Morning sunshine spills through the windows, and the air is filled with the smells of coffee brewing and cornbread cooking. On the radio tucked into a corner on the counter, the DJ gives the local temperature and then a favorite 80s tune comes on.
Standing in the kitchen on this chilly February morning, I have a rare moment of feeling peaceful, cozy, calm. A rare moment of feeling optimistic about the day ahead and life in general.
I listen to the music as I tend to the task in front of me. For the past few years, the way I make cornbread is by cooking it in a skillet on the stovetop, and I flip the rounds the way I do pancakes.
When they’re done, I choose one, top it with melted butter, and enjoy my piece of cornbread with a hot cup of coffee.
I don’t know what challenges the day will bring or what is ahead. I don’t know if my husband will feel good, if I’ll handle things well, if anxiety and fear will take over.
For now, though, I’m not focused on any of that. I’m able to be in the present moment, this moment of calm.
I started writing this post the first week in January. I got only three paragraphs into it and then paused, intending to come back and finish in a few days – but then more “life stuff” happened, and I put this post and my blog aside, even though everything going on exactly fit what I had started to say. So I’ve decided to simply pick back up and continue…
I must admit to having mixed feelings about the new year.
On one hand, I’m glad to see 2025 come to a close. It held a lot of anxiety for me, I wasn’t nearly as productive as I wanted to be, and the last month a half brought unwanted and scary changes to life because of my husband’s recent health challenges.
On the other hand, I’m not exactly looking forward to 2026 because I don’t have much optimism that it will be a better year. Actually, I’m afraid it will be even worse.
And this is where I stopped back in January, and now I’m here in February to finish the post. When I wrote the opening paragraphs, we had been dealing since mid-November with my husband’s heart tests and his stroke and the changes to our lives. The past few weeks have brought more challenges, including a pacemaker for my husband and seemingly ever-increasing anxiety for me.
Since mid-November, it’s been an intense time. Overwhelm, fear, anxiety, stress, grief, changes in routine, doctor visits, tests, procedures, adaptations, the busy-ness of countless phone calls and forms for doctor/health/medical/insurance stuff.
I’ve been doing the stress-reducing things that usually help. Prayer and spending time with Jesus, breathing techniques, brain retraining and neural rewiring exercises, meditation, music, talks with friends, reading cozy fiction, tapping, painting, watching comfort TV, and more.
I haven’t done all of these as consistently as I could have (even my usual-daily painting got skipped at times) because, to be honest, sometimes simply existing and getting through the day took all my energy when the fear and anxiety consumed all my energy. And even though I have taken a few walks and had some porch-sittin’ time, the weather definitely limited how often I ventured out in the cold.
And as for writing? I’ve barely done any. I worked on fiction exactly twice this past month, and today is the first day I’ve tried to write here on the blog. I simply haven’t been able to get beyond the anxiety and fear and overwhelm enough to focus my mind to put words on paper or screen. Writing means being in my head in a way painting does not – and I think that’s at least one reason I can paint (usually) even when I’m highly anxious, but it’s so hard for me to write when in that state.
When I first started writing this post in early January, I had intended to set a new writing goal for myself. A simple goal, one that felt easy and doable even with all of the difficult and scary life-stuff happening in our home since mid-November.
Just write for one minute every day.
That’s it. That was the goal I planned to set for my writing as the new year started. One minute, but daily. I thought it would help me get back into some sort of consistent groove without feeling overwhelming.
But I wasn’t able to do even one minute a day these past weeks.
So I’m not going to give myself that goal after all. I’m not going to give myself any writing goal right now except for this one:
I’m going to stay connected to my identity as a writer.
What that looks like will be different on different days. Some days I’ll write, even if it’s only for one minute or one sentence. Some days I’ll read something from a writing-related book to get some inspiration and remind me of my writing life. Some days I might simply look at this caricature of myself from ChatGPT.
It’s important to me to stay connected with my writing. But I’m not sure how much I can actually write during this time, and I’m not going to force myself. When I can get over the hump of getting started even when I’m feeling scared and anxious, writing is wonderfully nourishing for me. Writing helps me. Writing connects me to my core self.
So I’m going to do my best to deal with the stress and anxiety and overwhelm enough to write at least somewhat regularly, even for brief bits. But if I can’t, I’m not going to beat myself up about it.
There are more tests, more doctor visits, more of who-knows-what ahead in my husband’s health journey. Our life is different now than it was before mid-November, and more changes will come. All of this is hugely triggering for my severe anxiety. And all of this is hard for both of us.
I’m doing the best I can to handle all the things I need to handle, even though it feels like I fall short so much of the time. I’m doing the best I can to help my husband. I’m doing the best I can to deal with the stress and anxiety and overwhelm.
And I’m also trying to do my best at giving myself grace.
I love music just for the music itself, but when I’m feeling stressed or anxious music can provide even more than enjoyment. It can be a way to shift my mood and offer distraction (at least somewhat) from the difficult stuff.
In our home, we have a local radio station playing in the kitchen literally all day long. This station plays music from the 70s through the current time, and we love how much air play the DJs give to our favorite music decades of the 70s and 80s. We also really enjoy the special interviews and features they do at regularly scheduled times. (And yes, there are actual, human, real-life in real-time DJs on the air.) It provides background sound for the day, it keeps me company when I’m in the kitchen cooking or painting or washing dishes, and it generally brings joy to our lives.
Although the kitchen radio provides most of the music in our house, I’ll also turn to the CDs we still have in our collection, as well as music online. Sometimes when I’m feeling anxious or stressed I’ll go to youtube and find a long video or playlist containing lots of 70s or 80s songs, and I’ll listen to the music while I do nothing else other than relax and breathe. Almost always, it will help.
Are there songs or genres/periods of music that help you feel more uplifted? That help you feel calmer if you’re feeling stressed or anxious? That help you feel more capable of making it through a hard day?
Music can reflect mood, definitely. But music can also impact mood and shift mood. It can be useful for calming and de-stressing.
It can be an important tool in an anxiety-reducing, stress-reducing toolkit.
Ginger Simpson White 