Finding Peace in an Unexpected Storm

Is this the eye of the storm?

A brief respite before all hell seems to break loose once more?

I have no way of knowing, but at least there’s peace for the moment.

This storm came unexpectedly, although with all the uncertainty around, I might have expected it.

I might have realized that I would be one of those engulfed in the waves of uncertainty. But I held my breath and I thought that perhaps it would pass me by.

It didn’t.

I place a high value on peace, perhaps too much value.

I can’t help it. With a very unsettling and uncertain childhood, peace was hard to come by and so I search it out these days.

And if I cannot find peace, life grows hard for me as a highly sensitive person, perhaps more than most.

I have a hard time finding ways to deal with the lack of peace.

Here is how this storm happened.

The year 2020 was a challenge for everyone, and a lot of people had it far worse than I.

I faced job loss and a resultant change in finances, yet I and those I love escaped from the immediate health concerns that so many others dealt with.

Perhaps I took it for granted.

I know I took it for granted.

Assumed my age or my position in life or my faith or something would have brought me and all those I know through unscathed.

The next year, 2021, passed much the same way. A hit in finances due to another job loss, but otherwise, we were okay.

Then in the first month of 2022, it hit.

Covid.

I was pretty sick for several days and the brain fog, the exhaustion, lasted longer.

But I expected that.

What I did not expect was for one of my close loved ones to end up with a strange form of long covid that affected not only his body but his mind.

He was hit with anxiety and depression

The worst stretches are something out of a shadow dream.

He could focus on nothing but the fears in his mind, the anxiety that welled up so strongly that when he wasn’t overwhelmed by it, he was overwhelmed by sadness.

During some stretches, all he could say was I’m scared and I’m sad.

Other times, he would enumerate the fears, the thoughts that overwhelmed him more clearly, and I tried so hard to reason with him but reasoning didn’t help.

And then I was the one who was scared and sad …

Because what do you do when someone you love so much has lost their center and has nothing to hold on to?

When they are the ones drowning in a raging sea, seeking the eye of the storm and unable to find even the smallest break in the wind in the rain?

I confess that some days I envisioned myself dealing with it forever …

A lifetime of helping this loved one through the struggle.

I saw the wisdom of the advice to take it one day at a time because anything else could be a reason to lose hope.

In fact, it was that very fear of the future that was making my loved one lose hope and be so overwhelmed with anxiety.

Facing Anxiety or Helping Someone with It?

Maybe you are the one with anxiety …

Or maybe you’re the one safe place for the person struggling with it and finding yourself overwhelmed with their difficulties.

What is your safe place?

Now before I talk about some of the things that helped me while I was in the middle of the storm, things that might help you find your peace or balance, let me iterate that I am not a doctor or a scientist.

I’ve never studied the brain or the synapses between the mind and the parts of the body.

I do not know what makes some things overfire and flare up and cause such grief and anxiety.

I don’t know why something like Covid could cause someone to somehow flip a switch in their mind and make it so difficult for them to be able to process or move out of fear or hopelessness.

I wish I knew where those invisible links are between mind and body and spirit or soul, how the connections work and how to strengthen them when they are weak …

How to speak hope into someone’s very soul when they are finding it hard to cling to anything but sorrow.

What I’m trying to say is, I really hope some of these things work for you. Above all, I really hope that you do find hope, peace, and the ability to focus on something other than the anxiety that threatens to overwhelm you.

Here are some ways to find peace in the midst of a storm:

• Mindfulness
• Exercise
• Time in nature
• The love of a pet
• An entertaining distraction
• A good night’s rest
• Meditation
• Natural forms of medication
• Volunteering and helping someone else
• Prayer and other faith practices
• Journaling
• Learning a new skill (such as an instrument)

For now, these are just points, but I will be writing separate blog posts on each of them, as I have a few stories to share with you of ways they helped me.

One last suggestion, please get help in whatever way works for you.

It might be counseling or prescribed medication or a combination of them along with several natural methods …

But do get the help you need!

The world needs you and it needs you as whole as you can be.

None of us will ever be completely whole.

Those people who look the strongest are in some ways possibly the most broken.

But you have something beautiful to show the world …

So don’t lose sight of that even when the clouds don’t let up and the rain seems like it will go on forever.

There is a rainbow. There is sunshine. There is grass glistening with the rain that has passed and the scent of petrichor on the rain-washed air.

There is hope.