Episode 01: Scared Silly!
Transcript
Patsy: Hi, I’m Patsy Clairmont, and I’m a Boomer.
Andrew: I’m Andrew Greer, and I’m a Millennial.
Patsy: And this is Bridges.
Andrew: Spiritual Connections Through Generational Conversation.
Patsy: Hey, how did we get started on this, Andrew?
Andrew: Well, I think it started with our friendship, our relationship, which obviously already crosses great generational lines.
Patsy: Which is another way of saying that you are very young and I am very old. And I don’t mind that at all. I just think that it is exciting to have people of all ages in my life, but I also think that it’s a bit different for many people, that they don’t feel so comfortable with people from other generations.
Andrew: Well, and I would say that, in general, culturally we don’t feel comfortable with people of other fill-in-the-blank — other ethnicities, other faiths, other backgrounds and circumstances. So it’s not unusual for us as humans to feel a bit uncomfortable and then disconnected from people in places of life that we may not understand specifically ourselves. I think when we actually take the energy that is required to build relationships and to cross whatever those bridges are, whatever those barriers are with a bridge, then I think the reward is great. And I think that has proven itself in played itself out in our own relationship because I have learned many things from you from your perspectives, from your life experience. The fact remains that you have lived more days in this skin than I have, and so you have experienced, though maybe things of a different nature than I have or will experience, you have experienced more and had to walk through more, overcome more.
Patsy: And yet you bring to me a freshness in perspective so that I don’t stay stodgy. You coax me out of the Boomer place that can really cause a person to be stuck and think that only our way is right and oh dear, this younger generation. Where what I think is how much I can learn from you and how much I have already. But maybe you’re the exception to the rule because you like old people, obviously, you are a reader, you like deep thoughts, you’re versatile in your music selections.
Andrew: I think the capacity though is within us all to relate to one another and to want to be in relationship with one another. I had a leg up growing up where there was a great appreciation for all generations, sometimes even under one roof. And you might be an exception to the rule as well because under your very roof is multiple generations and people in multiple places of life — married, single, everything.
Patsy: Well, I love living in a generational home, which sounds like I may have already been signed in somewhere by a doctor, but what it is is that a few years back my husband’s health situation required more than I was able to do alone. And so my youngest son said, “I think the time has come in our family where we both need to sell our homes and come together.” And so under one roof is my youngest son; his wife; my two grand boys, who are both teenagers; their dog; our friend, who is a mutual friend of everyone in the household who is a school teacher; and then my husband, myself, and now a puppy. Isn’t that exciting?
Andrew: That’s right. I’m hoping we’re building on soon my room. You know, one of the opportunities with these conversations, and what we’re doing here by sitting face-to-face coming from different generations and different places of life, is exactly what your family has done by pooling everyone under one roof. We really want to build a bridge through conversation that invites people from all different, again, walks of life, from all different age groups especially, to come to the table with their ideas, realizing that their voice is important and that it deserves to be heard, but that also, the person across from me, their voice is important. All of our voices have a place here, and so what we wanted to create was this bridge of mutual respect, mutual admiration and appreciation for what we each bring to the conversation.
Patsy: I just didn’t know that a lot of people weren’t comfortable with all ages until I experienced some awkwardness of people when they would arrive in my multi-generational home. I really do want to encourage others. And I think we’re natural to do it because with your youth and my seasoned years, I think that we will have a perspective that’s more balanced when they’re brought together.
Andrew: We want to continue to talk about in this show bridges. We want this show to be a bridge, but we want to introduce you to some bridges that have been even important in our lives. Patsy, there’s a bridge that is really a pivot point in your story.
Patsy: There is. I’m not one that rushes to high places. That is just my deal. I don’t love bridges for the thrill of crossing it, but this bridge is called the Mackinac Bridge. I was born and raised in the lower peninsula of Michigan. My husband was born and raised in the very top of the upper peninsula of Michigan. And what made it possible for our stories to come together and become one was that bridge. It went up in 1957, and I would cross it three years later and make a journey to the top of the upper peninsula, where I would meet my dear husband and, some years, later marry him. We now have celebrated 55 years. Watch out, bridges. It was a bridge worthy of being crossed and one I would do over and over again, just for the thrill of meeting that man. And of course, once you come together with another life, you’re both redirected.
Andrew: And we want these conversations to potentially learn new things through the bridges of these conversations — learn new things about ourselves; learn new things about each other, just like you and your husband did; learn new things about God. One of the greatest obstacles, I think, in our culture today, or even maybe it’s been throughout the course of humanity, to actually even building that bridge or crossing that bridge, is fear. Fear has been a significant part of your early journey in this life and has been a persistent part, though kind of quiet, of my own journey, so we want to talk today some more about fear and anxiety. In fact, there’s a fear for everything I think. You probably are experiencing a fear of being in this room with me right now. But there is a fear called—
Patsy: Gephyrophobia, which is the fear of crossing bridges. And I know about phobias. We’re going to talk about them.
Andrew: Well, we can’t wait to express some of our story in an effort to relate to your story, to definitely build a bridge. Perhaps you’ve experienced some fear, anxiety, panic in your own life, and we don’t necessarily have all the greatest tips to get over that, overcome it. That can be a lifelong process for many of us. But we do, through this conversation, want to build a bridge that you can begin to cross and that we want to partner up with you and cross with you.
Patsy: And you are Andrew Greer. I remain the old Boomer, Patsy Clairmont, and you’re listening to Bridges.
Bridges Sponsorship Message
Patsy: Andrew, I’m so excited that one of our sponsors is Food for the Hungry because I like people who are feeding people. I say let’s get to the basic need that a person has and let’s build up from there. And when you feed a child, you feed their brain, you feed their disposition, you feed their ability to have strength to do the hard work that oftentimes involved, even if it’s just their studies. If the synapses aren’t snapping, it’s gonna really be tough, so Food for the Hungry’s got the right idea and they’re talking chickens.
Andrew: That’s right, Patsy. Bawk-bawk-bawk. You can give a family a chicken or a pair of chickens to help them find the nutrition they need on a daily basis, as well as these chickens are producing eggs all the time. We know that, right? We have friends and neighbors who have chickens now here in the States, and they provide those eggs, which then can be sold at market. So a chicken is this warehouse of opportunity for a family. Now, get this: You can provide one chicken for a family in need for $14. That’s it. That’s the chicken. That chicken lives for eight to 10 years and provides those daily eggs. It’s incredible. You can provide a pair of chickens, because we know chickens multiply fast, to help that family on an even deeper level for $28.
Patsy: Yes. I love the idea you can double the blessing for just $28, and this goes to countries like Bolivia, Peru, Ethiopia, Rwanda, and the Dominican Republic. So it’s a wide reach, and it’s something that God spoke to us about and that is giving to the poor and offering something that will help their life. Let’s feed the hungry.
Andrew: Go to fh.org/bridges to provide some chickens for families in need today.
Patsy: And every chicken you purchase for our friends across the world, it becomes an entry into our first ever Bridges giveaway.
Andrew: That’s right. One winner and a guest will receive roundtrip airfare, one night’s lodging, and ground transportation for a getaway in our hometown, Patsy, of Franklin, Tennessee. Plus, we’ll take you to dinner and interview you on a special episode of Bridges.
Patsy: The winner will be drawn on March 31, 2021, so get your chicken before then.
Patsy: There were a lot of things I wanted to be when I grew up, and agoraphobic wasn’t on that list. I didn’t even know that word existed. I had the condition and didn’t know it had a title, which was kind of good because I’m the type of person, if you give me a title, I’ll try to grow into it, and I was doing a good job growing into all this fear without any help. But at the time that I had the agoraphobia, it was not part of our culture to seek help without that permanently labeling as an unsafe person in society. So the hiding away was the only way I knew to survive myself, when, in fact, what I was doing was giving my fear greater ammunition. I was listening to my emotions to make my decisions.
My friend Marilyn Meberg said to me one day, and I thought this was so excellent. She said, “The emotions don’t have brains.” And isn’t the truth? We can’t afford to let our feelings think for us, and that’s what I did for years.
It was during my twenties, and I had an anxiety attack after my husband and I had had a little spat. And he turned to walk away, and there was something about the walking away that set off this anxiety, and it went right through the roof of my brain. My eyes dilated. I broke out into tremors. My heart was palpitating so hard I thought it was going to come out of my chest cavity. I didn’t know what was happening to me. Fear was building upon fear, and it was at that point I prayed a prayer of relinquishment. The relinquishment sounded like this: Dear Lord, I’ll do whatever you ask me to do. In the past, I had said, “Lord, you fix me.” It was so confusing to my faith why God wasn’t making me well, and I wanted Him to do it in the night while I was sleeping so I could rise up righteous in the morning. I didn’t want to have to make an effort. So when I said, “I’ll do whatever you want me to do,” it was like I heard a voice inside me that said, “Make your bed.” And I remembered objecting, saying, “Make my bed? I’m saying I want to do great things for God. What does that have to do with making my bed?” But what I didn’t know was the principle when you’re faithful in the little things, then I’ll give you more; and when you’re faithful in more, then I’m going to give you much.
And I took that first step after arguing with Him, got out of the bed, made the bed, and then said, “And now that I can’t get in the bed anymore during the day, what will I do?” And the next thing I knew I was at the sink doing the dishes. So I began to put order in my life through the outside things, which eventually helped me to have greater order in the inside. Now, my case was extreme with fear, but I know you’ve had some bouts yourself.
Andrew: Sure. I’ve had what I would call persnickety fear in that my anxiety, though I’ve never experienced a full blown panic attack, I have certainly teetered on the edge of what I have experienced through observing others in their own bouts with panic, and kind of a lingering anxiety, a little bit too much energy directed in the wrong way and unable to really get a handle on that.
My very first bout with any kind of anxiety, I only knew what anxiety was in relationship to positive things — getting anxious about a race or getting anxious about a game or getting anxious about a performance in away that put me in a posture to actually execute what I needed to do to exercise my craft well. I never understood this negative anxiety.
I grew up in a very stable household and a very stable young adult life, but when I was about 23 or 24, I was caretaking for a friend who was experiencing a deep level of panic. Now, it was a pretty concentrated few hours, but what I found the next morning when I woke up is that I felt the residual effects of that panic. And at first, I had no idea what was going on within my feelings, within my emotions, and as it persisted for more than a day and then more than a week and on into two weeks, et cetera, I called my dad, who is a therapist and so has some experience with people with wobbly emotions. Like you always say, the wobbly and the teeter-totter. And I was teeter-tottering on I had no idea what, and I felt like I was going to fall over the edge into my emotions. And he said, “Well, oftentimes when we walk closely with someone with that level of intense emotion, we will experience the effects of that.” But regardless of how I received the benefit of these emotions, I would have to figure out what to actually do with them. And so he had some really great tips and advice that we’ll share in a bit.
But you know, I want to go back to something that you said because here’s our feelings. This is when you’re in the crux of this panic in your bed, or when I’m in the crux of not understanding what to do with this brimming anxiety, there are choices that can be made. Now, it feels like a pressing from the tension between our feelings and what is healthy. There’s a lot of tension in there, and there’s a lot of challenge to press through from one side to the other. Bridging that between our feelings and what is healthy and true can be a wide chasm. I think it’s one that, should we choose to start taking small step by small step — you often say doing the next best thing—
Patsy: The next right thing.
Andrew: The next right thing — there’s a spiritual component, I believe, to pressing through. There’s a meeting place with God when we take a step.
Patsy: That, again, we’re back to the word “risk.” It seems to come up again and again, and so while you already feel you’re in a risky place when you’re frightened, when you’re panicking, the truth of the matter is you’re just one step away from finding out that you are more manageable inside than you know. And one of the ways I began to manage myself better was through a mindset — putting boundaries on the way I thought, listening to the messages that were in my head already and changing them, dialing them over to the truth, because I would think, I’m no good. I’m worthless. I can’t even get out of the bed. I’m a useless person. And God would say, “You are precious, and you are dear, and you can do all things through Christ who is in you.” But I didn’t know how to do the “all things,” and I didn’t know that it started with the faithful baby steps and that those would lead me to higher grand.
Andrew: And it’s an act of faith, not a passive faith, that helps us exercise those steps to get to where we would like to be and in a new place with ourselves, but I think also in getting into a healthier place in our own lives, we discover new things about God through that.
We want to talk more this hour about panic, about anxiety, about fear because we know this is becoming more of a cultural norm than an exception these days, so there are many people who are experiencing different levels of fear through different circumstances that have triggered it. So we want to talk more about you don’t work into your bed overnight, and so therefore, you don’t work out of your bed overnight either. So we want to really take anyone who’s listening through the long journey to health.
Patsy: It is a journey. It is a journey. And that is the wisdom of Andrew Greer. I’m Patsy Clairmont, and this is Bridges.
Bridges Sponsorship Message
Patsy: “Where would I be if I did not believe I would experience the Lord’s favor in the land of the living? Rely on the Lord! Be strong and confident! Rely on the Lord!” Those are the last two verses of Psalm 27 from the Abide Bible. It is a new bible that has been in my home now for several months, so I’ve had time to work with it and it to work inside of me. It offers beautiful, old art that is associated with verses, so it helps it to become a bigger picture in our mind and our retention is improved. It has places for us to journal on the side as we read. It also has instructions on how to pray this scripture, how to meditate on it, how to contemplate it so we can sit and soak in God’s Word and allow it to dwell richly within us.
Andrew: What I love about the Abide Bible is that it’s invitational, not just informational. It’s inviting us not to just exercise the Word of God in our head but to really invite it to dwell in our hearts, which to me reminds me of John 15:4: “Abide in me and I in you.” So you can order your copy of the Abide Bible today at bridgesshow.com/abide.
Andrew Greer and Cindy Morgan singing “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus”
Patsy: A favorite song of mine is “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus.” This version is sung by Andrew Greer and Cindy Morgan.
O soul, are you weary and troubled
No light in the darkness you see
There’s light for a look at the Savior
And life more abundant and free
Turn your eyes upon Jesus
Look full in His wonderful face
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim
In the light of His glory and grace
Though death it shall come in one moment
Forever in Him life we share
Though my bones they’re anxiously groaning
My soul has not one single care
Turn your eyes upon Jesus
Look full in His wonderful face
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim
In the light of His glory and grace
Patsy: Andrew, you have no way of knowing how important that song is to me because I was beginning to have an anxiety attack at church. I had come a long way. I had taken many steps. I was back in the community of people again, but I could feel it rising up inside of me. And for a moment, I started to lean into the panic feeling when the church began to sing that song: Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Look full in his wonderful face. And I began to shift my attention from the whirlwind within me to the Savior within me, and in that, I began to settle down. My peace was restored. Now, that was not always the case prior when I would have anxiety attacks, but in that moment with that song, I’ll never forget how important it was to me. So thank you for singing that.
Patsy: Andrew, if someone would have told me — the agoraphobic, the person who couldn’t go to the grocery story, who couldn’t get to church, or who didn’t ride in cars anymore, who didn’t want to go to the doctor but would like to live in the hospital so there was always medical attention available. I was such a conflict of a person, and if someone would have told me that one day I would fly over stampeding elephants in Africa in a hot air balloon or that I would speak to the flag officers at the Pentagon or that I would speak during my career to over six million women, I wouldn’t have been able to conceive it or believe it, nor would anyone who knew me well or knew me at all. I was just such a fragile, fragmented mess. Now, once I learned some skills in dealing with anxiety, I was still very fractured. I had a lot of woundedness. The panic didn’t wound me. The panic was a sign I had already been wounded, and I needed to learn how to recover and I needed to be an active participant in my own healing.
“The panic was a sign I had already been wounded, and I needed to learn how to recover and I needed to be an active participant in my own healing.”
Andrew: Healing does require active participating. I think something that we often forget, or sometimes maybe we just subconsciously or consciously bypass, is our role in our own recovery because if I were to believe deeply enough, if my faith were to be foundationed enough, if I were to recite enough scripture verses or sing enough choruses of “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus,” surely this thing would be ejected from within me out into the place that it belongs, and that is not in my heart where faith began.
But what we realize is within the context of our humanity, within this flesh and bone, we are limited still, even though I think the tension, and the reason we still want to believe that we can have faith enough to overcome the deepest challenges in our life, is because we are already aware of the eternal nature of who we are, that God has created us to be in eternal communion and relationship with Him. We understand that on a very deep level even though it’s not always at a conscious level or not always at all prompting our behaviors or our beliefs about ourselves and the world around us. So then to actually tune into that can be really difficult within this context.
I have always been encouraged that it doesn’t make you less of a believer, or your relationship with God is not diminished based on what your challenges are in life, but in fact, through the invitation to actively participate in those challenges in recovering and moving through, moving forward, and moving out, that is actually a profound place to invite the spirit of God to work in and through our lives and to meet God.
My dad had some advice for me long ago when I was experiencing my first bouts of anxiety and fear and couldn’t wrestle through these restless feelings. I was very emotional at that point in time when talking to him, and he said, “Let me just offer two things to you. One, you won’t die from this today. And then, two, you probably won’t get over it today or tomorrow or the next day.” To be able to understand that this is not something that will suddenly be eliminated from my life, that potentially I worked into it in ways I didn’t even see coming, it would take time and it would take my participation in that time of recovery to find my way out of it.
Patsy: I became part of a support group, and it was all people who were very anxious. So there were strict guidelines so we didn’t commiserate and get on each other’s last nerve, and we had to learn how to speak in certain ways. We had to give up what they called temperamental lingo, and that was that we couldn’t say “I’ll never get well. It’ll always be this way. He’ll never be different. I can’t bear this.” All the words that said to our inside self, “You’re not going to survive, and there’s no way out.” We had to open the door, so by eliminating the words and saying, “At this juncture, I’m finding this difficult, but I can make choices that will help it improve.” So learning to take steps — part acts, we called them. Let’s say I had to go to the grocery store. Instead of looking at the whole picture, I would say, “I just have to go park the car. And then I just have to walk in the front door. And I don’t have to get all the groceries. Maybe I’ll just start with a few. But I’ve got to keep moving.”
Andrew: Movement is extremely important, and that’s something we want to continue to talk about. But I want to go into a conversation that though fear is overtaking segments of our minds, I think, from a cultural standpoint, but fear is not new. This is not some new journey for humanity. Fear, which I think is countered with surrender — surrender’s always been one of our greatest challenges on our spiritual level — and the production of fear in our lives from our circumstances, that’s not something that is relegated to this time and space of humanity.
Patsy: Look at the Israelites in their struggles. They had fears. They had insecurities. They had rebellion. They had a desert. I mean, they had stuff going on. And yet, when the get to the promised land, I’m sure they thought, Well, if we had only known it would be this good. Now, they’d been told, but there’s something about seeing that helps you believe. So had I known that I would one day be a functional person, in my mind I think it would’ve helped me. But God did not reveal that, and I think part of the reason for that is because I would not have learned how to lean on Him and how to trust Him each step of the way, which made my faith grow. And that’s an important part of growing up in Christ Jesus in all ways is that we learn to obey in the small things and we are consistently then moving forward, making us capable of handling the bigger issues.
Andrew: When we are overwhelmed by the bigger issues and when just the framework of what we’re seeing in our mind, how we’re interacting with ourselves in our life, our family around us, is completely overwhelming because of fear-driven behavior or ways of thinking, I hear you say take that next little step, and I have known that to be true in my own life when in the middle of anxiety and fear. What is the next thing I need to do? Sometimes that is get out of bed. Sometimes that is brush my teeth. Sometimes that is put on your socks and your shoes.
Patsy: Or call a friend.
Andrew: Or call a friend. When you can’t see the next step for all the steps that you see that need to be taken, how can you begin to identify even what the next step is when paralyzed by fear and overwhelmed by the longer journey?
Patsy: Well, I think when you find yourself paralyzed that what you have to do is you have to start speaking the truth into your own heart. In our support group, one of the things that we said over and over to ourselves so we could have some new messages is this situation is distressing but it’s not dangerous. If you can take the danger out of your feelings, you will lower the flame of the anxiety. It works every time. But you have to take the danger out. And we’re the ones who add it in. We build it on how we’re feeling, but feelings are not facts.
That is another little thing we memorized. Feelings are not facts. They can be valuable at times, but they also can be misleading and detrimental. The other thing is we need to learn how to lower our expectation for our performance because we tend to be perfectionists.
There was a little saying that we had: We seek to be exceptional while not even feeling average. So we need to lower our expectations, not that we don’t have great heart for our life, great enthusiasm, but that we do not have to do everything perfectly because perfectly’ll mess you up every time. I mean, it just cinches you in like a girdle for heaven’s sakes.
“If you can take the danger out of your feelings, you will lower the flame of the anxiety.”
Andrew: It is a girdle of panic, isn’t it? In the advice of Tim Greer that I give again, my father, when in the midst of my anxiety and as Patsy is reinforcing, you will not die from this today and you probably won’t get over it tomorrow or the next day, but there is a pathway to healing and to hope. And part of that pathway is just like Patsy is speaking about the support of a group of people and the support of my dad. Our community is extremely important in us moving forward, moving through and out of our fears and anxieties. So we’re going to talk more about that coming up next. You’re listening to Bridges with…
Patsy: Patsy Clairmont, the old Boomer.
Andrew: And Andrew Greer, the old Millennial.
Andrew: Patsy, I hear that you have a book club.
Patsy: I do. Books are what God used to help heal me, so it delights me to offer that service to others, that they could sign up, anybody. All y’alls, come on in. We want you to join in the book club, and we will read ourselves silly and sane. We’ll have different selections, one every month with a bonus. You can check it out: patsyclairmont.com. And also on that page, you’ll see that I do cheerleading for people. I coach them in helping them stir up their creativity to tell their story. But here’s what I know: You’re into a different kind of storytelling, and you’ve been set up to win awards for what you’ve done.
Andrew: I love music, and I have new record out called Tune My Heart, and it includes some of my really close friends, some of your friends, like Sandra McCracken and Cindy Morgan and Buddy Greene. And you can find that record anywhere you stream or download, or at andrew-greer.com. You know what else, Patsy?
Patsy: What?
Andrew: I’ve got another podcast. It’s not my favorite podcast, but if you like listening to Bridges, then you might like listening to and viewing Dinner Conversations with our pal Mark Lowry and myself. You can find it on Apple Podcasts or Amazon Prime, or simply go to dinner-conversations.com.
Bridges Sponsorship Message
Patsy: I’m excited about Food for the Hungry because they know how to get to the need of people. If you meet their needs, then their heart is open to anything else you say. So they’re feeding the children not only to nurture them and prepare them for real life but to hear about Jesus. And one of the ways that they’re able to help these families and it be sustainable is by chickens, Andrew.
Andrew: That’s right. It’s incredible. For just $14, you can provide a family with a chicken, and if you want to multiply that blessing, you can provide them with two chickens for just $28. And we know that chickens multiply, so that’s more eggs for the children to have the protein that they need, for them to sell the extras at market, and those chickens last eight to 10 years. It’s a huge blessing. All you have to do is go to fh.org/bridges.
Andrew: You’re listening to Bridges with Patsy Clairmont and Andrew Greer. Welcome back.
Patsy: Welcome back is right. We talked earlier about gephyrophobia, the fear of bridges, and I was kind of fascinated that the Mackinac Bridge offers a service for people who have that phobia. You call and let them know you’re coming and when you’ll arrive, and they have people who will get in your car and drive you over the bridge. Now, you’re still on the bridge, but you’re not feeling the same level of tension because someone else is getting you there, and you’re considering them to be professional at what they’re doing and more capable than yourself. But I have found in my life that I have often needed someone to come alongside me or several someones to help me take the next step. What about you?
Andrew: Yeah. I definitely think that carriage of community — that’s what I think about when someone is helping that person cross over that Mackinac Bridge. They are still going across, like you said, but someone else is chauffeuring them through that process until they’re able to master that themselves, or maybe just to get them across to the other side where more opportunity for healing can begin.
I know in my own life, when I was in the middle of a really poignant place of panic where I was actually struggling to get out of bed and to get dressed and to do the day-to-day things that I typically have no problem doing. So being a full-functioning, responsible adult was not a task I was up to at that point in time, and a lot of it was because of the emotions, again, but unidentified. I’m not sure what sent me into that place, and so I wasn’t sure how I was going to be delivered from that place. And I remember my cousins, who are some of my closest friends, live here in town in Nashville near me, and they have kids that at the time were 10, 8, and 6. And my cousin Jo said, “Why don’t you come on over and stay with us for a few days.” I’m single, so in a house by myself. And she said, “I think potentially being within our household,” which was very busy at the time with three kids during school days and all the responsibilities she and her husband had in a normal young household, might help me at least find an infrastructure to work out my worry, work out my fear. And part of that was because once I placed myself in that place of sort of accountability, I don’t think she was—
Patsy: Meaning it to be.
Andrew: Yeah. I don’t think she was saying, “Here’s a part of your recovery. You need to come to my house.” I think she was just saying, “Here’s a safe place to rest.” But within that rest was also contribution. To be a part of a household is who’s going to wash the dishes after dinner, who’s going to set the table, who’s going to help out in the lawn, and those were things that I was able to then get my body, my physicality, working out some of that panic that tends to constrict. And so I found it to be extremely healing. She put the kids on Andrew Duty, so if I decided to go on the couch and nap, which I was feeling the need to do all day long, she would give me about 10, 15 minutes before they were—
Patsy: Over there talking to you.
Andrew: Yes. In a way that was impossible to ignore.
Patsy: When they sit on your head, that always gets your attention right away. One of the things we learned in our group was the importance of moving your muscles when you don’t feel like it. I think the most liberating truth I was given in those years was that I had a will that was stronger than my emotions, and I could choose to do what I didn’t feel like doing. And in the choosing of that, I got stronger and the feeling had less impact, but it didn’t happen immediately. I did a lot of choosing before I felt good about that choice. It took awhile for my feelings to be dipped in the vat of my choices. Eventually, I began to have good feelings about making wise choices, and the two of them together, that was a lovely day. But for a long time, I made the choice because it was right and not because I felt it.
Andrew: And our mind and body and spirit we know is very connected, and so to move our muscles, I know that I’ve always been a big jogger, at one time was a marathoner. And when I first was experiencing this anxiety and fear, I was in the middle of training for marathons and finding myself unable to even go on a jog, something that at that point in my life was a very easy, enjoyable, usually a relaxing time for me. So what I did instead was I took walks. I just started by walking, just walking the neighborhood. Then I would start going on hikes, which exerted a little more because the terrain was a little steeper. And what I found was that my body was able to work out some of that tension that I was collecting and harboring, while my mind felt free to think through and to ruminate and to pray and to seek for help where my spirit felt like it was failing. So I do think it’s important to just move. It seems so simple.
Patsy: It does seem simple. I had some knee issues, and I made the determination that that’s what happens when you get old, so I’ll just go sit down. And it didn’t take long before the thought came to me, Oh, you can’t afford to sit down. You will not get back up for a very long time. You’re indulging your fear that you’re not going to be able to move, and you’ve got to move to the degree you can. And so I began making walks to the mailbox, which is up an incline, and it seemed like a hundred miles away. I wanted to pack a lunch and take one of those little kiddie beds you put out for their naps, but I would stop and rest for a minute and then go a little farther, and then stop and rest and a little farther, and stop and rest, until yay, I was at the mailbox. And then I’d make my way back, which was easier because it was downhill. You’ve got to start somewhere. Making the choice to move your muscles will help you attain your longing and your goal.
Andrew: Speaking of making choices, making the choice to seek help for our mental health issues is not something that has always been encouraged or motivated within the context of our evangelical church circles or religious circles or spiritual circles because there’s always been a bit of this persistent thought that should you need to seek help from someone else, whether that’s a counselor or a therapist or a support group, then maybe you’re not seeking help from God or you’re not trusting God to be the fullness of healing that He is. But we find ourselves in places where we need practical help and support from people. So what do we do with those messages that though they’re beginning to diminish and dissipate for the better, but what do we do when we still feel that kind of… Sometimes we feel criticism or an unspoken judgement about needing to get help.
Patsy: First of all, we have to remember we’re exceedingly sensitive, some of us more so than others. Just like you being with a friend with anxiety and the next thing you knew you had it, we are absorbers, some of us more than others. I have always been hugely absorbent. I could’ve been a great advertisement for paper towels. But I remember being at a friend’s house and she was in labor, and for every two pains she had, I had six and I wasn’t even pregnant. I had to leave because I couldn’t quit catching her. I would just say we are very sensitive people. It’s important that we put ourself in surroundings that help to sure us up until we’re strong enough to bear things in a way that’s more sensible. What did you ask me?
Andrew: I’m talking about mental health from a spiritual context.
Patsy: Let me just say that the reason people back away is it frightens them. Anything we don’t know well or we don’t know how to manage we’re afraid of. Also, we don’t want to catch it. If you’ve got some imbalance, we don’t want to catch it. So if we could learn, first of all, that the person struggling with their mental health is not contagious but they very likely are lonely, and one of the reasons they’re lonely is because people have backed away. And also, if we could remember as the individual that it’s going to require us to deliberately move into people and not to be offended. I often learned how to behave by watching the behavior of other people that I had regard for because I wasn’t certain on some things socially, how to interact with people. But if I watched people who were really good at it and did it from a sincere heart, I took notes on what they did so I could learn how to be healthier in my interactions with others.
Andrew: Yeah. It’s a good exercise for us in the community of God, in the church, to actually continue to invite… Here’s something I always think about: The table for communion has been set by Jesus, and we are all welcome into it and to it, into communion with God. So no matter whether we have mental health issues or we have marital issues or we have some kind of physical health issues, all the things that are different and diverse, that we come to the table together to present them to God, and then I think within that community, that support allows us the freedom to go ask for help wherever we may need it. I feel like communion is a launching point for us to be able to get healthy, and I think healthy resembles how we were originally created. The healthier we are the more that we seem to reflect who God created us to be.
Patsy: I agree.
“The healthier we are the more that we seem to reflect who God created us to be.”
Patsy: Thank you. It’s been great to be with you, and we’re looking forward to the next show where we have a great guest and some amazing insight.
Andrew: You’ve been listening to Bridges: Spiritual Connections Through Generational Conversation.
Patsy: I’m Patsy Clairmont, the Boomer.
Andrew: And I’m Andrew Greer, the Millennial. Tune in next time.
Patsy: Bridges is co-produced by Andrew Greer and myself, Patsy Clairmont.
Andrew: And our podcast is recorded and mixed by Jesse Phillips at the Arcade in Franklin, Tennessee.
Patsy: Remember, don’t forget to leave us a rating, a review, or a comment. It all helps our little show get going.
Andrew: To find out more about my co-host Patsy Clairmont or myself, Andrew Greer, or to read transcripts of our show, simply go to bridgesshow.com.