Reflect, Renew, Rebuild Living Right-Side Up in an Upside-Down World
The shadows will always be behind you if you walk toward the light.
Anonymous
The cheetah has extremely long legs and uses its heavy tail for balance when executing sharp turns.
When a state of equilibrium exists where no nation or group of nations is able to dominate others, we have achieved a vital balance of power.
Vertigo is a hallucination in which the individual or his or her surroundings seem to be spinning, in what may be experienced as a sensation of imminent loss of consciousness or absence of balance.
The violin section of a symphonic orchestra requires greater numbers to balance the corresponding viola, cello, and bass sections.
Like all Hebrew poetry, the psalms are written in parallel lines that balance words, images, and thoughts. They have the effect of creating special nuances and emphasizing the message through a skilled mixture of repetition and variation.
Balance, balance, balance. Beasts of the jungle have it. Politicians know they need it. Our bodies do not function well without it. Orchestras cannot produce a high quality sound if they don’t have it. And the Jews knew that it would enhance their message and give their poetry a beauty and quality that would endure for generations.
Yet you and I just don’t get it. We know we need to live balanced lives, but we tend not to. We go off on extremes and expect things to right themselves. We look back into history and see how most ancient cultures viewed balance as one of the most important ingredients for living effective lives. The Chinese, for example, fought against extremes in their ancient political philosophy and in their approach to health and, like the Hebrews, made balance a critical element in their poetry. But how do you and I stay topside up in a world intent on standing us on our heads, afflicting us with emotional vertigo, and encouraging the bass sections of our lives to drown out the violins?
The Fine Art of Maintaining Balance
In this chapter, you will find practical answers that will help you move away from emotional exhaustion. If you try to live without balance, you will invariably retreat to older patterns of thinking. The tendency is always to default to previous, often unbalanced, behavior when the going gets rough, when feeling boxed in, or when the pressures of life become more than you feel you can bear. But when you are armed with principles of fortification to help you predict the obstacles, know how to prevent them from disabling you, and realize you do not have to relapse, then you will be miles down the road to becoming strong and staying strong.
High stress is a prime cause of emotional imbalance and may even set you up for accidental injury and illness. Here is a useful set of questions to determine your stress level.
To help determine your current level of stress, answer the following questions based on the past six months. Keep a tally of the number of points for each yes answer.
Evaluation: The higher your score, the more stressful your life. As a general guide, a score of thirty suggests you are not likely to have a stress-related illness or accidental injury now or in the near future. Challenges begin as you move up the point scale. If your score is sixty or more, your life is extremely stressful and you are at a higher risk for one or more stress-related illnesses. You also need to carefully evaluate decisions you make that may add to your stress.
Let me remind you that the above scale is not to be taken as final arbiter of your emotional health but only to give you a sense of why you may feel some of the strain you are experiencing at this time. These questions are not intended to cause fear but rather to help you understand your stress so you can get a firmer grasp on what may be the cause of your emotional exhaustion.
With this as backdrop, let’s look at five key areas where you can fortify your life, create greater opportunities for emotional balance, and put yourself on track to stay right-side up in an upside-down world.
1. Create and Maintain Healthy Relationships
Healthy people are growing people, and people do not grow healthy in isolation. Let me give you an example of an executive I’ll call Tom who tried to do it the other way around.
Tom didn’t realize it at the time, but his success in climbing to a top executive position with his company was achieved at the expense of his personal life. Tom stayed at the office well into the evening each day, spent hundreds of hours on airplanes each year—always working madly on his laptop computer, of course—entertained clients over dinner, and took at least two full briefcases home each weekend. When Tom wasn’t working, work was working Tom. Even when physically present at the family dinner table, his mind was still in the office, thinking of the current project, the next project, or past projects. When he’d go on vacations with his family, Tom would pack an extra box or two of business reports, books, and magazines. He never got to all of them but he was content to know that his security blankets were not far away.
When Tom wasn’t working, work was working Tom. Even when physically present at the family dinner table, his mind was still in the office, thinking of the current project,the next project, or past projects.
This obsession with work was destroying Tom’s relationship with his wife and children but it didn’t seem to matter much to Tom, because he continued to get reinforcement for his yeoman efforts from his boss and colleagues. People in the office would say, “You know, Tom is just about the hardest-working guy I’ve ever seen in this place. I can’t believe it. How does he do it? He keeps his weight down, has energy to spare, works until seven every night, comes in on Saturdays more than anyone else, works at home. What a guy!”
What a guy indeed. Although he says he loves his wife, Tom is now divorced, lives in a one-bedroom efficiency apartment, and misses his kids, but he is still nowhere near understanding what really happened. He tried to grow in one dimension only, and because of his physical endurance, business acumen, and the reinforcement he received from his colleagues, he figured he’d be able to pull it off.
Tom made his choice early on. He accepted the challenge to make work his life and life his work. He bought into reaping the benefits he thought he wanted, rewards he was sure would result from hard work and dedication: power, respect, money, and achievement. As advancements came his way, along with greater responsibility, the pressure to produce even more only increased.
Tom mistook an organized, effective, well-paid, well-oiled economic situation for a relationship. It was not. It was an arrangement for business purposes. Yes, Tom had to work and he was good at what he did. But there was no balance to his life. Tom had a loving wife and great kids who were dying to have a relationship with their husband and father. They needed to be recognized, uplifted, talked to, listened to. They needed—and still need—someone who regards their opinion as important and who will be there when they need him most.
Do you relate to Tom? You may have been on one end of the spectrum or the other. You may even now be so preoccupied with business success, travel, and the next deal that you are forgetting what may be most important in your life. Or you may be the one at home who wonders if your husband or wife will ever see the need for the kind of relationship you are eager to share. Remember that the most effective way of establishing healthy relationships with others is to become emotionally healthy yourself. It may involve some serious challenges as you move through the process, but you must not forget the importance of your own emotional well-being.[1]
Remember that the most effective way of establishing healthy relationships with others is to become emotionally healthy yourself.
The following questions can help you recognize if you are creating and maintaining healthy relationships:
Am I able to slow down? Can I get rid of my dysfunctional attitudes about time that make me think I need to do everything now, in a hurry, at all costs, to the detriment of the relationships I say are important to me?
Am I looking at the bigger picture? Is what I do really what I want to do and be? Am I engaging in the kinds of activities that encourage or inhibit my relationships?
Am I equating work with my worth? It’s been said that we’ve become walking résumés, meaning that we are what we do—no more, no less. Am I able to do something like walk on a secluded beach and enjoy a sunset with my spouse or a friend (without my cell phone or pager) and still feel I have value?
Do I take breaks during the day to do something besides work? Do I take the time to call a friend, take a five-minute vacation, write a love note or postcard to a son or daughter in college, or pick up some flowers for a loved one on my lunch break?
If your answers to these questions are generally no, it may be wise to share your concerns and observations with a friend, your pastor, or a professional counselor.
2. Learn to Become Pride and “Big” Ego Free
The Bible says, “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall” (Prov. 16:18). The Book of Common Prayer pleads, “From pride, vain-glory, and hypocrisy; from envy, hatred, and malice, and all uncharitableness, good Lord, deliver us.” Daniel Defoe wrote, “Pride is the first peer and president of Hell.”
It is not that we do great and marvelous things but that we are, as Oswald Chambers says, “good in motive because we have been made good by the supernatural grace of God”
For us who say we are disciples, it is not that we do great and marvelous things but that we are, as Oswald Chambers says, “good in motive because we have been made good by the supernatural grace of God.”
To find inner healing, to maintain a healthy balance, and to avoid relapsing into old, ineffective patterns of behavior, we need to be willing to turn loose many of our external images and allow our faith to take us to the next step of emotional growth. Mahatma Gandhi wrote, “Many could forego heavy meals, a full wardrobe, a fine house, etc.; it is the ego they cannot forego.” We have all accumulated so many trappings during our lives—externals that manifest themselves in how we relate to our money, our homes, the success of our children, our position in the community, and the way we wield power in the pulpit or the boardroom. The more strongly attached we remain to outward appearances of success, the more difficult it will be to move away from feeling emotionally exhausted. To determine whether this is a problem for you, ask yourself these three questions:
Am I overly attached to something because it puffs my ego and makes me look good to others, like a new car or a fashionable wardrobe?
Am I willing to take a small risk by looking at one area in my life where pride reigns supreme and begin to see it as a gift to share with others rather than a trophy about which to brag?
Am I willing to play armchair archaeologist and dig beneath my surface through the debris of hurt feelings and pain to discover who I really am?
What are you evaluating right now about your life? Are your pride and ego getting in the way of some remarkable things God wants to do to you, with you, and for you? Until now you’ve been adding more years to your life and that may have been about it. But when you take this principle and put it to work, you will begin to put more life to your years as you recover from emotional exhaustion.
3. Share Freely the Loves of Your Life
What are the loves of your life? I’m not talking about people here but rather about the things you truly love to do—your hobbies and interests. It may be your personality, your ability to keep them laughing for hours with your gift of humor, your skill at conversation. Perhaps it’s your compassion for those in need. It may be how you relate to children, to the elderly, to the homeless. These are all part of your emotional DNA—the unique twists and turns that make you the special person you are.
Perhaps you’ve been emotionally exhausted for so long that you’ve put your loves on a shelf. Depression may have kept you isolated and afraid. You may have actually forgotten what once got you excited about life. Perhaps the model train you used to have on display for the neighborhood kids to enjoy is gathering dust in your attic. At one time you loved photography but now you don’t even know where your camera is. You may have once had a smile as broad as all outdoors, but your life’s circumstances have taken your smile away. It’s not that you don’t want to smile, but rather you feel you no longer have much about which to smile.
You may have once had a smile as broad as all outdoors, but your life’s circumstances have taken your smile away. It’s not that you don’t want to smile, but rather you feel you no longer have much about which to smile.
I have a wonderful uncle who started making carvings for members of our family several years ago. Uncle Glenn is terrific at his craft, especially in carving little wooden cars that are so intricate they look like you could almost drive them. I can still see his broad smile as he took out a car and handed it to me as his special gift. Making these wood carvings for his family is one of the great loves of Uncle Glenn’s life—a living, loving hobby that continues to create a ripple effect of love and affection.
Then there’s my grandfather—a miner who owned silver and gold mines in Idaho. One of his loves was to pan for gold and to use the nuggets he found to make necklaces for the women in our family. These were handmade, pure gold nugget-laden necklaces—beautiful, personal works of art. But more than that, they were labors of love and gifts straight from my grandfather’s heart. From the day he gave one to my wife as a present, I have never seen her without it. The day he died of Lou Gehrig’s disease, my mother sat singing to him at his bedside, the gold nugget necklace around her neck reflecting the light from an open window. Today that heartfelt gift keeps on giving, bringing joy to the wearer and to all who see and appreciate this love-made piece of jewelry.
I tell you these two stories to encourage you to look deep within and beneath the mountain of hurt that may have buried some of your great loves. You certainly don’t have to be a wood carver or a gold miner. That’s not the point. It’s not the cleverness of the gift but the attitude of the heart that gives the gift that matters. I’m confident there is something you may have put aside—a real love of your life—that you may now be ready to revisit, bring to the surface, and share with others.
Expressing the loves of your life again will help steady your course, because it will take your eyes away from yourself and focus them on others. This is something you must decide to do because it’s the right thing for you to do—not as an ego trip or to impress someone else. When you give the gift of yourself freely, without thought of the cost—anything from your great smile, to baking a cake for someone, to making a gold nugget necklace—you will be edging closer to finding inner healing.
4. Nothing Is Etched in Stone
On my desk at The Center in Edmonds, Washington, is a beautiful, flat rock. Carved into this rock that I use as a paperweight are the words, “Nothing is etched in stone.” I keep this motto in front of me as a reminder that God has given me an overwhelming sense of freedom to exercise many different options every day of my life. I can choose to do some things and choose not to do others. Nothing is etched in stone. I can work six hours or ten hours or choose not to work at all and take a vacation: Nothing is etched in stone.
I can save my money, spend my money, or waste my money. I can choose to spend time with one friend and not with another. I can make a decision to write one or two books a year, do a series of seminars on any number of topics, do something entirely different, or do nothing at all.
We are able to explore so many options because God has laid down laws and principles that do not put us in bondage but, when followed, give us freedom. Take the laws of gravity for instance. It may bind us to the earth but it also gives us the freedom to jog, cycle, work at a computer, enjoy a cup of coffee, cuddle a baby in our arms, or walk hand-in-hand with someone we love.
Some may see the Ten Commandments as repressive rules that take away our freedom. But how many of us would want to live in a world where it is totally acceptable to lie, steal, and murder? Each of God’s laws and principles are born of his love for us. Once we can believe the truth that God is love and that he loves us more than we can ever love ourselves, we will be released from former bondage to live life with a new, positive orientation.
Once we can believe the truth that God is love and that he loves us more than we can ever love ourselves, we will be released from former bondage to live life with a new, positive orientation.
Within the framework of God’s laws and love, we are free to choose our options and to be creative. Past mistakes or abuse do not determine our future. We can choose to improve damaged relationships, change our appearance, expand our mind, or overcome past abuse.
God did not make us to be emotionally exhausted. With his help we can do better than that. We can pray for courage to be the person God designed us to be, and our prayers can be answered—because nothing is etched in stone except God’s love for us.
5. God Prevails
At the very heart of maintaining our stability and balance must be this belief: God prevails. Whatever we do for good or ill, God prevails. After our best laid plans have been organized and implemented, God prevails. When we’ve done our homework, paid our dues, and sit back to wait for things to go our way because we deserve a break today, God prevails.
As I sit here at my desk writing these words on a yellow legal pad, my mind shoots back to fourteen years earlier when I was also sitting in this room. LaFon and I were newlyweds and we had just started The Center for Counseling and Health Resources. We began our counseling ministry even though many thought it was a foolish attempt that would go nowhere. For us, however, it was an act of faith as we opened our practice with only one room—the office in which I now sit.
We had nothing but these four walls. No waiting room, no amenities—and not that many clients for that matter. We were just two young people with a dream to reach out to individuals and families struggling to keep their balance during difficult times. I wonder if we would have taken so many risks had we known what it takes to make dreams come true: the painful days of burnout and emotional exhaustion, the months when too many clients chose not to pay their bills, the times when LaFon and I would look at each other and wonder aloud if it was worth the effort.
God prevails during our moments of courage and he prevails in the dark night of our souls with its many fears and doubts.
But through it all we believed in our hearts that God would prevail. We knew he would rule in our successes and in our failures, and he did. Today we can say that he prevails when it rains and he prevails when we are blinded by the light of the morning sun. He prevails when you and I love and he prevails when we play God by trying to get our own way. God prevails during our moments of courage and he prevails in the dark night of our souls with its many fears and doubts.
Dr. Robert Schuller’s prayers have helped sustain me for many years. I especially appreciate the ones in which he prays that God will not make our lives easier but rather that he will turn our fears around, making our most frightening moments the raw substance from which hope is created.
Healthy Balance or Balancing Act?
Do you ever get the feeling that God is the fisherman and you are the fish swimming madly away trying to avoid the hook? You see it coming, and you dodge it. Whew! Escaped one more time. After all, you think you have a better idea. You’ve developed your own way to regain control of your life. You have a unique method of creating balance in your life. However, you soon learn that the more you dodge his relentless pursuit, the deeper you descend into a weakness of spirit. Instead of getting it all together, life begins falling apart. What seemed like freedom and balance was really a balancing act, good for a few thrilling moments, but difficult to sustain—and especially frightening when you find yourself in the murky ocean depths.
Sometimes we are so weak and emotionally exhausted we feel we don’t deserve to find healing because we are unworthy of God’s attention. We even catch ourselves sabotaging our own progress. God says he loves us, but our lowered self-esteem keeps us from believing it.
If this is where you are today, it will be a challenge for you to remember and embrace the magnitude of God’s love for you. It’s what happens to all of us when we’ve lived on the other side of his love for so long. We’ve had lifestyles in which others abused us or we abused them. Sometimes this made us feel powerful; at other times we felt incredibly weak and ashamed.
Our backgrounds have not always prepared us to receive God’s love and mercy, but that’s what faith and hope are all about: accepting God’s compassion while we’re still in the pit, when we don’t, can’t, and even won’t understand it. Your assignment, if you choose to accept it, is simply to get out of the way and let God love you, flood you with his compassion, and prevail in every area of your life. It’s what will help you regain your balance and help you live right-side up in an upside-down world.
Reflect, Renew, Rebuild
Reflect. Let this prayer sweep over your spirit. After you’ve meditated on it for a few moments, make some notes in your journal on what it means to you in light of this chapter.
Lord, I need only one thing in this world: To know myself, and to love You. Give me, heavenly Father, your love and your peace. Help me do more than just survive this world of turmoil and fears. Make me strong. Keep me balanced. With these I am rich enough and desire nothing more. Dear Father in heaven, make my heart like yours. Amen.
Renew. Review the story of Tom and how his life unraveled because he remained out of balance, giving his entire efforts over to the acquisition of money, power, and prestige. Then consider your own life and your personal balancing act. Write in your journal three ways in which you are beginning to look at the bigger picture for your life.
Rebuild. I invite you to write a simple prayer of thanksgiving to God. Express your gratitude to the One who promises to relieve you from your emotional exhaustion. Thank him—even in advance, if necessary—for helping you regain your balance and the strength to live right-side up in an upside-down world.