A Letter from Michael, Who Overcame Anxiety, Bipolar, OCD, Depression and Shyness

Sooner or later every thoughtful person questions the hurried and harried life they are living. We think back to when we were little children when we leapt from bed full of joy to begin a day of discovery. And when day was done, we slept the sweet sleep of the innocent.
 
We think back to our high school or college days when we remember reading about Henry David Thoreau's Walden Pond. He beckoned us to march to a different drummer.
 
Perhaps we remember reading Ann Morrow Lindbergh's Gift from the Sea, calling us to a more thoughtful life. We see the old pictures and the old movies and we see people, who although living busy lives, and though conditions were harsher, carried themselves in a more stately and graceful manner.

We sense we are hurried and impatient. We have somehow been degraded. We hear talk of balance, and someone may even come to one of our staff meetings to talk about balance. We learn time management. We de-clutter. We look for quality time.

Yes, these are all well and good, but something more is needed, and in our heart of hearts we know it.

I will give you a couple of hints. The prize of becoming a blithe free-spirited person living anxiety free in a happy present is reserved for those who love truth, and who are willing to heed what they wordlessly know in their heart and follow it. If you wordlessly know something in your heart, but doubt it and believe what others have to say, that doubt separates you from your ground of good from which you could flow. You become an extension of the challenges and pressures on the outside instead of an extension of inner love and wisdom.
 
One more little hint. I will never forget I heard of a man who sat watching his grand daughter playing. She was happy and spontaneous and care-free. He was ever getting lost in reliving the past and worrying about the future. He was angry, tense, and bitter about some things. He asked himself: what is the difference between her and me? He pondered for a long time, and finally he realized the answer to his question.

The difference was resentment. He was resentful, and she was not.

I have much to say on the subject, far more than I can say in one blog. I have a free meditation and some books. What we do here at the Center For Common Sense Counseling is help people work through relationship and stress issues by teaching them how to become centered and flow from intuition.

Most of us are suppressed and inhibited because we are reactive, and thus outer directed. We react to situations and people, and then say or do the wrong thing. We become afraid of expressing our pent-up hostility, and we dread another round of error and failure.

So we hide ourselves from others so as not to be embarrassed or make mistakes. We put on a phony facade to keep people at a distance. Our secret hostility and resentment make us feel empty and needy.

But instead of finding an inner rapport and wholeness, we reach out to the world.

Feeling unworthy and yet needy, we clumsily claw for love, often settling for the most lowly and loathsome love offerings. When we can't bear the pain of reaching for love anymore, we settle for the comfort and false love of drugs, alcohol, and pills, or we stuff ourselves with food. All because in our distant past someone upset us or pulled on our heart strings, tempting us to step away from our center of dignity and love.

Some of us continue to yearn for the good we have never known. But reaching out to worldly spiritual or religious organizations has brought us betrayal or led to cynicism. We love truth and goodness, but we haven't found the real thing. Those we trusted either betrayed us, used us, or revealed their own lack of understanding.

What we need is to re-find the inner intuitive way of living and moving and having our being. We need the original perspective, the one we had before we were upset and sidetracked by authorities who themselves had been tempted away from reason and inner love.

Fortunately we can find the love and understanding we have always been searching for by learning to become still.

We can re-find the original perspective, and then moving unemotionally from this clear perspective, we will see our way back to a sensible, calm, inner directed way of life. A special simple meditation or centering exercise teaches us how to stand back from thought and emotion.

It is not difficult or complicated. Perhaps the most difficult part of it is setting aside the intellectual analysis and second guessing, and just practicing the meditation in its sheer simplicity.

Calming down and beginning to see clearly, we begin to see things and people, including ourselves, as we really are. Going out into the world, we learn to be less reactive. We learn to be patient with people. We learn not to look to them for love, because once having found the inner light in which to see, wordless guidance by which to act, and inner warmth and rapport to seal us off from outer entanglements, we are free to express truth and be patient with others.

Family, relationship, work, and health issues begin to resolve themselves. When we have love instead of seeking love, and when we have patience instead of impatience, we develop a healthy disinterest concern for others, instead of needing something from them.

Spiritual and physical health is the natural state of the body and soul. By learning to give up the resentment, emotionality, and a misguided lifestyle that interferes with health, we recover in the Light.

The following quotation from Francois Fenelon is perfectly accurate. Years ago when I was young, I would have liked this passage in a hopeful idealistic sort of way. It would have sounded right and something I wished were true.

But now, after having made friends with conscience and learned to meditate to be still, I see that it is true. There is an inner silent testimony that quietly bears witness to the words. It is that silent witness, God's intuitive light within, that is the true comfort. Because it means that God is there and His inner Light is a guide, a comfort, and a present help in time of trouble.

Both of these quotes have to do with living in the present. The first shows how our fretting, goal seeking, planning and scheming lead to anxiety. The second quote is about living and moving and having our being calmly in the present.

The crosses of the present moment always bring their own special grace and consequent comfort with them; we see the hand of God in them when it is laid upon us.

But the crosses of anxious foreboding are seen out of the dispensation of God; we see them without grace to bear them; we see them indeed through a faithless spirit which banishes grace.
So, everything in them is bitter and
unendurable; all seems dark and helpless
Let us throw self aside; no more self-interest,
and then God's will, unfolding every moment
in everything, will console us also every moment
for all that He shall do around us,
or within us, for our discipline.

FRANCOIS DE LA MOTHE FENELON.

Do not be discouraged at your faults;
bear with yourself in correcting them, as you would with your neighbor. Lay aside this ardor of mind, which exhausts your body, and leads you to commit errors.

Accustom yourself gradually to carry prayer into all your daily occupations.
Speak, move, work, in peace, as if you were in prayer,
as indeed you ought to be.
Do everything without excitement,
by the spirit of grace.

As soon as you perceive your natural impetuosity
gliding in, retire quietly within,
where is the kingdom of God.

Listen to the leadings of grace,
then say and do nothing but what the
Holy Spirit shall put in your heart.

You will find that you will become more tranquil,
that your words will be fewer and more effectual, and that, with less effort,
you will accomplish more good.

FRANCOIS DE LA MOTHE FENELON.


These words were written 300 years ago. They are just as true today as the day they were written. He's obviously found something, and I know what it is. I would like to share the secret with you, but it is only for the sincere in heart.

Click on the picture to preview Mike's inspirational story in his own words about how he overcame depression, fear, anxiety and bipolar and other issues with the help of meditation..








Pastor Roland's comments


Chances are that your problem is that you are lost between your ears. Maybe the best verse of all is:

 Trust in the LORD with all your heart; and lean not unto your own understanding.
Proverbs 3 verse 5

What happens to us is that early in your life, someone was mean, confusing, or pressuring. You got upset. You fell into thinking, and now at the first sighting of stress, you fall into thinking, daydreams and imagination. We meet stress badly, we fail, and then we retreat into thinking where we plan and scheme our next move. Then what we do is canned and unnatural and the timing is off, so we fail again.

Then we retreat into the endless stream of images in our mind where we hide and feel somewhat secure down there. But being separated from reality, we grow more guilty and less adequate to meet the next moment.

Kids naturally spend a lot of time in imagination - perhaps that is why they tend to become vulnerable to naughty voices that tell them that if they don't count to a hundred or touch the doorknob something terrible will happen.

Most people outgrow these, but some do not. And the voices become more subtle. Or more dire. They always mislead you.

You've found out that struggling with obsessions does not help. God rarely talks to us, but the voices do. And they always mislead us. That is why it is not good to be lost in thinking.

What you need is mental distance, and I can show you how.

First preview free the  book Mike's Story: How I overcame depression, OCD, anxiety and other issues without drugs.

Then check out the meditations 

I even have a new 5 minute free meditation for anxiety.

Many good people and good Christians would like to believe these verses and would like to cast their cares, and worries upon the Lord, but they don't quite know how. If you will permit me to be so bold, I think I can help you with this disconnect.

A Letter from Michael, Who Overcame Anxiety, Bipolar, OCD, Depression and Shyness

New! Mike's Story is now a book. Preview the eBook. Read the whole inspiring story


Here is an letter written by someone who gets it. He overcame anxiety, depression and bipolar disorder. In this letter, he comments on the verse from the Psalms and then tells of his recovery journey. He gave me permission to share his letter but asked that I only use his first name, Michael. I hope someone will be inspired to give our free spiritual meditation a try. All I can say is "Thanks, Mike." Roland

Hello, my name is Michael.

I love this verse from the Psalms.

He is not afraid of bad news; his heart is firm, trusting in the Lord.
Psalm 112:7 (English Standard Version).

It sounds good, doesn't it? But the question is: how do you get to where you have such a firm heart and settled spirit?

It took me a long time to get to where I could understand and say something about having a firm heart and settled spirit. I was Mr. Jellyfish.

But here’s the good news: if I can do it, anyone can do it. It took me 40 years, but that was because it took 40 years for me to get to the point where I was ready. Once you’re ready, recovery can begin in a heartbeat.

And it doesn’t have to take 40 years to be ready. You can be ready in this instant regardless of your age, if your heart is pure and you are sincere.

Here's my story. Let's begin with a few thoughts about anxiety and some observations about life and how I started to recover.    Read more and preview the book free