We all know the feelings we got as we played hide and seek, and waited to be found. Games we play all carry levels of anxiety, as do all other creative risks we take in life.

The trouble comes when, through our early wounding, our levels of anxiety are too high, and so are out of shape. Or conversely, when they are too low and we are left energyless with no desire to initiate or to create.

We aren’t aiming to rid ourselves of all anxiety, but to see what good this loaded, rejected emotion does in our lives. As a work of love for ourselves we will need to embrace our own anxiety, to listen to and hear its needs and longings. With practice we can learn to manage our feelings with our thoughts, to deal with each specifically, and then to put them down for a later time of engagement. This containment of our anxiety is the antidote.

If managed in a healthy way, our anxiety can find its rightful place as our driver for life, something that pushes us to go further than we would otherwise ever thought we could.

Exercise

Think back to a instance where you hid from others as part of a game. Were you ever frightened? Did you manage to evade the others? Did your friends ever abandon the game and neglect to find you? How were you as the seeker in the game?
Journal your thoughts and sit with them for a few minutes.
Commit them to God and trust that He’ll lovingly meet you in your anxious places.