Feeling Pressure?

Are you currently feeling pressure from every angle? Financial pressure? Employment pressure? Housing pressure? Co-parenting/ baby mama/baby daddy/ex-husband/ex-wife pressure? Relationship pressure? Family pressure? Gas, food, and necessity pressure? School pressure? Children pressure? Sickness and death hitting your family and friends? Cost of living and places to rent or home buying causing pressure? Aches and pains? Emotional and mental pressures causing you to feel unstable and out of control?

Let’s get real and pause for a moment. Some of us are going through situations we’ve never been through before and at a magnitude which we’ve never experienced.  Some days we feel a boost of energy to fight another day and there are those moments we feel like all we want to do is isolate and sleep. Hoping when we wake up the troubles will be gone. Praying we don’t have to face the reality of our bank accounts being overdrawn, a bill collector constantly calling our phone, a child needing help with something, overwhelming work pressure to meet deadlines, help fulfilling the duties of a co-worker because you’re passed their work because the boss know you can get the job done, feeling like you can’t help a family member with their health situation that’s gotten out of control, the rise in gas prices and food, the lack thereof of food on the shelves when you go to get what you need at the grocery store.

Stressing because you’re out of work because your job has little to no work on the production line? You’re on a fixed income and you must decide whether to pay your bills, eat or get the medicine you know you need. Are you tired of being lonely? Tired of raising children alone with no help? Need an escape from it all but nowhere to go, no time to take from work, and no extra funds in your savings account to plan a getaway? Need to talk to someone but you have an issue with trusting? You need to emotionally and mentally release but don’t know how or what could help take the edge off? You have people in your ear trying to tell you what to do, soliciting their advice and suggestions when you didn’t ask for it. The people you talk to are busy trying to solve your problem instead of listening to you talk through it. You talk about your situation needing a confidant, but they use that as a time to release what they are going through too. You don’t want to be selfish because you need them just as much as they need you. You’re vulnerable around them and they are vulnerable around you. When people ask you if you’re ok you question their motive. Are they really trying to help or just being nosey? You need help but help seems to be nowhere in your peripheral.

What do you do? You’re losing control. You feel yourself becoming unstable. You’re lashing out and others are looking at you like you’ve lost your mind. You cry when you fight to hold back the tears. You shake uncontrollably. You’re taking more medication than you normally do. You’re drinking, using drugs and you’re angry. You become frustrated easily. You are tired but don’t know why because you haven’t physically done anything to exhaust yourself. You try and try, and the result is still the same. You plan and plan and they fall through. You say to yourself “this isn’t my season”, why is so much bad luck and negativity following me? Will God ever send relief? You’re doing everything right, but still bad karma follows you. It’s been a long time since you had a release and a season of good fortune. Why you, you ask. Quiet as kept, you’ve let the thought of self-harm be a mere thought in your subconscious mind. You quickly dismiss it because you cringe at the thought of anyone ever knowing life has gotten you to the point of thinking like that.  You are desperately in need of saving, help, restoration, energy, positive vibes, loving and affectionate attention, understanding and a way out. You deserve it, you’ve endured so much, and it’s broken you. What now you ask because it can’t possibly get any worse. There can’t possibly be anyone other than you going through all of this. If your relief doesn’t come soon you feel you’re going to end up going crazy and loosing what piece of sanity you have left.

You’re not alone! There is someone somewhere going through something on a much heavier scale than you. Your creator is always available. He puts people in this world to help you. He puts medication in the hands of the correct people to prescribe to you for only a moment to help you focus and gain what you lost. He is listening. You don’t have to pray a certain way, you pray and talk to him like you know He is your father, you can speak to Him freely. Let your anger, hurt, and pain spill over at the altar, in your closet, bedroom or shower. Scream amid all that silence around you or overtop that noise in your head. Exercise, utilize your punching bag, go mad with paint on your canvas, clean your entire house and then clean it some more, go cut down a tree in your back yard and stack that wood for the fire place, cook food for your family, listen to music, meditate, go to church, cut off your cell phone for as long as you need, unplug from social media, read a book to calm your nerves, take time off to regroup, search for a fresh start by searching for a new location, a new job and new friends. Whatever it takes you must start somewhere.

1. Go in silence and pray over your circumstances. Let God lead you. If you don’t pray, I suggest you start today!
2. Unplug from all pressures. Don’t think about all the pressures all at once. Focus on them one by one.
3. Talk to someone, a coach, a counselor, a doctor, or therapist. Don’t rely solely on self-healing.
4. Start a routine of the bare minimum daily activities and add to as your situation improves. Careful not to overwhelm yourself with any strenuous activity physically, mentally or emotionally.
5. Document your progress daily. No matter how small the progress is, document it!