Ginger

tapping to calm…

Last week I had a dental appointment. It was for a routine cleaning, the type of dental appointment I’ve had regularly for decades, so you’d think I’d be okay about it after all these years.

But dental appointments, even for routine visits and cleanings, give me huge anxiety spikes.

As far back as I can remember, I’ve felt nervous about visits to dentists and doctors, but the anxiety got worse at some point during the past twenty years or so. And it seems like it just continues to get more severe as the years pass.

So the anxiety was very high before my appointment last week, but there was one thing in particular that helped bring it down.

I tapped to calm.

Tapping (also known as EFT or Emotional Freedom Technique) is something I learned a long time ago, back in 2008 when I first got involved in energy work. It involves tapping on certain points of your upper body while saying certain things about what’s going on.

It sounds woo-woo and weird. As time goes on, though, more is being understood about exactly why and how it works, and studies have shown what we who have experienced it found out firsthand: tapping can be helpful for a variety of things, including anxiety.

There are definitions, videos, articles, and books out there about tapping that can do a much better job than I can do of explaining or describing it, so I’m not even going to try doing that in this space.

But I do want to recommend my favorite tapping YouTube channel, Brad Yates – Tap with Brad.

Brad’s channel goes back well over a decade and has over 1,500 videos, most of them quite short and all of them easy to follow. When I want to tap about something going on in particular, I’ll visit his channel and input my concern (or problem or issue) into the channel’s search box, and I’ll usually find several videos to fit what I want to address. I simply follow along.

If you’ve never tapped before, it might seem strange or feel ridiculous at first. But it’s easy. It doesn’t take much time at all. And it helps.

I’d say it’s definitely worth a try.

❤

a basic writing prompt…

There are gobs of writing prompts out there.

To be honest, I don’t use writing prompts on a regular basis – and sometimes I don’t even think to turn to them. But there have been times during my writing life when prompts have been a big help. And there’s a special place in my heart for them because back in the very early 90s, when I had my first short story sale (to a children’s magazine – I was so excited to sell a story!!) that story I wrote came into being because of a writing prompt I found and followed in one of the many writing-related books I read.

Even though I’m not a big writing-prompt-user, there’s one prompt in particular that I turn to when I’m feeling blocked. It can help when I’m feeling stuck about what overall writing project to work on, and it can help when I’m feeling stuck about an individual scene.

It’s a very basic question – but it requires me to pay attention and listen to what comes to me.

The question is: What do I want to write?

It might seem like this is a useless prompt. After all, if I knew what to write, if I knew what I wanted to write, why would I even need a prompt to begin with?

But actually asking myself the question – putting it into words for myself and then paying attention to what immediately comes to my mind – can help me gain clarity and direction.

Not overthinking it. Not tensing up or putting up walls.

Just taking a breath and asking the question and then listening. Paying attention to the first answer that comes. Sometimes the first answer isn’t the answer, but often it is – or can lead to finding the ultimate answer.

This is an intuitive approach. But when I can get out of my own way, it can work.

Asking. Listening. Paying attention.

And then writing.

What do you want to write?

What do you WANT to write?

❤

an unexpected message…

For various reasons, the almost-ever-present anxiety has been especially high lately and the struggle has seemed even more difficult. I’ve been turning to my usual helpers: prayer, creativity, painting, distracting, watching “comfort” shows and movies, spending time outside, talking with loved ones, working on genealogy and local hometown history, doing brain retraining and breathing exercises and relaxation techniques.

But still. There’s been one stressful thing after another and…very high anxiety.

Sunday evening, I had my weekly phone call with my cousin, and I asked her what she did that helped her not be afraid all the time. We’ve talked about this sort of thing before, and I know she has a deep faith, and I was fairly certain she would talk about God and faith and trust. And she did.

Her words and her reminders were helpful for me, and one of the things she reminded me about was how God already knows what’s ahead for us. That’s something I remind myself of quite often, but sometimes it helps to hear things from someone else. It can help to hear a thing phrased in a different way or hear it at a specific time when it connects with us on a different level. That’s how it was for me to hear my cousin’s words.

The next day I was texting this same cousin, and my phone added something I hadn’t typed. I ended up taking a screenshot of part of the text and highlighting the phrase added by my phone:

I had intended to type “God already knows all about the car(s) and the finances and what’s ahead” but before I even started on the word what, my phone inserted everything is good.

So it ended up as: “God already knows all about the car(s) and the finances and everything is good.”

Everything is good.

Everything is good.

My phone will sometimes put or change a word it thinks I mean instead of what I actually write, but never has my phone inserted an entire phrase before. I wasn’t touching anything on the screen at all when the words appeared. I hadn’t even put the first letter of the next word I planned to write.

But what a perfect ending to the sentence.

“God already knows all about the car(s) and the finances and everything is good.”

What a perfect message for me during a time of high anxiety.

Everything is good.

And I did take it as a message, a message to me from God. God, who knows my fears and anxieties. God, who knows exactly what’s going on and what’s to come. God, who loves me and wants me to fear not.

I took it as a message and a reminder that God’s got me. Even when hard things are happening.

❤