Category: calming

old newspapers as calming distraction…

It might seem strange to say that exploring decades-old newspapers brings me a sense of calm, but it does. The history. The tidbits of social information. The photographs and advertisements of stores and restaurants that no longer exist.

I like it all. And it provides a way to occupy my mind and distract me from anxious thoughts – with the added benefit of learning things that can help me with my genealogical and historical explorations. The main site I use is newspapers.com because it has the papers for the locations I’m exploring. But there are other options too.

As I’ve mentioned before, genealogy is one of my hobbies (and is also something that serves as calming distraction for me) and newspapers have provided lots of information about generations of family members. There are the expected wedding announcements and obituaries, but I’ve also discovered things I knew nothing about: unexpected photos and news articles about relatives.

In addition to genealogical research, I also turn to old newspapers for help with my writing, especially when it comes to fiction. My novel, New Life in New Melody (and its earlier version, In New Harmony), takes place in 1943, and I’m currently working on a sequel set in 1944. Exploring newspapers from back then, especially the one published in my novels’ geographic location, has led to lots of helpful information and historically accurate slice-of-life tidbits for my stories.

Since not all news is pleasant or happy, I try to pay attention to my emotional and mental capacity, and I don’t tackle heavier-duty research topics on days I don’t feel up to it. But usually, looking through old papers provides me with interesting distractions that actually help me deal with anxiety. It transports me to another place, a different time, and other lives that aren’t my own.

In recent months, I’ve posted about a few different things that work for me when it comes to providing some calming distraction from life, stress, and anxiety. Exploring old newspapers might be an unexpected one – but sometimes we find help in unexpected places.

❤

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.

❤

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.

❤