise up and take a stand and say “No thank you, I have the Lord on my side and He will fight my battles (fears).  But we fail at this, I fail at this, over and over again.  I let the crashing waves hit me and I get knocked down, I let this life consume me and I reap the consequences for it.  For me it’s sleepless nights, racing thoughts, tingling and numbness in my chest, arms and legs, shortness of breath, troubles focusing, stomach aches and pains, headaches and visual disturbance!  These are ALL physical symptoms of FEAR!!! Fear is NOT just an emotion, it manifests itself in so many other ways…that’s why it’s so dangerous! BUT…the good news is, you can surrender it, you DON’T have to carry that load on your own. It’s gets to a point for me where I just get plum sick of it (fear) and I normally get so sick and tired of fighting it that the only thing left I have to do is, just let it go.  Why don’t we do that first?? How come the moment fear sweeps in our initial instinct is to fight it, think about it, and control it? Would if the MOMENT we had the chance to fear, we hit it tail on with God’s word and shut it down? It’s like a snowball catching snow down a hill…if you don’t let it roll down the hill it won’t get bigger!  So don’t let fear roll down the hill! Stop it right away.

I have to be honest; I was very anxious/full of fear before we left on this vacation.  EVERYTHING leading up to it was a total mess!!! I fretted about it all, leaving my kids, the “what if” I have a panic attack, the airplane ride, my children getting sick while we are gone, pretty much anything you could worry about, I did. To make matters worse we even lost my passport and had to rush one to our home and it literally came to our mail box the day before we left! Talk about anxiety!!! It can paralyze you AND keep you from the joys God is trying to bless you with (At this point I contemplated not going at all)! So, I prayed before we left, “Lord, please let this trip blow our expectations out of the water, let it be the most amazing trip ever.”  You see, I got sick of fear, so I prayed the opposite! We arrived at the resort and I thought to ask for “FREE upgrades”, we booked with Expedia and in fine print on our booking it said to “ask for free upgrades”, BUT so did all the other resorts on expedia.com so it really seemed like a shot in the dark.  So I asked. The front desk woman looked at us like, why would I give you free upgrades, and she said “no miss I’m sorry, we don’t have any free promotions for you at this time”.  I pressed it a little further and said “not even a free cabana (a cabana is a covered beach bed)” she said sorry miss those are free here.  Then out of no where a manager in a white outfit started speaking to her in Spanish and the nice front desk lady came back to us and said “Well, I could upgrade you to our sister resort which is a 5 diamond resort, it’s VERY nice at no charge (totally FREE)”.  My husband and best friends and I, all looked at each other like “HUH…why would you do that?”  She then proceeded to explain to us how much more expensive a night it was than the already nice resort we were staying at.  We all looked at each other, half of us reluctant, half of us ready to “go for it” and THEN... she put the cherry on top….”And we will pay for your cab fair to the new resort”.   SOLD!!! We jumped in and never looked back!!! It sincerely was the most amazing resort we have EVER had the pleasure of experiencing (all at NO extra charge for us)!  Every detail was incredible, it was a little piece of heaven on earth!  You know when it has to be God blessing you, because it just doesn’t make sense, we didn’t deserve that, we didn’t earn it, but God gave it to us anyway!!

I could have let my fear ruin this trip, but by God’s grace, wisdom and love, I was able to enjoy and receive the full blessings He had planned. 

Our amazing vacation to Mexico!