Learning how to Relax

Some people have found this story interesting when I tell them, others write it off. I think that the truth will outweigh the number of people who think I'm crazy. This all came about when I had a dream a few weeks ago. I was floating up to heaven, all around me there were clouds charged with electricity; kind of like going into "warp speed" only if you went there from the earth. I saw a giant light at the end of the tunnel, it didn't take a theologian to guess that I was going up to heaven. I was almost close enough to see God, but instead I saw a word that was coming towards me even faster than I was going towards it. The word was "Relax!" with the exclamation point. It hit me with such force I fell all the way back down to earth twice as fast as I had floated up. I woke up gasping for air, my whole body ached like I had fallen from a great height. In a way it was kind of funny, but the message was more... ferocious...

I had felt this way one other time in my life, I used to live with my brother, my cousin and a friend; I called it a "faux-frat house" it was a total college house just not officially a frat. There were two girls that would come over very often, for the purpose of this story I'll call one Devan and the other Rebecca. I'd like to say I hadn't met them many times, but the truth of the matter was that I had met them over a dozen times. I was playing cards with some of our CU friends, nothing big just playing some cards. One of them came over and wanted to talk but didn't need to be dealt in. We talked for a few hours, nothing ground breaking just talking. I looked down to shuffle the cards and said, "So Devan..." Before I knew what happened I was on the floor and the cards were everywhere and everyone was laughing at me. Apparently that was Rebecca and after calling her Devan nearly 20 times that night alone she slapped me across the face. Granted I was a little drunk and not expecting it, I do have to give credit where it's due; do you realize how hard a 110 pound girl has to slap a 230 pound man to knock him out of a chair? I also want to point out that my chair was up against a wall so she didn't even have leverage on her side. Needless to say that's the kind of correction I needed to make sure I called her Rebecca from now on. Politely correcting me wasn't going to get the point across.

Now think of that lesson, and then think about one over one hundred times as clear. It wasn't like, "hey here is a suggestion, just try to relax." It wasn't like, "things are going to turn out right, all you got to do is relax a little bit." For all I know things could end up getting a lot worse and I still have to relax. It was more like, "this is your last chance." I don't know what the last chance is for, my life has been in the toilet for over 15 years. I had all but given up on life; it just seems like there isn't anything out there for me any more. I also am a very luke-warm Catholic so I didn't really believe in heaven much less think that I could jeopardize it by not relaxing. You don't have to believe in God, but you can believe this every time I have given in to stress or missed the opportunity to relax and "let things go," it's yielded only catastrophe. Even if you think that maybe I just am looking at the bad, the last two times I got worked up about anything the tips of my fingers started to go numb. I don't really have the money to go to the doctor, but even if I did it's not like I haven't been to the doctor about stress problems over 20 times already.

As far back as second grade I was so stressed about the work-load I had in my class room that I was 100% literally pulling my hair out in chunks. I didn't know what was wrong with me, it wasn't until the janitor noticed hair all around my desk that anyone even noticed it. I look at a second grader today and there is no way I could understand one of them having any sort of stress problems. The result has been the same for nearly 20 years: I see a therapist, pediatrician, or some general physician and they give me pills to solve the problem manifesting or give me some stress relief techniques and I abide by them for a while and then they soon fall by the wayside. Family and friends have all suggested this to me over a hundred times; it's not like I don't want to, I just feel like I can't. I mean even now I am almost stressed thinking about why I'm not supposed to be stressed. Do you know how bad a problem needs to be for God to intervene from a biblical standpoint? After 400 years of slavery he came to Moses, after over 3,000 years of sin he sends his son to set the record strait. So if you think about it, God really really really wants me to calm down. I know what you're thinking, how hard can it be? I don't have a job, no kids, and very little responsibility; why can't I?

You are just going to have to believe me when I say this, it's hard, it's the very first knee-jerk reaction I have to everything. Think about if someone told you that if you didn't answer "yes" to every single question no matter what your initial gut response was going to be, "or else" with no information that would be pretty hard. And it is hard, my brother had to go to the hospital this week, and I had to consciously not stress about it. Even thought my brother is fine; try not to panic when you hear the best friend of your entire life was in the hospital after a snowboarding accident and there are no details except he has a broken thumb and his face is all messed up. But in a way I'm sort of grateful that I had something so profound happen like that. Family and friends have told me this as long as I can remember; but it is so hard-wired into my being that it was almost impossible for me to change the way I thought. For example, the very day after this dream happened I went to drive to church (obviously I thought I should go since it was Sunday). I have been there dozens of times but in order to not be stressed since I was late I made 3 wrong turns in a 2 mile drive. Seriously I only have to make 4 turns and making 3 wrong turns is pretty unacceptable. I literally had to turn off my brain in order to not stress about this. I'm getting better but I have a LONG way to go. I was kind of worried about sharing this with too many people, because I tried to give up negativity for lent once and everyone just tried to test my mettle every chance they got (that and getting slapped so hard by a girl I fall off my chair isn't exactly the proudest moments for Jesse fans). But if you feel the need to test me, by all means, I need to learn this lesson the hard way.