Monday Confessional: Overcorrecting The Heart

A while ago, I wrote these "Monday Confessional" posts. Then I stopped. This kind of follows a pattern in my life where I come up with an idea and try it out, and then I hate it for a while, and then I realize it might not have been that bad. So after over a year of hiatus, here's the return of my Monday Confessionals:

***

I vowed to myself a while ago that I wouldn't let any one person determine my happiness or worth.

I may have overcorrected.

This is what happens when you overcorrect: you make a mistake or have some negative experience, and in trying to fix said mistake and prevent said situation from happening again, you go too far. Overcorrection is frequently linked with driving.

It happens like this--you're driving down the road, and suddenly your car hits a slippery section of road and begins to slide, out of your control, to the right or the left. This can be a heart-stopping, terrifying experience--you might be going fifty to sixty miles per hour or more (to be fair, it's scary at any speed) and headed right for another car, a telephone pole, a concrete median, or a menacing ditch. In these moments, your gut, your instinct, your body will tell you to slam on your brakes, grab that steering wheel, and jerk it in the direction you want your car to go.

That's overcorrection. And that simple reaction to a bad thing happening and trying to get out of it causes thousands of accidents and deaths every year.

I think that's where I am.

Wanting to avoid slamming into the tree that's threatening to snap your car in half isn't bad. Wanting to avoid placing anyone on a pedestal and pinning my happiness on them isn't bad, either. It's good, actually.

It's a lesson everyone has to learn if they're serious about having healthy relationships. If we think a person--a boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, wife, friend, boss, coworker, fan--is responsible for our happiness, we'll find ourselves wanting. We'll find ourselves, at some point, the opposite of happy--we'll be miserable and disappointed because no one can be our happiness. No one can live up to that responsibility.

After I hit enough telephone poles, relationally speaking, because I placed my hopes and dreams in a person, I decided to hit the brakes and turn that steering wheel away from disaster. It was my gut reaction, my instinct. At first, it seemed to work.

I told myself there is no person out there who can fix me and my issues. I worked on living my life in a way that allows me to pursue my passions and what breaks my heart. I committed myself to decrease my focus on my problems and increase my focus on helping and encouraging the people around me without the expectation of being treated the same way in return.

I became independent. Which is great. Mostly great. I go where I want to go, when I want to go. I don't need someone else's permission, nor do I have to wait for someone to join me to feel validated in going. If I want to go camping in the Adirondacks, I go. If I want to visit Niagara Falls, I go. If I want to drive to the beach at 11 p.m., I do it. If I want to see a movie, I don't need to call anyone and figure out which nights and times we all have free. I can just see it by myself. Some of you might read that and think of other words to describe me other than "independent" (loser), but if you have the freedom, both of schedule and self-confidence, to see a movie by yourself, then you've made it in life as far as I'm concerned.

All of which can be good. But sometimes, we can take independence too far.

When your car starts to slide out of control, experts say to fight your instincts--fight the urge to turn the steering wheel hard and fast or slam your brakes. They say to let off the gas and the brake pedal, to slowly and carefully turn the steering wheel in the direction you'd like to go until your car settles back on track and into the proper lane.

Which is easy to do when you read about it, and much harder when you're making split-second decisions at seventy miles per hour with your heart in your throat.

As I've corrected myself toward independence, I may have had the steering wheel to the side a little too long. Perhaps I've pumped the brakes a bit too hard. I haven't stopped at simply being independent and content.

My heart has become stone.

In my attempt to fix my past mistakes, to free myself from the lie that some other person holds the key to my happiness, to keep my heart from spilling out all over people who don't want it, I've sealed it up.

I find myself thinking and saying, "I don't care what this person thinks. I don't care what this person does. I don't care."

To say that a person doesn't determine my worth or happiness is one thing. A good thing. To say that I simply do not care, to clamp the valves of my heart so tightly so that I don't feel anymore--that's different. That's an overcorrection.

Lately, I've refused to let anything that even smells like validation or rejection from anyone jump over the moat that has slowly surrounded me. I don't care who calls me or doesn't call me to hang out. I don't care who responds to my text messages or not. I don't care who remembers my birthday or not. I don't care if someone compliments me or not. I don't care when someone does compliment me. I don't care who checks in on me or not. I don't care if you care about me or not. I don't care if you respond to me. I'm going to do me, and I'm going to do it with or without you.

Because I

will

not

let

you

make

me

feel.

I will not let you make me feel anything I don't want to feel. This is not, "I'm independent." This is, "Forget you--I won't give you the chance to put so much as a scratch or dent anywhere on me."

The difference is hard to detect. I'm not quite sure of the exact moment I crossed the line from healthy to shut off. It was probably a slow process, the way that bread shifts from soft and fresh to stiff and stale a little bit at a time.

I feel lucky that I'm catching it now, before I make any stupid decisions or hurt someone significantly in the process. Maybe I have already, and if so, feel free to call me on my nonsense. If I've learned anything from my past, it's that people who don't allow themselves to be hurt will inevitably hurt the people around them. The defenses you set up, the barbed wire with which you line the doors to your heart, will cut and damage the people who try to breach them.

I don't want this to be me.

I know better. I really do. To love, to experience life in its fullest capacity, I have to let people hurt me. It's part of the deal. One of my favorite bands, Sleeping At Last, has a song that says, "We can't...fall in love with a heart that's too strong to break."

I think that applies to all forms of love, not just the romantic sort. We can't love and be loved without being in a position to have our hearts broken from time to time.

We have to fight our defensive instincts sometimes.

We have to resist the urge to jerk the steering wheel away from danger.

We have to restrain our feet from pushing the brake pedal into the floor.

We have to finesse this. Keep our eyes fixed on where we want to go. Ease ourselves back in that direction.

And sometimes, we'll still hit something.

It's okay.

It's how life and love work.

***

Feature photo ©2010 Niels Linneberg | Flickr

Life Is Not Losing

Last Sunday night at the Golden Globes, George Clooney accepted the Cecil B. Demille Award for lifetime achievement. In his speech, he talked about how he had lost much more than he'd won at award ceremonies like this. In fact, 80% of the actors and actresses in the room, he pointed out, don't win.

"And then, you are a loser."

Many of these actors would feel like losers, and many people at the after parties and work the next day would treat them like losers. Clooney went on to say this, though: "For the record, if you're in this room...you get to do what you've always dreamed to do and be celebrated for it.

And that just...it ain't losing."

I've been thinking about that idea ever since. That even when you feel like you're losing, you're not really losing.

You'd think it'd be easy enough for George Clooney to convince a room full of wealthy, talented people that they're not, in fact, losers. The truth, though, is that all of those people at the Golden Globes are mere mortals, like you and me. Despite the success and the admiration they've garnered, they still know what it is to feel defeated. They still bleed when critics pick at their flaws. They still try to claw their way out of the shadow of insecurity.

Nobody's immune to feeling like a loser. Not them--the glittering, glamorous gods of Hollywood--and not us--the ones who are fooled into thinking fame cures the fragile human ego.

No matter our backgrounds, our races, our genders, our socio-economic statuses, our careers, we all know what it is to lose.

We have all been losers.

We've lost games, matches, and races.

We've lost jobs, and we've lost money.

We've lost opportunities.

We've lost friendships.

We've lost our innocence.

We've lost our dignity, or our self esteem, or our confidence.

We've lost loved ones to the slow, measured sunset of aging or the blinding flash of tragedy.

We've lost sections of our hearts sliced off by lovers to whom we've bonded ourselves.

Like our keys, wallets, or phones, we've all lost ourselves in some crack or crevice or some field or forest of addiction, manic romance, or winding, confused pursuit of happiness.

We all know defeat. We all know discouragement. We all lose.

But what if life isn't about the amount of awards on our mantel? What if it's not about how many times we can get a "yes" from people or a prize when we scratch the ticket? What if it doesn't even matter if you've lost the battle but are winning the war?

I think that when it comes to life, if you lose, you're not losing. You're not losing because that's not how life works. It's not about fighting to keep the number of W's higher than the number of L's on the scorecard. We're not trying, like some of our teams, to fight our way to a playoff spot for a chance to make it to the Big One.

Life is not winning. Life is not losing. Life is mending, moving, and making.

Life is mending, about how we heal from our inevitable wounds. We rebuild our broken homes. We ice our strained self images. We rethread our tattered hearts. When someone passes away, we grieve and mourn and laugh and cry all manners of emotions from our eyes. When our hearts are broken, we lock ourselves away. We fight and grab for some semblance of control over anything. We drink wine or whiskey or the cold air of lonely walks at night. And then, time passes. And more time passes. And the bleeding stops, the ache downgrades from jet engine to portable fan, and we realize we're still here. We can still do this.

Life is moving, about oiling our creaky joints and using our limbs again to step out of our static, stuck, self-pitying positions. We move, and we must move forward--because the world is moving, and time is moving, and the people who love us and need us--the ones we know and the ones we've yet to meet--are all moving, and none of that goes backwards. We regain our bearings, we rediscover our goals and dreams, and we begin to walk in that direction. It may feel like we're simply moving from loss to loss, from disappointment to disappointment. I'd like to think we move through losses and disappointments to something better. Something more beautiful.

Life is making, about exercising the power to build and mold the shape of our experiences. We can look at each rejection, each bit of bad news, each slip and fall and fracture and see a discouraging arc. We can see a story whose every scene clubs its audience over the head with this theme: "Count the losses--you are a loser. This is life." If we do that, we make our losses into monsters that grow bigger and deadlier every time we experience them. We'll build a life that buries us much earlier than we should be buried. We'll build our own coffins, box ourselves in panels of pine, and seal ourselves in the dark.

But it doesn't have to be that way. When you experience a loss, when a plan falls through, when a door is shut, when you lose a job, when someone whom you love tells you that you are not worth the fight, when your losses threaten to bury you under the earth--

--you can build stairways to the surface. You can make skylights to let the sun shine on your battle-worn face again. You can create life from loss. Because life is not counted and measured and defined by losing. Because you will heal, and become stronger. Because you will move forward through defeat and toward hope, and love, and all that is better. You can make a life that is made of sturdier material than winning.

You will lose in your lifetime, but you will not be losing at life.

You will move. You will mend. You will make life more than that.

***

Feature photo ©2010 Adam Foster | Flickr

On Marriage: Enemies and Allies

I'm excited to have another post for the #LiveTogether series which is about the ups and downs and bumps and tears and laughter of doing life with other people.

Today, my friend Nate brings some real, raw, and honest writing about marriage and the fights and grace involved. We hope you find it helpful.

***

“God, I really hate this bitch right now.”

That was an actual thought that passed through my head during one of the more heated moments of a fight with my wife a couple months ago. And I meant it.

You probably think I'm an asshole at this point.

Before getting married, I expected we would have disagreements. I knew we would not always get along perfectly. But I never expected I could feel this. Not hate. Not towards her. Somehow I figured I would always make the choice to love, no matter what. No matter how badly she pissed me off, no matter how unfairly I felt she was treating me, I would stoically maintain a loving attitude and see the argument through to its resolution.

What an idiot I was.

Marriage changes something. I'll be damned if I completely understand why that is, but something changes between two people when they get married. A lot of it is good. You get a partner, a best friend, a confidant – someone who you know (in theory) will always have your back through the rest of your lives together. It's good. Marriage is good.

But marriage sucks sometimes, too. No, it's not just hard--it sucks. Because when you're married, you also become comfortable with your partner. Guards are dropped, and in a healthy marriage the guards need to be dropped. But when your guard is dropped, you become vulnerable. Your partner becomes vulnerable. And then, without even thinking about it, you say something that is beyond unkind – it's devastating.

That's when stubbornness kicks in. See, I often know within seconds that I've said or done something hurtful. But instead of doing the right thing, humbling myself and apologizing, I start to make excuses. I justify. I am the king of justifications. I've actually won fights this way, verbally manipulating my wife until she is so worn down and tired of fighting that she just gives up. I win. Except that's not really winning. She's not supposed to be my enemy. We're supposed to be on the same team. When I win those fights, I've only deepened the chasm between us.

When this happens enough times, something dark begins to set in. Tempers flare more quickly as we both become quicker to recognize when a fight is brewing. Remembering to love becomes harder and harder to do. Eventually we give up, and hate begins to set up shop. I get so good at justification and manipulation that I start to believe my own bullshit, and she becomes my enemy, in the literal sense of the word. It's her fault. If she would just learn to deal, not be so sensitive when I'm a jerk to her, we wouldn't have to fight about this crap anymore. After all, what I said to her wasn't that much different than what I say to the guys at work when we're horsing around. Damn--this is such a pain in my ass.

Well. Now we have established that I am indeed, an asshole. You're probably wondering if she's drawn up divorce papers yet.

She hasn't.

Fighting is normal. Sometimes, in the heat of the moment, feeling hate is normal too. But here's the thing – even though those feelings are normal, I think it's foolish to try and work through that alone. For a long time, my wife tried to convince me that we should get counseling from someone. I hated that idea. It felt like failure. Counseling was only for marriages that are really on the rocks. We weren't there. I didn't need someone else to tell me I was being an immature asshole. I already knew that, and had enough self-loathing that I figured I'd eventually get it right.

That is total, utter foolishness.

It is ok to ask for help. It doesn't mean your world is coming to an end and that the next step is divorce; it just means that you've been banging your heads up against a wall over and over and over and over again, and something needs to change. When I finally did agree to meet with a couple from our church, it was amazing. They were an older couple, with tons and tons of marriage experience and counseling under their belt, and in a very short hour and a half I learned so much about my wife and about myself. The biggest thing: this is normal. It's ok. Don't be so hard on yourselves. You have a lifetime to figure each other out; give each other some grace.

I'm not going to be able to wrap this up in a neat little bow, if that's what you're hoping for. Marriage is a process. Sometimes it sucks, but then sometimes it's great. We've had these fights, but they don't last. Eventually, we remember that we're on the same team, and actual reconciliation starts to happen. We're learning to give each other grace. The key, for me, is letting go of the need to be right, the need to win. It is absolutely one of the hardest things for me to do. That's not the same as being passive and simply rolling over whenever she gets mad. It just means learning how to empathize--how to speak kindly, gently, and to affirm each other, while at the same time being willing to take however much time we need to work out our shit. Even if it's two in the morning.

I love my wife. She is amazing, and she treats me with honor that I truly don't deserve most of the time. I know that she loves me, and I can say that with total confidence. I try to love her well. Most of the time. But we both screw it up sometimes. Badly. It's ok. It's human nature. Humans are naturally selfish, sinful, jerks. God is doing a work in our hearts, though--changing us, perfecting us. I can think of no one else I would rather go through life with, fights and all. She is my best friend, my greatest ally, and the love of my life.

Also, makeup sex is amazing.

***

Nate Roach is a plumber working in Lancaster, PA, but is currently beginning to transition to full-time ministry working with CrossRoads Missions in New Orleans. He's been blogging for years, and recently started a new blog with his wife called Unfettered Grace, where they will share stories and thoughts on ministry, life, and their new adventure in New Orleans. They also occasionally blog at The Sometimes Ugly Truth, sharing about some of life's difficulties and challenges. He's a drummer and music lover, and generally still a boy in a man's body - he still loves video games. More importantly, He is a husband and a daddy to two little people he adores.

You can follow him on Twitter, too.

Featured photo ©2013 Ivana Vasijl | Flickr

The One Deal Breaker That Matters

A Broken Deal Breaker

A few years ago, a friend of mine told me that she would not, could not date a guy shorter than her.

I laughed.

"You'd really risk missing out on a great guy just because he's shorter than you?" I asked. She emphatically insisted she would. It was a deal breaker. As most "deal breakers" people develop, this one was serious. Had something to do with wanting to be able to wear the right shoes. I shook my head.

"Just watch. You're going to end up with a shorter guy." We all laughed, and the conversation about deal breakers and height compatibility was over.

Then, the story becomes almost too good to be true. In a perfect plot twist, the next guy she ended up with was, indeed, shorter than her. Somehow, despite his shortcoming (see what I did there?), it turned out that he was a great guy. They fell in love and got married. And I couldn't help myself but tell her, "I told you so."

Deal breakers make me laugh.

They're funny because most of the ones people have are so silly. They have something to do with hair or body type or something superficial, or they're impossibly specific. Burger King does not have enough customizable options to match the expectations that are on many people's relationship checklists.

And yet, I see couples who have been married for 20, 30, 40 years, who may be complete opposites in what I once thought were crucial areas, and they have not only survived but they've thrived. Some people are lucky enough to find someone who may have met a majority of their criteria, but most people? Yeah right.

The One Deal Breaker You Should Have On Your List

Despite poking fun at deal breakers, I do think there are some legitimate ones people should have. Depending on our values, what that list looks like for each person will vary. We have such unique personalities, lifestyles, and priorities that I wouldn't try to prescribe what a whole list of necessary deal breakers should include. I can say two things with confidence, though:

1. Your list of deal breakers should be short and sweet. I personally have a Top Three. Those are the ones that are non-negotiable. Everything after that is just gravy.

2. There's one deal breaker in my Top Three that should be in everyone's top three, no matter your background or religious views or priorities.

What is it?

A person who is committed to growth.

Don't waste your time wishing for someone who's perfect. You'll never have that wish granted. You may end up with someone who doesn't root for the same sports team as you, or someone who doesn't like sports period. You may end up with someone who can't cook at all (and since you can't cook either, you may be looking at each other every evening like, "What the heck do we do?"). You may end up with someone who has no desire to watch or discuss The Lord of the Rings. You may end up with someone who doesn't even know what a 5k is much less be able to run one. You may end up with someone who's shorter or blonder or fatter or skinnier or less educated or less wealthy or smellier than the ideal person you've dreamed up in your head.

But if you have someone who is committed to always growing, you'll be in pretty good shape to overcome those inevitable differences that arise in a relationship. (This isn't a new idea by any means; some very smart people have figured this out a long time ago.)

Being a person who grows isn't easy, though.

It means that you have to first be aware that you're not perfect. That you have room for improvement. That you have baggage and junk and attitudes and habits that could use some progress. If someone can't even admit that they could be doing better, it's hard to grow.

It doesn't feel right to say this, but people should be like technology. I'm not saying to replace your husband with a new one when you grow tired of him. I'm saying we should think of ourselves less as unchanging statues and more like software that continues to adapt to life.

The version of a person you get at the beginning of the relationship should upgrade as you go through the years. People who grow do that. They get better. They improve. When you're with someone who isn't about growth, the version you get at the start is the one you have years later, and suddenly you find out that more and more of your life is incompatible with that outdated version.

The great thing about a person who is committed to growth is that they don't have to be that perfect person you tried to create in your  fantasies. They're constantly improving.

When a person who grows hurts you, they own up to it. Then they commit themselves to prevent it from happening. They might not get it right all the time, but they're committed to the process. People who can do that not only are in a great position for growth themselves, but they know how to offer grace to a partner for his or her imperfections, too.

People who don't grow don't want to change. They don't want to adapt. They don't want to own their imperfection and do the hard work of improving. They prefer to stay stuck. When you find yourself with someone like that, you'll be facing an uphill road that's much rockier than you'd like.

Growth. I'm telling you. It's all about the growth.

A Final Thought for Both Single and Married People (and some advice from a real doctor!)

If you have the fortune of being single, you have the opportunity to figure out your priorities in relationships before you make some costly mistakes. As you look for people you might interested in partnering with in life, pay very close attention to whether or not they're "growth" people. If they are, many of those silly deal breakers you have on that checklist of yours will start to disappear. In turn, the best thing you can do until you find a growth person is to be a growth person. Bonus: growth people will figure out how to make the best of life with or without a relationship.

I asked Dr. Kelly Flanagan how you might recognize someone in a relationship who's "stuck" and doesn't like to grow. He responded:

I'd say the thing I'd look for in a partner is the ease with which they say, "I'm sorry." We talk a lot about the process of forgiveness, but for many people, forgiving is way easier than asking for forgiveness. When we say "I'm sorry," we drop our ego walls, acknowledge our fallibility, and express a desire to change.

If you're married, this may have been a tough read for you if you're with someone who may not be a "growth person." That's a hard place to find yourself. The first and best thing you can do in that situation is to be a growth person first. You can't expect or ask someone else to do it and not do it yourself. And that will be tough--it's going to require sacrificing your pride, it's going to require an avalanche of selflessness, and some days it's going to feel like nothing's changing.

I asked Dr. Flanagan what one might do in that situation, too. He says that if you feel like you're with someone who's "stuck," a helpful step is for you to seek individual therapy. Not because there's something wrong with you, necessarily--but because your relationship is so deep and complex that it needs the time and attention for someone to help you work with your situation.

***

Look for growth people. Be growth people. And it won't matter if he's shorter than you.

Featured image ©2013 Mufidah Kassalias | Flickr

Anxiety Is For Weak People

I've been to the school nurse many times as a kid. On most of those occasions, I simply wanted to get out of class. Once, I was there to get a physical, and I had to stand in my underwear with a bunch of other boys in their underwear. I didn't like that. A year and a half ago, a full-fledged adult, I found myself standing in the doorway of the school nurse yet again. "Hi. I need to lie down."

The nurse lifted her eyes up from her computer screen, and when she saw that it was me, she rose to her feet, pointed to the bed in the back of the room and said, "Okay. How about right here?"

I made my way over to the low bed and slowly slid onto it. My whole body was tense. My forehead was gleaming with sweat. My heart was beating hard and fast. My teeth ground into each other as I tried to control my breathing.

She asked me what was wrong. I explained that I had been standing guard at an assembly for our middle school students when I suddenly felt like I was going to faint. I told her about my heart. I told her about my trouble breathing.

I didn't tell her I had slid out of the assembly and gone straight to the bathroom, where I leaned against the wall and tried to fight for control over my body for several minutes before I decided to come see her. I became convinced I would pass out. Since I had locked myself in the single-person faculty bathroom, the potential scenarios concerned me--I could have hit my head off the sink and bled out. I could have fallen face-first into the toilet and had to explain to my students why Mr. Heggie looked like he went for a swim. (Also, in that scenario, I would have thrown up after I regained consciousness and realized where my head had been sitting.) Or, simply, I would have been sprawled out on the floor, MIA to everyone else for who knows how long.

It was fear--the fear of passing out in front of my students, of passing out in the bathroom, or of the faint possibility that something critical was wrong with me--that led me to her office and had me confessing even the little bit of information I had conceded to her. And it was fear that was having its way with my body.

She said to me, "It sounds like it might be an anxiety attack."

"Oh. Really?" I tried to fake that I was surprised by her suggestion, but I already knew what it was.

The first attack had come earlier that year. It was on my morning drive to work. My chest felt like it had collapsed on me. The experience was so bizarre and foreign to me, I thought I was having a heart attack. I pulled the car over, and in the darkness of that pre-dawn morning, bewildered and full of fear, I slumped over my steering wheel and gasped for breath. It wasn't the last time I'd have to pull the car over to fight for calm, to put air in my lungs.

The attacks woke me up at night, too. Those were the worst. Being woken by an anxiety attack might as well be the same as being woken by a real person trying to strangle me. Yanked out of my dreams, I would be disoriented, panicked, and sometimes it was hard to tell what was reality and what wasn't. With a jolt, I'd find myself in darkness, unable to breathe, covered in sweat, grabbing hold of anything to root myself in reality again--my hair, a pillow, the blanket, the headboard.

In the span of about a year, I had a dozen or more attacks, the last one landing me in that nurse's office. Lying on the tiny, hard bed, I couldn't help but feel a little foolish, like I was back in third grade again.

Even though I'm far removed from my last one, I hate talking about my experience with anxiety attacks. I hate the idea of people knowing about this part of my past. Here's why:

People like me aren't supposed to have anxiety attacks. Let me summarize my views about them before I had my first one: Weak people have anxiety. Weak people have anxiety attacks. Strong people don't have anxiety or anxiety attacks. I am a strong a person; therefore, anxiety and anxiety attacks will never be my problem.

Anxiety is for weak people, and I'm not one of them.

Before I ever experienced an attack, I had zero empathy for people with anxiety. None. I couldn't relate. I never considered myself to be someone who struggled with any level of anxiety. I'd never been the type to worry or sweat the small stuff or fixate on a problem.

Until, that is, I found myself in the fight of my life for my marriage--a losing battle.

Every day, I thought about it. Every day, I thought about what was wrong. Every day, I fought the frustration that I couldn't seem to fix things. Every day, I faced the possibility of the end. Every day, I battled with the lack of control I seemed to have over the situation. Like an eclipse, it seemed to slide between me and the sun--my world became strangely dark.

I was running low on everything--sleep, energy, self-confidence, hope.

In other words, I was cooking up a perfect recipe for anxiety.

For a while, I was ashamed of those anxiety attacks. There was only one person who knew how rattled I was. It was all very hush-hush. I wanted so badly to maintain a brave face. I would have loved for people to see me only through idealistic, machismo-tinted lenses: I climb mountains. I scale buildings. I jump off cliffs. I explore caves. I go camping in the woods by myself. I don't fear heights. I don't always wash my vegetables. I don't need a night light. (Yeah, I have one in my room, but I don't use it--it's just for show.)

Paul Freaking Heggie does not have, should not have, can not have anxiety attacks. That doesn't happen to people like me.

Even with the weight of what I was facing at that time, I thought I could handle it all. I was David, and I looked at my burdens like they were Goliath. Sure, Goliath's bigger than me, but I'm going to drop him to the ground and take off his head. That's bravery. That's strength. That's me.

But try as I might to fight them, when those anxiety attacks hit me, they brought me to my knees. You can't "beat" an anxiety attack. I learned you can't even really prevent one. Once it strikes, there's no fighting it. You can only let it ride out in calm surrender. Once I had experienced a few, I started worrying about when the next one would come--and where. Rarely in my life have I felt that weak and powerless. That's not the David and Goliath story I was going for.

Those attacks feel like ages ago now. I've had a bit of time and distance from those experiences, and my perspective on anxiety has shifted since then.

What if being strong doesn't mean that we slay all of our Goliaths? What if being brave doesn't mean that we always conquer all of our fears? What if we're not meant to win every single battle?

I think being strong and being brave is simply showing up for the fight.

There are so many people for whom anxiety is a Goliath they can't fight against and win by themselves. They need backup. They need the support of family and friends. Some need the help of doctors, therapists, and medicine.

There are people who think that because anxiety beats them down sometimes, they're not strong. There are people who think that because they wrestle with anxiety, they're not brave.

I don't think that's true.

I think you're strong--you wake up every day and continue to fight. That's no small feat. Some days you win the battle, some days you don't, but that's true for even the strongest of people.

I think you're brave--you have the courage to keep going despite your anxiety. Plenty of brave people have fallen. Plenty of brave people have lost. All brave people feel fear. The bravest people are the ones who get up again and walk back onto the battlefield knowing what they have to face. That's you.

Those of who us who are strong, who are brave, we don't win every time. We simply keep showing up to the fight. We keep holding on to hope. We persevere through the battles.

***

Last week, I paid another visit to the nurse's office. This time, I had a splinter in my finger that needed to be removed. She sat me down next to her desk, told me I wasn't allowed to look, and went to work. Guys, I didn't even flinch or shed a tear.

Brave, right?