Low on the Go!

performance oriented.

Late last night, I reviewed my schedule for today. I looked at my minute-by-minute schedule, and I felt so stressed I couldn't sleep. I woke up this morning, and everything seemed to be going wrong. My skin was so painful and flaky, it hurt to move my arms, neck, legs and scalp in the shower. I couldn't get the printer at Concordia to work, and as a result was late to drop off the mediocre posters to be posted. All of a sudden, I looked at my minute-by-minute schedule, and I knew I really couldn't do it. I felt like I couldn't get through the day. It became hard to breathe and I wanted to throw up. I couldn't believe I was having an anxiety attack over what SHOULD have been a busy but doable day.

I was meeting up with Tara, who disciples me, and I was bawling. She said I needed to cut things from today. But I couldn't. What would people think of me? There were so many pressing things to be done. She offered to take some of my load off of me. That was by FAR the hardest thing to hear. It was good, but hard. And allowing her to do so, was like admitting defeat. I felt immense guilt for not being able to handle what I felt i should be able to handle. Enormous guilt for being a spaz and for somehow packing my day full, but not being able to carry through on what I had planned for my day. Guilt for not realizing my day was so packed until the night before. Guilt for having someone else carry the burden I was supposed to be carrying. Guilt for being weak.

Grace was given to me through Tara, and I was feeling guilty for that grace.

A couple of weeks ago, during a counselling session, my counsellor told me that I needed to imagine myself sitting next to Jesus in the garden of gethsemane, and allow him to take the burdens I had to the cross. I felt enormous guilt then too. And over and over, He kept telling me it was the only way, but the guilt I felt was immense.

After Tara left to prep for the things that I should have been doing (including a bible study that wasn't even a C4C study), I sat in the coffee shop doing the homework I was supposed to have done for my counselling session today. I was reading a chapter from a book on Performance Orientation. One of the things that struck me the most was reading how love and grace offered by God or by others leaves a performance oriented person feeling guilty. That performance oriented people feel they have to earn love by what they do, and so when grace is given (just by nature, grace is free), guilt becomes the resulting feeling.

I don't think I understand grace. But I want to understand it. I think understanding grace will be key to breaking through these days of anxiety, panic and depression.

(That, and maybe seeing a doctor to be rid of the flaky skin, hair loss, fatigue, etc. ?)