Catching Your Breath

by Steve Austin

  One of my dear friends is going through an unthinkably hard time: she’s watching her marriage disintegrate. She’s had to make very tough decisions to protect her safety and sanity. I can’t imagine making the painful choice to let go of the person she thought she’d spend her life with. I can see how her boat will be lighter as she lets go of something that’s dragging her down. Still, in the midst of a shipwreck, no one says “thank you” for the waves.

  Sure, people come running to help in the wake of tragedies they can see, but my friend seemed fine on the outside. There had been no external tragedy; no one saw the dysfunction and toxicity of her day-to-day existence. So not many people came running to her shipwreck. Her chaos is all inside, and it’s not easy to find someone to hold your hand while you figure out how to fight that kind of inner war. She was truly overwhelmed.

  Two of the most accurate definitions for the word “overwhelmed” come from dictionary.com:

  to cover or bury beneath a mass of something, as floodwaters, debris, or an avalanche; submerge:

  to load, heap, treat, or address with an overpowering or excessive amount of anything21

  Like my friend, many of us feel like we are slipping beneath the weight of it all. We feel the floodwaters creeping chest-high or hear the sounds of an avalanche chasing us down. Our hopes can get buried underneath an ocean of negativity. Our wildest dreams can seem like pure insanity because our daily lives are so far from what we envision. We’re putting one foot in front of the other, dragging ourselves forward, but we are overwhelmed and can barely catch our breath.

  Breathing is involuntary; it just happens. We don’t have to think about it and it doesn’t require focus. We just do it. Until we’re underwater and that life-giving oxygen gets replaced with something that doesn’t belong. Our lungs and nostrils fill up and we begin to choke, cough, and clamor, desperate to breathe again.

  Help! We might scream (usually on the inside). I’m drowning! I can’t breathe! I’m overwhelmed!

  The bills are too high!

  The baby won’t stop crying!

  Final exams are a week away!

  My wife won’t shut up!

  My husband never listens!

  Work is demanding more than I can give!

  I just want to quit!

  Have you been there?

  It’s like running in the Alabama summer, humidity teetering around 90-100%. I love to run, but not in that kind of heat and humidity. It’s like trying to breathe underwater or inhaling soup. My lungs and heart curse every pounding footfall. And you can bet I’m not carrying anything heavy with me those days: it’s just the essentials.

  This morning, as I was nearing my third mile, it felt as though my heart might pound out of my chest and I had a choice – quit or slow down. The truth is, both are valid options. Letting go doesn’t mean giving up. It’s okay to stop completely and take a break. And sometimes the only way to keep going is to slow down.

  When you are running full steam ahead, trying your very best, but feel like you can’t possibly go any further, listen to yourself. Don’t take another step. If life is really hard right now and you feel completely overwhelmed, you have my permission to let go of anything that isn’t giving you life. Let go of the heavy things. Set aside the pressures that are weighing you down. Shut out the critics who aren’t in your corner. Set boundaries with those who have bullied or taken advantage of you for far too long.

  What is weighing you down? Is it the pain of your past? Is it the terrible way people have treated you or the enormous mistakes you’ve made? Are you freaked out by an unpredictable future? Does job stress have you teetering on the brink of giving up? Have you lost a precious relationship because of pride or secrets?

  If you’re anything like me, your arms are full of all the heavy things you’ve been carrying. Your back hurts from the weight of disappointment and anger, pain and offense. There’s no room to embrace love, hope, and empathy. Your shoulders are tense and you are exhausted. Until you let go, you can never fully find yourself or step into your highest purpose. When you’re peering over the edge of the cliff, you have to disconnect from the lies that have been embedded in your psyche and tune into love, grace, and compassion. You have to put down the heavy things if you want to create space for real rest.

  Do you feel restless? Is there tossing and turning in your soul? Does impatience keep you from sitting with the shakiness and the unknowing? I’ve been there. We’re not taught much about patience after kindergarten, it seems. We rush from here to there. As soon as we get tired of waiting—on people, on answers, on certainty—we get up and leave. We leave our marriages. We leave our jobs. We leave churches. We leave friendships. When we don’t find satisfaction or answers as quickly as we think we should, our restlessness nearly drives us mad. Rainer Maria Rilke said it beautifully:

  Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.22

  We all wrestle with impatience. We want the quick fix, the wonder drug, the easy out. But I don’t know many things that are worth having that don’t require at least a little bit of hard work.

  If the pressure of daily life feels like it might cause your soul to rupture, I get it. And I know that outside of everyday spirituality, the only thing that helped me was doing the hard work of recovery: practicing self-care, listening to the doctor, learning to love myself, and creating a dependable support system. Start with those things, and you’ll make significant progress toward finding peace with yourself.

  That’s where it all begins. When you’re in crisis mode, don’t feel like you have to force yourself to find immediate peace with God or other people. Those things will come later. But you’ll never ease your restlessness—or learn to sit with it—until you learn to create peace with yourself. And most often, that requires letting go. If you want to stop feeling like you’re drowning, you have to let go.

  “My Give a Damn’s Busted”

  There’s this great old song by country artist Jo Dee Messina, “My Give a Damn’s Busted.”23 I firmly believe that each human being receives a certain number of breaths at birth. Right along with the allotted amount of inhales, God gives us a bucket of Give a Damns. (This is a whole new kind of bucket list, people.) Some folks have a surplus of Give a Damns and can keep calm in the face of drama queens, mansplaining, and trying situations. Others have an incredibly limited supply of Give a Damns, and once they’re gone, you’d better run.

  As we journey toward wholeness, we’re choosing to step away from constant crisis mode. We’re learning that not every friggin’ hill is one to die on. We’re moving toward deeper connection with our true selves. Doing so will give us the courage to be honest with ourselves and those in our inner circles (at the very least). We will naturally begin to re-prioritize where we spend our time, energy, and focus. Each of these things is a priceless commodity; no matter who we are, we all have a limited amount of each. Run out of any one of these, and we’ll begin to float away from the shoreline toward the choppy seas of chaos. And who the hell has time to create unnecessary chaos? Bye, Felicia.

  There are things we should use a Give a Damn for, and things we shouldn’t. My children and my wife are worthy of my Give a Damns. My job gets one, but only because it allows me to pay my power bill and the mortgage. I’ll spend a Give a Damn on my car because it gets me to my job so I can pay my water bill and buy groceries for my family. See how this works? There are very few things I should spend my Give a Damn on (and most of the time, it’s directly related to the people who live under the same roof as me). There’s a shit-ton of stuff tha
t doesn’t deserve my Give a Damns. If I can’t change something, I sure as hell can’t afford to waste my Give a Damn.

  Dualistic thinking pushes us to see everything in extremes. Fear-based cable news and social media only make this worse. Not everything in life is an emergency. Not every person is your best friend or your worst enemy. Not every issue needs to be debated. Sometimes, it’s just not worth worrying about. Remember, it isn’t your job to save everyone, change anyone, or keep the world spinning. Once you recognize what a commodity you have in your Give a Damns, you’ll do whatever you can to safeguard them.

  Do you remember doing word problems in math class when you were in grade school? They probably sounded something like this: If Sally has five dollars and she buys a sucker for one dollar, how many dollars does Sally have left? You have to budget your Give a Damns just like Sally’s dollars.

  Here’s an example: If someone cuts you off in traffic, you have a choice to make. You can either take a deep breath and keep driving, reserving your Give a Damn for something that truly matters, or you can hold onto your anger and frustration all day.

  The third option is to act like my grandpa the day a woman cut him off in traffic and flipped him the bird as she drove past. He waited until they were side-by-side at the next stop light, and rolled down his window. With the whole family in the car, my grandfather leaned his entire upper body out the window, in the middle of the day, placed both middle fingers in the air, and yelled, “Why don’t you shove both of these up your ass?!” My grandmother looked on in horror from the passenger seat. (Remember, this was before the days of smartphones and social media. These days, you’d probably end up on an episode of Cops for that kind of epic road-rage—or at least on Facebook Live.)

  If you waste your Give a Damn on the person who cuts you off in traffic, your co-worker’s sideways comment about your shirt, your mother-in-law’s criticism of your new car, the fact that the mail is late, or that you didn’t get invited to the baby shower, you won’t have one left to give when your daughter is sobbing after being made fun of in class. And your daughter desperately needs you to show up.

  Letting go is one of the most important parts of this sacred journey. It’s a daily practice for a guy like me, who only ever seems to move, add more weight, and keep pushing. As an Enneagram 3w2, my natural bent (especially in un-health) is to get caught up in the doing. The dark side of my personality continually tells me to carry more, paddle faster, and refuse to throw anything over.

  I need Divine Love to constantly show up, just like it did on my New Year’s Eve retreat, and remind me that my worth is found in who I am. Nothing more. God met me there in the sandy sanctuary of Orange Beach, whispering through the wind in the palm fronds, “I’ve got this. Just rest. Watch what I’m doing. Just listen. Just wait. Just breathe. You can let go.”

  The quickest way to revert from calm back to chaos is to waste your Give a Damns. And the best way to reserve your Give a Damns? Slow down.

  Eight:

  Saucer And Blow It

  Take it easy.

  —The Eagles24

  Boss and Nanny (my mom’s parents) have always been two of my dearest friends and mentors. My grandparents’ home has often served as a place of solitude during the storms of life. They have passed down all sorts of useful, hard-won wisdom, supported every venture I’ve tried, and been present with me in both good and terrible times. I’ll cherish those memories forever.

  If I have any talent as a writer, it’s because my grandfather’s blood courses through my veins. He was a war correspondent during the Vietnam Conflict and retired from The Birmingham News as a night editor when I was a senior in high school. And if I have learned anything about slowing down, it’s thanks to Nanny. My grandmother is intentional, careful with her words, and only says what she means. Never rushed or haphazard. Cool, calm, and collected.

  Coffee is a staple at my grandparents’ home, consumed from dawn until dusk. It’s an entirely acceptable beverage for a human from the time they can walk. Black coffee, thick as motor oil, has fueled conversation in our family for as long as I can remember. One of the most significant lessons I learned came from Nanny, who taught me to “saucer and blow it.” I’m not sure if this happens anywhere else, but at my grandparents’ house, if the coffee is too hot and you just can’t wait to drink it, there’s a simple fix. You pour it out of the mug and into the saucer, blow on it for a few seconds, wait for it to cool, and slurp it down. Saucer and blow it.

  Anytime I’m facing a difficult decision (whether the outcome is promising or terrifying), I still pick up the phone and call Nanny. She has listening down to an art and is always present with me in my struggle. Nine times out of ten, Nanny says the same thing: “Stevie, it sounds like you just need to saucer and blow it.”

  Whether it was giving up a scholarship to pursue Christian ministry, breaking things off with my first fiancé, leaving Bible college to become a sign language interpreter, starting a photography business, or reeling from my wife’s hospitalization with postpartum depression, the best advice I’ve ever received is to take a deep breath and slow down long enough for things to cool down. “Saucer and blow it,” in essence, means, don’t rush through it.

  When you feel out of control, violated, afraid, guilty, alone, embarrassed, ashamed, neglected, or just plain stuck, give things time to cool down. Step back and take a deep breath. Sometimes, there is nothing else to say; things just have to work themselves out. At times, the only thing you can do is saucer and blow it.

  As I write this, Boss is dying.

  My hero is crumbling into little more than a pile of flesh in a hospital bed. This giant of mine, who has shaped me more as a writer and a man than anyone else, is nearing the end of his natural life. My grandpa, once a powerful physical force, can no longer empty his bladder or recognize his beloved grandson. This brute of a man, who laid the rock foundation of his home without assistance, cannot even lift a spoon to his mouth. The Vietnam War correspondent and well-respected newspaper editor no longer forms coherent sentences. His mind has failed him; his body follows closely behind.

  Time becomes so precious when you realize how little you have left with someone you love. Nothing else seems to matter: important podcast interviews, keeping a perfect attendance record at work, taking time to cook real food instead of grabbing something quick. I don’t want to miss the chance to hold his hand or wipe his brow. I’m painfully aware of how much time has ticked by while I’ve been caught up in all the things I’m “supposed to be doing.”

  At the same time, this deep sadness has made it clear just how harshly I judge my own emotions. Usually, if I feel anything other than happiness, I think something is wrong with me. I have such high and unrealistic expectations that I should always be smiling. But these days, I find myself straddling the guilt-ridden line of wanting him to be free of pain, while my heart silently begs him to stay with me a little longer.

  These days, I cannot force a smile. My life isn’t falling apart and I am not losing my mind. I’m just really sad. I am permitting myself to slow down and grieve this tremendous loss. I am leaning into this grief and embracing my humanity as I feel my grandfather slipping through my grip.

  When my six-year-old son’s best friend changed schools, I told Ben, “It’s okay to be sad.” The kid’s parents bought a beautiful new home across town, so my son has lost his favorite friend, the kid who sat next to him every day at lunch. To my little boy, it seems unfair. And although losing a friend he’s only known six months pales in comparison to losing the patriarch of our family, the same truth applies to both: it’s okay to be really sad.

  When we prevent ourselves from experiencing the full spectrum of human emotion, it’s like we’re sawing off an arm or leg with a dull butter knife. It’s hard, painful, and unnecessary work. In denying ourselves the right to feel angry, sad, or disappointed—anything but joyful—we’re amputating pieces of
our souls. This just causes more trauma that will eventually, stubbornly, rise to the surface.

  We treat much of our trauma and pain the same way sickness is treated in the Western world. Too often, we treat the obvious symptoms while ignoring the root cause. Over-the-counter cold medicines are designed to treat the effects of the illness: a runny nose, itchy and watery eyes, and congestion. They make us feel better because we can’t see the symptoms anymore, but the virus is still wreaking havoc on our systems.

  It’s the same when we feel overwhelmed. We might use words like anxiety, stress, despair, worn out, exhausted, or just plain done. If we aren’t dealing with a genuine psychiatric diagnosis, we’re describing intense emotions that we are used to stuffing down or covering up. But what would happen if we stopped trying to squelch or rush through it? What if we asked our emotions what they’re trying to communicate to us?

  Mark Alan Schelske, in his book, The Wisdom of the Heart, offers a very balanced and gracious look at the source of our emotions:

  If emotions were created as a part of our nature, they’re purposeful. This is true regardless of our beliefs about the origin of humanity. If humanity evolved, then emotions emerged through natural selection because they’re crucial for survival. If we were created, then emotions are an integral part of the design our Creator gave us. Either way, emotions are vital for a life well lived.

  Schelske goes on to say:

  At the simplest level, we have emotional responses to our immediate circumstances and internal states. Is this change in circumstance or internal state good or bad for us? If it’s good and supportive, healthy emotions should draw us toward the new stimulus with affection, happiness, satisfaction, or joy. If the change is dangerous or threatening, our emotions are meant to repel us from the stimulus with responses like anxiety, fear, disgust, and hate.25