Blogger: Mary Keeley
List the goings-on in the publishing industry in the last months and writers and authors have had plenty of stress inducers. The important thing is, how are you responding to them? It makes all the difference. Stress inducers—good and bad ones—are in abundance and are all the more unsettling when you can’t yet see how God is working in and through them—and you.
Did you know that some stress is good for you? Coincidentally, Monday’s post on Health.com was about the beneficial effects short-term stress may provide us. Richard Shelton, MD, the vice chair for research in the Department of psychiatry at the University of Alabama Birmingham, lists five benefits of the everyday kind of stresses:
- It helps boost brainpower.
- It can increase immunity in the short term.
- It can make you more resilient.
- It motivates you to succeed.
- It can enhance child development in pregnant women who are experiencing mild to moderate stress levels.
Read the entire article here. Any of these could result when your stress is related to something about which you’re hopeful or an accomplishment you’re working toward, like taking advantage of a time-constrained writing opportunity. Or the stress you feel in the minutes leading up to your pitch meeting with an agent. Or when you’re waiting for an anticipated contract offer.
Sudden stresses or the severe types borne from losses that disrupt your life for a longer period of time, like job loss, death of a loved one, the shutting down of your publisher’s fiction line, working to meet a looming manuscript deadline when your family needs you, health issues, low sales numbers and shrinking royalties due to the Family Christian Stores bankruptcy saga, and continual rejections, of any kind, are not health enhancing. Add yours to the list.
Positive responses from authors affected by the closure of Abingdon’s fiction line prevailed on social media. Expressions of deeply rooted trust in God’s all-knowing, unconditionally loving control honored and glorified him. Responses in controversial online conversations about the state of fiction that reflected Who is ultimately in charge pleased him. “And without faith it is impossible to please God” (Hebrews 11:6).
While our spirits are trusting, over time our frail human bodies and minds begin to feel wear-and-tear effects of prolonged stress, though. That’s when it’s time for you to be deliberate in caring for yourself to relax your body and mind. Here are some suggestions:
- Exercise in the morning to release endorphins. They interact with brain chemicals to produce a sense of wellbeing.
- Read inspirational memoirs and biographies of people who overcame great odds.
- Read in Psalms every day.
- Don’t become a loner. Seek the support of true friends in the writing community who understand the dynamics of the writing life.
- Play hymns and praise music for white noise as your work or relax. Their soothing, positive messages register in the brain.
- Some people have found that using biblical oils provides stress relief and a better outlook. I’ve tried a few and agree.
- Organize your work area for greater clarity of mind and efficiency.
- Post scripture verses and meaningful quotes in strategic places around your house.
- Do relaxing stretching exercises in the evening to aid better sleep.
If you’re experiencing the stresses of life and career, you aren’t alone. I wrote this post in response to conversations this week with an alarming number of authors and clients, friends and family, who are facing all kinds of tenuous circumstances. Healthy efforts toward stress relief make it easier for body, soul, and spirit to be “all in” trusting mode. Pure trust in the One who has it all is an act of worship in daily life.
What stress inducers are you dealing with in your writing life now? Along with prayer what have you found to be the most effective methods to maintain peace and calm, in the midst of stresses in your writing career and life?
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Good and useful Mary. The cause of stress is often a signal for opportunity, as in say, house prices are falling – a trigger to potentially buy at a good price rather than sell at a bad price. If you look at stock prices, over decades they ebb and flow, quite predictably, and those with experience actually grow best after such periods of consolidation. They surge and buy up when the market is most stressed, just the way a tree uses the stress of winter to prepare for its next surge. Anyway, I was really inspired about your points regarding the usefulness of short-term stress. Thanks.
I love this blend of surrounding oneself with God’s promises and praise to Him as well as intentional action to reduce stress through organization and exercise. Praying Scripture is also helpful for me. It keeps me focused on God’s will, avoiding a string of whiny me-centered requests. Recently I had the privilege of talking with some children and teens about Jeremiah 29:11, but everywhere I turn this summer it is a critical prayer. It is a prayer for all of us as individuals, family members, citizens, and authors.
In my writing life, finding that next novel idea that melts my heart, that I want to commit my time to, is weighing on me at the moment. I remember back at Christmas, I was feeling the same … and you told me to take a break and rest, and the idea would come to me. And it did. Plus, my oldest is a senior in high school this year … I have a mixture of feelings swarming inside of me. I pulled out my speaker notes for the fall … I’m speaking in time segments this time … an hour, then 45 minutes, then 30 … so I’m having to time myself and add a little to lengthen my talk. And I get that overwhelmed feeling … Lord, will you help me once again? Will I be able to do this? 🙂
When a negative thought enters my mind, I try to recognize it immediately, and replace it with Scripture. Because I know God is faithful. And I’ve been using small weights to build my arm strength … and taking time to talk to my girls and spend time with them … laughing, watching their favorite shows with them. Gardening, just de-weeding, can be refreshing, too. I’m off this morning to finish de-weeding before the Texas temperature becomes unbearably hot. 🙂
I think we sometimes forget that God designed us with a degree of manual labour in mind…happy de-weeding! I prefer welding, actually, but last time I did any I set my hair on fire.
Hair on fire, Andrew? Not good! I almost got my hair caught in the mixer the other day. 🙂 And my flower bed looks like a flower bed again. Hallelujah! 🙂
Don’t forget getting yourself out of doors. This is such a great stress relief, for me and especially for my children. God makes stuff better and it is so good to get out into His creation and not just sit stuffed inside a house or office.
Spending time with animals works well for me. There’s something irresistibly restful about a sleepy Pit Bull…and a sofa-full of these beasties, snoring happily, will lower almost anyone’s blood pressure.
I agree with you Andrew. A snuggle with my little Bertie gives me great comfort.
Bike rides refresh me like no other activity.
The biggest stressor in life is probably my unintended WIP, “Fixin’ To Die – Care for the Caregiver”. Both writing and living the story (30 blog posts so far, and being expanded into book form) is a bit tough; it makes me confront issues I would rather not face, and address them with the caregiving spouse’s perspective in mind. What I’m going to do with the thing once it’s completed, I have no idea. It’s hard to imagine a publisher wanting to touch it because of the rather grim subject, and because I have no real qualifications to write it, except experience.
* One might think that the illness itself is a huge stressor (imagine the worst flu you ever had, along with the worst stomachache, and it never goes away – I’ve left out a couple of nasty things, but you get the picture). It’s really not the case, as long as I accept two things –
1) It does have an effect on my life; everyone has a breaking point, and that does not reflect weakness, but biology
2) I am not a lazy person, and the things I accomplish, though they may not compare to what I was once able to do, are at the limits of the possible – for me, in these circumstances. They are the best I can do.
* Dealing with the physical symptoms is dead easy, pardon the expression. They’re simply there, part of the landscape. I can’t wish them away, and the best thing is just to carry on as best I can. Seems to be working, as my BP’s still around 115/70, with a resting pulse of 55.
* One thing I do is call to mind how much worse so many people have it. I have blessings overflowing.
* Pursuant to the above, there are people who just don’t GET the positive attitude thing, and they are a stressor…big time. I recently told an individual (a close one) that I have a quiet place to sit, on the floor in the kennel, a good book, a Monster drink…for what could I yet ask? And I was told, sarcastically, “How about good health? How about the energy to do what you used to be able to do?” It was sympathy, misapplied to be sure, and I could not be angry, but it did take some time to find that sweet spot of thanksgiving again.
* And if anyone’s still with me, it took over an hour to compose this, with no edits. Accepting how much longer things can now take was hard, but being real with who you are is the secret, I think, to controlling stress.
Qualification? Huh. You are almost over qualified. When Jesus walked among us, He didn’t fret over how it would get published – He left that to His Father. Let God worry about credentials and qualifications. Besides, the only true arbiter of value is your reader – if it blesses and inspires, comforts and strengthens, it qualifies – and sure its a hard subject, but that is reality for many in the valley of the shadow of death. If you don’t get far enough to edit – let me do that. Just go on … without stressing. Just be faithful and keep going. When I started 10 years ago I always felt that God’s hand was on my writing, yet I remain up a creek without a paddle, but only because God is still talking. I need to get the full picture. Its up to Him then. All I can do and its all I do, is take the plod one day at a time, with care, diligence and passion. If I reach heaven unpublished, that’s okay, He might use it all in a very different way. The only encouragement I can give to any writer is forget the deadlines – you can’t deadline God. Forget the anxiety of it all – let Him have that. Forget “your plan” – it was never about you. Just do as Abraham did – walk on, not knowing where it is headed – you never know, you might just end up as a river washed pebble, polished and ready for a future king to sling at a giant. But, as I oft say to my sons when they write exams: “You have 100% chance of failing if you don’t attempt the answer” – so Andrew, keep going or, as I said recently, “Swing away Andy, swing away”.
Pete, you’re right. The reader is the final arbiter, and if the work reaches deeply enough into the heart, it’ll find the legs it deserves. Meanwhile, I will keep going, keep swinging away. And if you’d be of a mind to lend an editing hand…
“You can’t deadline God.”
So true, Peter.
“And I could not be angry” … Andrew, that’s one of the sweetest things I’ve ever heard. 🙂
Another destressor – refrain from cursing. Aside from engendering its own spiral of anger…
* It’s vulgar and common, and shows poor breeding.
* It’s tactless, even if done in private, because you are to treat yourself with the same consideration you give others.
* It’s unimaginative, and exercises an abuse of the language that is unbefitting both a writer and a gentleman.
Get comfortable, kids…
*
*
We went through a ROUGH 5 years with our daughter. It was truly the hardest time of my life. As things descended into full on chaos, John and I made a pact. We would never blame the other, we would stand together, no matter what. There would be no “If YOU had done things better” foolishness. We knew the turmoil could ruin our marriage. That man is a rock and I’d jump in front of a train for him. And he’d do the same for me.
During one point of this whirlwind, I was on a mission trip in Bolivia, hundreds of miles by 4 wheel drive, deep into the spectacular High Valleys of the Andes. All around us were mountains. We were in a village the locals called “Terma”. When we arrived, we knew this town would be different, we could feel it. As the local kids swarmed us, we noticed a certain little boy. He was sitting down, grinning from ear to ear. We wondered why he didn’t join the other kids for the games. Then we figured out why. He couldn’t walk very well because he had cerebral palsy. Now, that’s hard enough in a developed nation. In a 3rd world country? Good luck.
Without even talking about it, two of the high school and college kids on the team swarmed the little boy. One guy hoisted Willian (yes, with an N) up on his shoulders and that started 3 days of Love the Living Daylights Out Of Willian.
Everywhere Kelsey and Ian went, there was Willian. And all we could hear was his laughter. And it was usually coming from high up, where Willian sat on Ian’s shoulders.
He was the last face we saw at night and the first we saw in the morning. He’d be up and at the door of the school room, our temporary quarters, poking his smiling face in the door long before we crawled out of our sleeping bags.
“Buenos dias, equipe!” (Good morning, team!)
To which 20 foreigners and Bolivian colleagues would yell “Buenos dias, Willian!” Then his smile would get bigger and he’d laugh like the angel he was. During our meals, our prayer times, our devotional times, our alone time, every moment the team had, we’d look down and see Willian. Either beside Kelsey or Ian.
The most interesting thing was, these trips are a 2 week lesson in physical, emotional and spiritual stress. We do nothing but pour. God fills us up.
We started pondering the unfairness of Willian and his mother’s life. But that’s always a dumb idea. It’s a way for the enemy to throw a wrench in our spokes.
As the days progressed, the blessings poured, even under the duress of seeing a little boy who struggled to walk. We knew the help he could get if one of the team took him and his mother home. Of course, that wasn’t going to happen. Much to our dismay.
But word started to come back to us. The villagers were deeply moved by the love the gringos had for the boy nobody thought we’d care about. You see, he was so far from perfect, they thought we’d ignore him. They thought we’d only care about the best of them, not the least. But when the young, handsome man and the beautiful blonde woman placed that boy up on their shoulders and treated him as well as they did? Simply out of love? The message we brought of God loving everyone, even the least of the least, hit them all like a landslide.
Yes, we played with all the kids. Yes, we spoke with all the moms.
But we poured ourselves out on Willian and his mom.
By the time it came for us to load up and move on to the next village, the entire team cried like babies.
Willian and his mom were the last to see us drive away. And even as we left, Willian’s smile lifted us all.
Willian’s mom knew Jesus, so did Willian. When the local people who wanted nothing to do with the “evangelicos” saw that we DID love unconditionally, that we DID love the least and that we DID live what we said, their view of Willian and his Mom changed.
Why? Because even in the deepest poverty and the physical challenges, the intense magnitude of her stresses, that woman told them that God loved her, and them, equally. Then along comes a group of foreign evangelicos who proved it. Did we know anything about them before we arrived? No.
Did they see us coming and wait to see how we treated them? Oh yeah.
Did God use us to prove that no matter the circumstance, even in the hardest and darkest of times, that God would bring joy?
Yes.
Not a week goes by that I don’t think of that woman. It’s been 6 years since we visited Terma, and I still pray for her.
I know God used that lady’s difficult life to teach me that no matter what I went through with my 4 kids, that no matter how hard my life was with a prodigal daughter, that He would see me through. Just as He saw that lady through.
When I get stressed, as I am today, actually, I’m greatly stressed and no I’m not saying why, I think of Terma, and the quiet time I had up on the mountainside early one morning, listening to the Newsboys on my iPod.
Their version of In Christ Alone ALWAYS brings my days in Terma to mind.
“No power of hell, no scheme of man, can ever pluck me from His hand.”
No matter what we endure, we are not beyond the reach of God.
How do I maintain peace and calm?
I remember. I remember that even when my heart lay on the ground, kicked around by in the out of control behaviour of my only daughter, God held me together as well as He held together Willian’s ever faithful mother.
And now? My daughter is doing well. And she knows that no matter what she did, her parents never gave up on her.
And yes, everyone who was on that team begs to go back to Terma. And someday, we will.
Jennifer, you gave me goose bumps … from the beginning to the end. Thank you.
what an incredible story – thanks Jen
Dude, like…wow, man. You, like, kicked the walls out of AWEOME.
* (If I may be allowed a personal observation…for those of you who have not met Jennifer Major in person yet, you’re in for a treat when you do. She is both classy and engagingly informal, and defines the unbreakable Christian spirit she shows in her writing. This story is so ‘Jennifer’!)
Jen, I had to publish your story … now I can’t get Willian out of my mind. I pray that your pains ease, but thank you for easing ours.
Thank you for sharing this inspirational story. I’m leaving in a few weeks for Kenya. I wonder if I will come across a child like Willian? I always feel inadequate in the weeks approaching a mission trip. This is a great reminder that maybe the most important thing I can do is love on someone who needs to be loved. I may not be a Bible scholar, but I know I can show love to everyone I meet.
Standing on the promises of Christ my King … always a stress reliever. My husband is going through a significant job change currently. Financially risky but from a family standpoint, we will get “Daddy” back in our lives. Worth the risk. I stand on the promise that the Lord will bless as we walk in His will and that He will provide for our needs (not wants). Great post, Mary!!!
I usually thrive under stress. A city girl, I prefer things to move fast and am more productive under a tight deadline rather than an open-ended one. A health issue slowed me down this year. During the process, I held onto peace from Jesus’ Holy Spirit, from a word I received before it all began. But afterwards, when everything should be better, I find the stress to be well (when I know the complete recovery is still coming) more stressful than the health issue ever was.Writing relieves the stress, and, fortunately for me, I’m heading to ACFW and want to pitch a project I’m working on. Thank goodness for a deadline to provide the stress I need.
I completely agree with the deadline thing. The higher the external pressure, the calmer I tend to get.
Every year, our church purchases and passes around biographies of missionaries. What enlightening and inspiring reading! They are definitely stress-reducers as I realize just how carefree my life is compared to theirs. Of course, my problems remain my problems, but a new perspective makes them easier to handle. Thanks for a great post, Mary.
I’m not sure if churches already do this, but it might be nice if they’d collect and compile, either as a written or oral history, the experiences of the members that go on mission trips. It would be a great resource for those thinking about or planning similar ministry work, and would give the church itself a sense of history, continuity, and identity.
Amen, Meghan.
Mary, What a Spirit-led post. Thank you!
As I’ve felt the ripple effects of the industry, I’ve done some of the things you mentioned. And of course, as a fitness-minded person, I wholeheartedly agree with your advice to take care of our bodies! Over the past few weeks, I’ve been on a major health journey and recently blogged about how stress can often trigger emotional eating. What a benefit I’ve found to turn to prayer and God’s Word these past couple weeks.
On Tuesday night, my life coach read II Cor. 10:4-5, focusing on the phrase “taking every thought captive.” Her quote was, “God’s truth overcomes our truth.” While our truth often comes in the form of limiting beliefs, wrong assumptions, and inner critics, I’m thankful for the fresh view through God’s eyes.
Timely words and a timely post! 🙂
As a scientist, I would like to point out that eating the equivalent of one average-sized dark chocolate candy bar (1.4 ounces) each day for two weeks has been shown to reduce levels of the stress hormone cortisol. It also reduces catecholamines, which are “flight-or-fight” hormones. It has beneficial effects on your metabolism and the microbe population in your gut as well. Don’t combine milk with your dark chocolate because it can keep your body from absorbing the desirable chemicals. More info on the health benefits of dark chocolate are at WebMD and numerous other health sites.
Now go pig out on a dark chocolate bar with the blessing of science to remove any sense of guilt. As caffeine is God’s gift to the underslept, dark chocolate is His gift to the overstressed.
That’s what I’m actually doing: taking God’s way in stead of my sci-fi way, and writing a 366-day devotional. I’ve totally given myself to Him and what He wants me to do after 30 years of writing “my way.” I’m on July 21 today! I have exactly 30 days to go to September 21! Then I will complete His design for my life. I’m so thankful and grateful, that I have tears in my eyes. I’m just praising Him, and asking Him to help me help others … who are God Designed. Thank also for this website and blog that has help me, and continues to be an inspiration to me. J.P.
Great suggestions all, Mary. Thank you for sharing this list. I always need a reminder to deal with the stress rather than ignore it and plow ahead.
Blessings!
Amber Schamel
These are great tips. I was happy to see “Organize your work area…” I’ve often thought it strange that I instinctively stop in the middle of a stressful day and catch up on my filing. Humbling myself and asking for prayer is critical for me to manage in difficult times. I am grateful for my prayer partners.
Mary, all of these ideas are wonderful! Thank for putting this list together. I do most of the things you recommend, but I’m curious about your use of Biblical oils. Do you mean essential oils such as lavender?
Yes. Because oils are mentioned many times in the Bible, I wondered if they had significance for today. I did some research, tried a few, and do think they help. They have to be therapeutic grade, not fragrance grade, however.