Having just shared my heart with over a hundred women as the speaker at their church's weekend retreat, I was taken aback by this blunt observation.
I felt -- and fought -- the compulsion to obsess over it:
What does she mean? "high maintenance"? Me? "especially high maintenance"? What does this mean about me?
Most likely it means I'm not getting through. Each woman here already has her act together and is living in complete peace. Nobody here needs to hear what I came to say. I should just go home.
If I don't go home, though, where will I go? I have nowhere else. I'm trapped! I'm stuck here with women who hate me. And I have to go home where all I do is make people miserable!
Fortunately, the logical absurdity of my emotions hit my funny bone before they spiraled completely out of control. I re-joined the real world, laughed, and responded, "Yes, I'm sure I do seem especially high maintenance!"
And in my mind I added: And you have no clue how overwhelming, how exhausting it is to be "especially high maintenance" 24/7!
Trying to help me become "Lower Maintenance Girl" or (dare we even hope?!?) "Joy-and-Peace Filled Girl," well-meaning loved ones have offered their best advice over the years. Unfortunately, none of the following suggestions ever succeeded in doing anything other than -- you guessed it! -- making me even more "high maintenance":
1. "Just stop thinking about it."
2. "Just Let Go and Let God."
3. "Just don't have any expectations."
4. "Just let whatever anyone says go in one ear and out the other."
5. "Just don't take things so personally."
6. "Just trust yourself and follow your inner voice."
7. "Just don't be such a perfectionist (over-achiever, list-maker, do-er...)
8. "Just learn to r-e-l-a-x!"
9. "Just don't be so hard on yourself."
10. "Just accept whatever comes."
How about you? If you identify more with Anxiety Girl, what advice have you heard? What has/hasn't helped? If you identify more with Lower Maintenance Girl, were you ever Anxiety Girl? If so, what changed?
(No, I'm not done; I have plenty more to say on this topic! But in an effort to shorten my blog posts, I'm stopping here and moving everything else into a Part 2 post. Hopefully my computer won't crash and delete it before tomorrow. Not even sure why I'm typing this; I'll bet nobody will read all the way to the end and see it. And if they do, they'll just think...)
"May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit." Romans 15:13