The anxiety arises

Most recently, the anxiety is coming back. My first meeting is next week for the seekers. We meet in a group of 10 (4 seekers, 4 companions, and 2 group leaders). Yes I may have googled all the people in the group and maybe I even compared and judged a little. But the truth is that this group is tackling a really difficult question: “what is God calling me to do and be in the world so that God’s kingdom will be revealed?” That’s kind of a big one. So a little anxiety is possibly an acceptable first response. The problem is that I fall into the anxiety and start to doubt my beliefs, doubt my abilities, doubt that I am listening to god and instead paying a lot of attention to my ego.

There is something about these doubts that are helpful, but they can’t control how I move through the world. To obsess about what I am not means to feed the negative ego–thanks Iyanla. And as the episode of Oprah’s life class taught me last night is: “what you feed will grow.”–thanks TD. And right when I think that I am going a little crazy, when I feel a little confused about what God is calling me to be. When the anxiety starts to take over God sends me a note.

As you may know I am a little obsessed with the Tell Me More podcast (I’ve been catching up with episodes and I am currently on January 2, 2012). So I was going to write about anxiety and doubt and worthiness or the lack there of. But then I hear this statement from an interview with Bruce Feiler, a writer and cancer survivor: “Well, to me, so much in life comes back to the dining room table. It comes back to sitting around and opening yourself up to the people around you and saying, OK, let’s start. Let’s start with a conversation. Let’s start with telling ourselves a story.”

The words seem so simple and yet it is huge. Every time I doubt, if I ask for a little guidance then I am reminded that bringing back the dinner table so that acceptance and equality are born out of intense relationships is my calling: Relationship activism. I may not be the best candidate to do this and its gonna require a lot of self work and patience and a whole lot of faith, but as the saying goes:

GOD IS WITH ME
GOD IS IN ME
GOD IS ALL AROUND ME, HELPING ME THROUGH THE MESS

I’m gonna keep trying to write that as many times as I can in this blog–I need the reminder a couple times a day.

So today’s question: Who can you have dinner with today that you don’t really like, but want to know more about?