Podcaster Discusses Anxiety Attacks and How to Deal with Them

Podcaster Rob Dial, who as a personal development coach has his show Mindset Mentor, on a recent episode discussed ways to alleviate anxiety.  He started with the comment that anxiety is a natural mechanism we have to defend ourselves against outside attacks...but in our more civilized, modern existence it can be counterproductive and even harmful.  He listed three approaches to deal with an onset of anxiety.  First...he says...breathe deeply through the nose for a few seconds, working the diaphragm to accomplish this, and then take twice as long to slowly exhale through the mouth.  Dial recommends repeating this a number of times, and claims that it has helped him.  Second, he says to challenge the anxious feeling, determining its source and replacing it with an alternate, truer reality as to what is most likely to happen instead of the fears underlying that anxiety.  And finally, Rob Dial suggests that familiarizing oneself...in a "safe" way...with the object of the anxiety can take the edge off the fear causing the trouble.  I'm good with all three suggestions, but also recognize that when the emotions take charge, it can be a while before the body responds well to methods to counteract anxiety or panic attacks.  For me, if feasible I take a brief "mindfulness" break and do a modification of Dial's breathing exercises while simply focusing my attention to the immediate physical environment in front of me and away from the anxiety-producing situation.  Seems to work...how do you deal with this sort of thing?

5/21 Sermon on 1 John, Part 6

This past Sunday at The Family Church, Pastor Philip Griffin continued his message series on the New Testament book of 1 John, this sermon titled The Truth About Anger.  The text of focus was Chapter 3, Verses 11-16...shown here in the New International Version, courtesy of Bible Gateway:

¹¹ For this is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another. ¹² Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother’s were righteous. ¹³ Do not be surprised, my brothers and sisters, if the world hates you. ¹⁴ We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love each other. Anyone who does not love remains in death. ¹⁵ Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him.
¹⁶ This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.

Note that the author made reference to Cain, Adam's son from the book of Genesis.  As Pastor Philip pointed out, Cain was angry about God's rejection of his sacrifice in favor of his brother Abel.  This anger he fostered and built into a hateful rage, culminating in Cain's murder of Abel.  So while initial anger in itself is normal, what leads to sin and hate is the harboring of it...the ultimate target of vented wrath that has been stored up through time is often someone completely unrelated to...or at least innocent of...the initially perceived transgression.  And the violence contained within that rage is not only expressed in our actions, but also in what we say.  But while, as Philip further stated, murder starts in our hearts, we have a hope to overcome the devastation that harbored anger can lead to: Jesus, who bore punishment for our sins so that we can overcome hate and, like him, truly love...

I think you'll enjoy watching Philip's message, in which he gives a striking analogy using the story of a bomb buried in the ground under a Ukrainian woman's bed for 41 years.  You can see it through the church's YouTube video channel...here's the link to this message: [link]. The Family Church is located at 2022 SW 122nd Street and holds its Sunday morning services at 9:30 and 11, with friendly people, good coffee, and lively praise music included...

Musing on Anger After Watching Baseball Game

During Sunday's season-opening game between baseball's Tampa Bay and Toronto, Rays first baseman Logan Morrison was up at bat against Blue Jays pitcher Marcus Stroman.  Morrison hit himself out, and was running back to his team's dugout when he heard Stroman yelling some not very kind words.  Thinking that the Toronto pitcher was aiming his epithets at him, Morrison became very angry and began to yell back.  Then Stroman, realizing what had happened, walked off the mound in Morrison's direction with his arms held wide in an expression of innocence.  You see, Marcus Stroman, who by all accounts is a pretty decent guy...including being a good friend of Tampa Bay ace pitcher Chris Archer (against whom he was pitching Sunday), nevertheless has this habit of angrily and loudly talking to himself when on the pitcher's mound.  Evidently he was unhappy with the pitch he had delivered to Morrison, even though it eventually resulted in a putout.  That having been said...

It is human, very human, to get angry...and with that anger often comes an unpleasant public expression thereof.  The problem with this is twofold: one, as in the case with Stroman and Morrison, the focus of that anger can be misinterpreted, leading to unintended consequences.  Two, experiencing another's anger, even when one intellectually knows that it isn't directed at them, can cause unconscious internal turmoil and reactions.  I experienced this recently during a meeting where the speaker went on and on angrily railing and cursing at a group of people.  Although I was not one of the "targets" of his wrath, I came away from that meeting feeling resentful at that speaker anyway, as if he had been speaking directly to me...

I'm not immune from displaying anger at times...maybe you're better at holding it in than me.  But I also believe that occasional anger can be a symptom of a greater virtue: caring, and such anger is a natural reaction to the times when the people (including myself) or things about which I care disappoint me.  The trick is in anger's expression: it should either remain unheard and unseen by others or appropriately worded and intoned toward the intended party.  Easier said than done, though...

Hotheads: Avoid Twitter!

It may be time to consider the potential for harm with Twitter, the booming Internet short-message site. Republican Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa recently "tweeted" a couple of nasty comments about President Obama's "sightseeing" tour of Paris. The President was on an official trip to commemorate the June 6, 1944 D-Day landing of the Allies on the coast of Normandy, France during World War II. One might have thought that Grassley, a major-league flag waver and approver of just about anything promoting war, would have been on the President's side in this matter. Instead, he angrily (and almost incoherently) commented on Twitter that Obama thought he was a "hammer" and that Grassley and other senators were "nails". You see, Grassley is angry, angry, angry, because this very active president is prodding the Senate to act on health care. Had Senator Grassley not had this "instant" medium to spew out his wrath, he might have let matters cool down by waiting a while. But now, the already short-tempered senator has made the news with his ridiculous, anger-inspired remarks on Twitter. Also, Grassley needs to become reconciled to the fact that Obama is now the President (something many Republicans seem to have a problem respecting) and no longer a junior senator that Grassley can feel (and act) superior to.

The Twitter phenomenon is just a high-tech manifestation of what can happen to any of us in our daily walk through life. For during the course of a day, many things can happen to anger us and cause us to speak or act out of anger. The results could last much longer than the few seconds that brought on the reaction. And even ruin a career, destroy relationships, and bring on personal peril.

I brought this up because I myself have a tendency to speak impulsively out of anger. Almost always, when this happens, I come away from whatever incident provoked my angry reaction much more upset with my own reaction to it than with the cause. I've seen Senator Grassley before display his short temper, be it on the Senate floor, on a committee, or talking to the press. Twitter really isn't a very positive mode of communication for such a "hothead". If he opposes genuine, meaningful health care reform in this country, he needs to come up with a more effective political strategy than pitching fits on Twitter!