In a recent Relief Society lesson, a sister shared an experience she had during her first childbirth. She was absolutely stunned by how excruciating the contractions were, how beyond description it all was. If having babies was this painful, how did anyone do it multiple times? She found herself screaming at the top of her lungs.
And that’s when the doctor said to her, “You need to stop screaming and start pushing.”
What great advice! Immediately I thought of how fitting those words are in so many other situations as well. How many times do we find ourselves frantic, out-of-control, or scared?
Anxiety statistics are off the charts. Panic attacks are as common as freckles. See if you can identify with any of these frantic feelings:
- The in-laws are coming and they always criticize everything I do!
- How are we going to pay our bills?
- My husband/wife won’t listen or consider my feelings!
- My supervisor hates me!
- How did we get such rebellious teenagers?
- I can’t find a decent person to date!
- I’m going to flunk out of college!
- How can I take on another job?
- Why do I have to work with a crazy person?
- What will I do if my spouse dies?
- I lost my job!
- Our grown kids have stopped going to church!
- This isn’t how I thought my life would go!
Problems roll in as steadily as the tide, and sometimes we feel like curling up in a ball and crying. It’s easy for any one of us to slip into hysteria, even when we know it has never helped solve a single problem. What will I do? What will I do? What will I do? It’s like screaming in labor; it gets you nowhere.
The next time you feel your nerves begin to fray, whisper to yourself, “Stop screaming and start pushing.” So how do we push?
In this case, the best way to begin pushing is to begin praying. Lay out the problem, your worries, and your weaknesses. Let Heavenly Father help you through this trial.
Slow down. Take a deep breath. Make a list—on paper, if you wish—of all your options and possible consequences. Discuss the issue with those you trust.
Enlist professional help, if you need it. Therapists, coaches, financial advisors, even trusted friends and church leaders can be invaluable at panicky times. They can help you see things more clearly, as they aren’t emotionally involved. It’s hard to believe we aren’t thinking straight sometimes, but it actually happens, and we often need someone to point it out so that we can find a sensible approach.
Open the channels to the Holy Ghost’s whisperings. Get a blessing. Search the scriptures. Pray at the temple. Read your patriarchal blessing.
And this is a hard one: Ask what you are supposed to learn from this trial. Sometimes we get so aggravated that we miss the important lesson God is hoping we’ll learn.
Make a plan. Be specific and have dates or deadlines to keep you progressing. Prioritize the things that will help, and re-structure your schedule to place the most important things at the top of your list.
Here’s another tip that might help you re-frame your problem: Ask yourself what advice you’d give someone else, if they came to you with the same situation.
Let’s look at the first three items on the list above. Here are just a fraction of the solutions you might consider:
The in-laws are coming and they always criticize everything I do!
There are many approaches that might end this stress. Do they criticize everyone, not just you? Maybe it’s simply their style. Or, if it is only you, stop wincing and biting your tongue, and have an open discussion with them. Express your love, but also your feelings—and even confusion—about why they persist in this. Stand up for yourself and ask them to stop. Ask your spouse to stand with you on this. Or… are you unable to take suggestions, even in other settings? Maybe you need to allow others to voice opinions without your falling apart. Were you reared with permissive, over-praising parents? Sometimes a frank look inward resolves such issues.
How are we going to pay our bills?
Obviously a genie is not going to materialize and bail you out.) Get financial advice, talk to banks and lenders about possible arrangements that can help you pay debts in steady increments. Then, look at your life—do you budget or do you overspend? Do you make joint decisions about big purchases? Do you have too many credit cards? Do you borrow from relatives? Rewire your financial thinking, learn to live on less, and make a concrete plan that will let you sleep at night.
My husband/wife won’t listen or consider my feelings!
Time for a calm discussion. Share the kind of listening and reactions that would make you feel heard. Give examples of other ways you could have been included in a decision. Learn to express your feelings, rather than holding them in and making others think everything’s fine. Don’t expect your partner to read your mind. Sometimes it takes conscious effort to realize you’re a partnership now, and each one needs to consider the other, not make headstrong choices that leave one of you out. Make mutual goals of how to change going forward. Talk about ways to be more united as a couple, and share things you cherish about one another.
You could sit down with that list and do this same thing—imagine the advice you’d offer someone in each situation. Then, next time you feel you’re slipping into an out-of-control disaster, you can “keep calm and carry on.” And you’ll be pushing instead of screaming.
Perfect for Mother’s Day, Hilton’s LDS novel, Golden, is now an Amazon audiobook and is available in paperback and on Kindle. Hundreds of her YouTube Mom videos can be found at jonihilton.com.
