Agitation - Personal Thoughts

Agitation.

This mental state of extreme emotional disturbance.

That sounds pretty bad, don't it?

Yet, I haven't met yet one person in my life who hasn't had to deal with the area of agitaion, and it's relation to worry and anxiety, and its roots of fear.

I must admit, I'd been praying about this, some solution to my own areas of agitation. It's always been like a monkey on my back.

So I was glad when this subject came up. And my Pastor was talking of his battle, some 20 year battle, with it, and how he's found that one has to do the necessary work to understand agitation, and develop in this area of response to agitation, and to do what is necessary to have and maintain personal peace.

I did a little digging around looking for the aramaic, greek or hebrew root of the word agitation.

I didn't find anything immediate. That's why I'm glad I have an Amplified version of the bible, that stretches out a verse of scripture to include the hebrew and greek full translations.

But I did come across something that caught my eye: the relation of agitation to "shalom" or peace:

"A word study in the New King James version for SHALOM says: Completeness, wholeness, health, peace, welfare, safety soundness, tranquility, prosperity, perfectness, fullness, rest, harmony, the absence of agitation or discord."

Hmmm... This peace. This "shalom". It is a most valuable asset. And I need to do what I need to do to develop in it, and hold on to it.

I find it funny that, if someone stole something material of mine, like my money, something like that, I do what I can to get my stuff back.

Yet, if the situations in my life have me agitated, and rob me of my peace, I become paralyzed. And worry and anxiety set in and have their way. Depression comes on in and has a seat. It may even bring some of its friends, anger, rebellion, deceit, hatred... and God forbid, Big Daddy might show up... i.e., suicide raises its ugly ugly head.

Negative emotions move in like squatters, taking over, taring up ish. Mental carnage and squallor are the results.

I have to do the necessary work, i.e., pick up my spiritual baseball bat and attack agitation... Open up a spiritual can of whoop azz on the situation. (Excuse my language. I just think I need to get violent with it).

I've had stellar examples of this in my life. My baby sister is good at doing what she needs to do to get her peace back. I know she don't mind me sharing this, as it is helpful. She had a bad breakup of a long term relationship a couple of years ago. She was angry, hurt, upset... basically agitated. She wallowed for minute.

She had to do more than come and talk to big sister LadyLee. (And we had our talks, man.)

She had to work on herself. This had affected her spirit. She had to do the necessary work to get her peace back.

I remember her getting some information on the area of work. She had find some type of tape series from church on it. (I tell you, we have extremely detailed info on any subject available if we look around for it). I think that was the quickest way for her to gather every piece of scripture quickly on the matter. She had a time of fasting and prayer.

I'm not sure of all she did. We didn't talk about it. I just remember sitting on the couch, crocheting or something, and she'd come share something with me from time to time. Heck, I didn't even know she was in a time of personal fasting. It was a private thing for her.

I was proud of her after the fact. To this day, she shares with me her understanding. Very proud of her for doing whatever she needed to do to combat her agitation and pain, instead of letting it marinate and take her even further into a dark hole.

A more immediate example is one from my baby blog sista Serenity, my "intannet BFF" (this is funny to me, as she thinks this of me). I really like her. It's been nothing but an honor to witness her arc of personal development over the years, and to share in that, as she is one of my most cherished confidants, and I am honored to be the same to her. So when she says or shares something that I can take and incorporate into my own life, I'm vigilant about being mindful and considerate of it.

Latetly, she'd been a bit disturbed that both houses on either side of her were vacant, after the occupants moved. Something like that, man, that will cause one's imagination to run wild in a negative way. She herself found herself getting over into fear. This fear over her safety of herself and her child... It was robbing her of her personal peace.

So she took action. She went up for prayer at church, got someone to pray with her over the situation. She gave me permission to share an excerpt from a post she wrote concerning it. I have highlighted parts that resonated with me. (From the post "Beating a Dead Horse" 11/17/10)

"When I was afraid the other day and really decided enough is enough, the prayer that the lady said with and for me at church kind of jolted me back to reality. Why am I sitting around afraid and playing the victim here? God gives me the power and authority to conquer anything that is troubling me.

When I picked Tyler up from his sleepover, I explained to him in the car that b/c our neighbors are gone, we have to be more cautious and remember to lock all doors and keep teh alarm on at home, but the first thing we are going to do is go into every single room in the house and pray. We are going to do this together.

I'm sure he wanted to protest. But as soon as we got in the house, we stopped in the foyer and I began to pray. Moreso, being thankful for the foyer, the living room, kitchen, dining room, etc. I talked to God about how all my life from even Tyler's age, I've always wanted and wished for a house. I talked about my struggles in fixing my credit and spending habits in order to be able to buy the house. I talked to him about why I wanted a house. I talked to him about all the times he has protected me from danger that I knew of and didn't know of. I must have spent the longest time thanking him for random things like the big window in my kitchen that I love and yet at night it makes me nervous b/c someone could be on the other side of it. For every fear I had regarding certain rooms or aspects of the house, I thought about how grateful I am for them.

It may seem trivial to you, but that night I got the best sleep. I haven't been afraid anymore. It also reminds me that we can chose to sit and wallow in fear or we can chose to be thankful for what we do have and pray about changes that we need."

To me, this was a stellar example of appropriate response to agitation, fear, anxiety and worry. And the church sermons on agitation, which were given a good week after this post, were my confirmation of my notes of what she did.

And further confirmation of the following scripture

Phillipians 4:6-7 Never worry about anything. But in every situation let God know what you need in prayers and requests while giving thanks. Then God’s peace, which goes beyond anything we can imagine, will guard your thoughts and emotions through Christ Jesus.

Another version: Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.

I think here, I see how God affords a peace that will guard my thoughts and emotions.

Because that is what it's all about, right? Keeping my thoughts, feelings and emotions from being infected with the wrong thing. Because as you can see from scripture I've posted in the past couple of posts: Our life, the issues of our life, flow from our hearts.

And I don't know about you, but I want God's peace to be a gatekeeper, a guard over my thoughts and emotions.

(And I can NOW understand why it's necessary to be honest about my areas of unbelief, and how critically important the simple 6 word prayer of "Lord, help me with my unbelief" becomes. Sooooo important.)

That's all for now. I will do a post on what agitates me, and the steps I'm taking to rid that from my life. (And wouldn't you know it, from applying what I've learned here, I'm getting much needed answers... and peace.)

And with that... I say have a Happy Friday, and a great weekend.

And I leave you with my song of the week, with extra special dedication to my homegirl Shai... I think this will mean something to her.

This is one I listen to that reminds me to always maintain a spirit of thanksgiving.



To be continued...