Don't panic; More will be revealed

 

Before I left for the Camino I did everything I could to prepare myself. I made a packing list, I went on as many long hikes as possible in the preceding months, and I read books and blogs by prior pilgrims so that I would have some idea of what to expect. I also spent time thinking and praying in preparation for what I imagined would be an amazing opportunity to deepen my relationship with myself, and with God.

 

As I boarded the United flight to Portugal I felt ready. I felt excitement and anticipation at what lay ahead. Imagine my surprise then, when before my first day had come to a close, I began to feel my first hint of anxiety. What was I doing in Porto, Portugal with my friend Anne? I love to travel, but over the last several years I had grown accustomed to traveling and adventuring with my daughter Anna. Our rhythms are familiar, our conversations, and laughter, and “happy hours” are so predictable. We have, over time, developed a traveling partnership and routine that works smoothly for both of us. Here I was in a foreign country with someone new. I missed what had come to feel natural and comfortable. Anne and I were faced immediately with that dance friends need to perform as they negotiate even the smallest of decisions in unfamiliar territory. It isn’t that I found anything wrong with Anne’s companionship that day, on the contrary, apart from Anna and my husband Stephen, there is no one else in the world that so closely matches my rhythm. But facing choices with someone new was different, foreign. I began to feel anxious and uncomfortable as we made even minor decisions. Fortunately it didn’t take long before a familiar mantra began to make itself heard in my head: “Don’t panic. More will be reveled.”

 

To me those words have come to mean “You don’t have all the information yet Dana. Settle down. Wait. Trust the process as you watch it unfold. Breathe. You were called here, so be here. Notice your feelings, but don’t be overwhelmed by the feelings. Nothing has ever been served by acting on initial anxiety. Panic is NOT a contribution to a solution.”

 

It’s amazing how often this happens to me in life. I feel called into a new situation, project, or even relationship and then as the stress of transition catches me off guard I begin to feel uncomfortable. Suddenly I’m out of my comfort zone and usual sense of  control. I get anxious. 

 

Sometimes the event is relatively benign, like a hotel room in a foreign country that doesn’t measure up to my expectations. Silly I know, but enough to throw me off if I’m not careful. Like a room my daughter and I booked last spring in Kas, Turkey. I felt anxiety then too. Windows stuck shut? No air conditioning? We need to keep the screen-less balcony door open all night? Noisy alley? A neighbor’s party and laundry both twenty meters away? I have to sit on the toilet to shower? I am too old for this! Take a breath Dana. Wait. Feel. Trust that the information you need will come to you. The information did come to me in that small Turkish room. More was revealed. In the four nights we spent there I found myself growing younger each day. I grew to love that sparse little dormitory room. I slept like a baby and felt safe and peaceful. I will remember it as a chance to be surrounded by Turks, during a time that this was still possible in today’s chaotic world, rather than isolated and insulated with Europeans in the fancier hotels on the other side of town. I can still taste our host’s homemade breakfasts, hear his children’s Turkish cartoons, and remember the rooftop sunroom where I relaxed and journaled for hours each morning.

 

Other moments of panic have not been so benign. There were the seemingly endless moments that we spent with our daughter at the Mayo Clinic during her junior year in high school looking for some answer to her deteriorating health. There was the moment our twenty-two year old son came to our door with the news that his long term girlfriend had been brutally assaulted half a country away. There were the subsequent moments, over the course of the next two years, when the phone would ring at odd hours with the news that this same son was in the emergency room trying his best to survive his life without her, and coming perilously close to failing. There have been seasons of another son’s intense anger at his parent’s failings, and “kick in the gut” moments of betrayal by a friend.  Always I want to rant and rave: “THIS IS NOT OK! This is NOT the room or the life I booked!” Never mind the words of Antoinette Boscoe: “Life is under no obligation to bring us what we expect”; At such moments I am virtually howling in pain. I can be consumed by anger in a flash. Everything in me cries to act, to react, to gain some semblance of control over a situation that is not as I expect or believe I deserve. All I want is to feel comfortable, and safe, and familiar again. I’ve learned the hard way to take the pause. To breathe. To remind myself that, believe it or not, more will be revealed. I’ve learned that in the space of just a few breaths God finds an opening. Like the best football running back of all time He’ll find the hole, He’ll take the opportunity, He’ll advance the ball. He’s God, He’s trustworthy. My only job is to buy Him some time and not let my anxiety muddle things up ahead of His efforts. 

 

And so, that first eventing with Anne in Porto, I remembered to breathe and at least pretend to trust that more would be revealed. I handed my agitation to God and chose to just pause, breathe, and feel the feelings. I waited, and I refused to tell myself scary stories about how this trip would never measure up to ones I had grown accustomed to. It worked, not immediately but eventually. More was revealed. I was on the correct journey with the ideal partner. It turns out it wasn’t a vacation, it was a pilgrimage. It required a rhythm quite unlike the old familiar one that my daughter and I had established.  As our journey progressed Anne and I found ourselves too spent at the end of each day to enjoy a slow glass of wine and peanuts on plaza squares; A cold beer and potato chips as we lay reading on our beds was all we had left. Our conversation was silenced each morning as we prepared ourselves emotionally and spiritually for the day ahead. It was as much a solitary journey as a shared one and I needed another seasoned, wise, middle-aged woman to share it with. As it turned out, there had never been a need for my anxiety at all and I still breathe a sigh of relief that I didn’t give into my agitation and spoil our first evening together.

 

Even now I am amazed that it works to say “no” to panic as I wait for more to be revealed. My yoga instructors always remind me to “breathe and let the release come”. The Course in Miracles says: “All things work together for good. Period!” Now I know the profound truth in this. I have lived it. I’m relieved that it is becoming second nature to take the pause before I react. Sometimes just saying the words buys me the time I need to remember that everything, everywhere is all right, already. It was The Camino’s first lesson to me, and perhaps one of its most powerful. Don’t panic. More will be revealed.

 

 

    Reflection:

        When life throws me a curve ball I’m not expecting, my first reaction is usually anxiety, not curiosity. Feeling “out of control” scares me at some very deep and primal level, and I immediately assume that I may not have what it takes to adapt to this new twist in my life plot. It helps me to remember that “while I don’t know what the future holds, I know Who holds the future.”  Saying the words, “Don’t panic, more will be revealed” helps replace my fear with curiosity. I’m beginning to trust that just because my life is temporarily out of MY control, it doesn’t mean it’s OUT of control. These days I try my best to keep breathing while the plot unfolds.

 

1. Is there anything, or anyone, in your life that is making you feel anxious or out of control right now?

2. What difference would it make if you could trust these simple, yet profound little words:

        “Everything everywhere is alright already”

         “I don’t know what the future holds, but I know who holds the future.”

         “Just because this is out of my control doesn’t mean it’s out of control”

         “I will not panic because more will be revealed.”