It might never happen
Spiritual and practical help for those facing worry or stress.
By CM Wood
Published by CM Wood at Smashwords
Copyright 2011 CM Wood
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Table of contents
Introduction
Chapter One – Foundations
Chapter Two – Relaxation
Chapter Three – Visualisation
Chapter Four – Positive though
Chapter Five – Meditation
Chapter Six – Prayer
Chapter Seven – The meditations
Matthew 7, 7-11
Luke 12, 22-32
Isaiah 25, 6-8
Luke 18, 17
Romans 5, 1-5
Romans 8, 28,31,35
2 Corinthians 8
2 Corinthians 12, 8-10
James 5, 10-11
James 5, 13-16
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Introduction
“It might never happen”. These words are often preceded by the equally trite phrase “Don’t worry”.
I remember very vividly, one phrase from a song I heard as a young child at a Christmas pantomime (I don’t remember which one, or indeed recall any more of the song, but it was a long, long time ago!!). The phrase was “Don’t worry, don’t worry, and everything will be all right”. I remember thinking even at that tender age, “How can you know it will be all right? And what if it isn’t?”
I also often recite the words of Saint Julian of Norwich “All will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well” with perhaps less conviction than the saintly optimism with which their writer must have been blessed.
Jesus himself said, “Who of you, by worrying, can add a single hour to his life?” [Matthew 6 v37 NIV]
So there you have it. It’s easy isn’t it – there really is no need to worry about anything. Great!
But hold on a minute. Everything in my life certainly hasn’t been all right – and I’m sure it hasn’t in yours either.
I lost both my parents by the time I reached the age of 40, and before I realised how much I still needed them, and valued the kind of love and support that only Mums and Dads seem to be able to offer. (That’s not to belittle the relationships I enjoy with my wife, my children, my sisters and other family and friends – they’re just different somehow).
My wife had a miscarriage, a close friend was killed in a motorbike accident, I have been made redundant three times and endured periods of unemployment, failed business ventures and the severe financial difficulties associated with those episodes.
I had a hip replacement at the age of 52 after years of painful arthritis, and I have suffered for many years with back problems, sciatica and hypertension. I have suffered a severely broken wrist and a catastrophic head-on car collision (from which I was very fortunate to walk with relatively minor physical injuries).
Before you reach for the tissues or the violin, please don’t infer that I’ve had a particularly unfortunate lot in life, because I don’t see it that way at all. I can assure you that the blessings I have known, have far outweighed the suffering and have been even more spectacular, as I hope many of my readers will discover through one of the planned sequels to this book.
My marriage has remained stable for nearly 40 years at the time of writing, which must be seen as something of an achievement, especially on the part of my long-suffering wife. My three children have grown up, successfully, happily negotiated their teenage years, and university and we’re still on speaking terms – in fact I look upon them and my wife as my closest friends. I have also recently been blessed by the arrival of a beautiful granddaughter.
I have travelled the world and had some unforgettable experiences meeting some amazing people along the way (some of whom will undoubtedly find their way into print one day).
And then of course there’s music!! Where or what would I be without it? Who knows? I certainly don’t, but I do know that I simply would not be the same person.
For me music does so much. Listening to music can excite, subdue, pacify, arouse, relax, motivate (add your own verbs here from your own experience). It can conjure up long-forgotten memories of people, places, events and emotions.
And that’s just listening! For me. to play, create and compose music does all of the above and so much more. As well as a means of expression and a vehicle for creativity, it’s a wonderful form of communication. The ability to create music is undoubtedly a gift, which I have received with heartfelt joy and gratitude. But as well as receiving this gift, I love to offer it to others. I have written songs, fanfares, marches – even a short musical, as gifts for friends or to commemorate significant occasions. But I am happiest when I offer the gift back to the bounteous God who blessed me with it in the first place.
I had the pleasure of serving for over twenty years in the Boys’ Brigade, (leading marching bands and training young people) and another twenty years serving musically in church, playing various instruments in music groups and leading worship. I am happy to stand ready to offer my music, my testimony, in fact myself as a ministry of music and witness. I hope that this book will be helpful in many ways, but will also show something of what makes me the person I am.
So will everything be all right? I don’t know.
Am I worried? NO! - It might never happen.
Or perhaps it already has!
Chapter One - Foundations
Worry and stress are killers, that’s for sure. Worry can gnaw away until it consumes all in its path. Worry can be a self-fulfilling prophesy – if we worry about what will happen if we’re ill, we’re more likely to become ill.
So how can we stop worrying about everything? Hearing others say “don’t worry” isn’t often very helpful is it? We even give scant regard to those words of Jesus I quoted in the introduction unless we really take them to heart.
It’s worth reading the whole of that section from Matthew 6 [verses 25-34] and perhaps in a number of translations too, as they all have a slightly different slant to the same underlying meaning.
The NIV puts it like this:
Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?
Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?
And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labour or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendour was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day is enough trouble of its own.
So there you have it. That’s us fed and watered and clothed without having to work for it or worry about it. I only wish I had an answer to the question ‘why is there starvation in the third world?’ But then if I had all the answers I wouldn’t be a mere mortal would I? In any case I don’t think Jesus means that we can just relax and laze our way through life and he’ll take care of all the practical things. The “therefore” at the beginning of verse 25 refers to the statement in verse 24, that “no-one can serve two masters ……” and I think what Jesus is saying is that we should not spend our lives toiling and fretting about material things and possessions. But if we serve him and give him the priority he deserves, we will be more than satisfied with the blessings we receive.
The old chorus, “Count your blessings, name them one by one” [Johnson Oatman, Jr.] is a great place to start. If you do take a step back from the business of your life and actually name those blessings one by one, it may indeed surprise you and provide firm evidence (if you need it) of God’s love. And since God does love you, he wants the best for you – in every aspect of your life.
That’s an excellent foundation on which to build a life that’s free of worry – knowing that the Almighty God holds you in the palm of his hand, and, if you let him, he will take care of everything.
But, I hear you say, do you honestly believe that nothing bad will ever happen if you trust God?
No, I don’t - my life just hasn’t been like that, and I don’t know anyone else who has had that experience either. However, my experience has been that the best, the most successful, the most rewarding and satisfying episodes in my life have been when I have heard and followed God’s call. The worst, the most worrying and the most troublesome have been when I have gone my own way or decided that I know best.
Having laid some foundations then, I am seeking to offer some practical ideas in the next few chapters, to help us become more relaxed and less open to anxiety.
Chapter Two – Relaxation
In 1991-3, I undertook a course of study in Hypnotherapy with the Association of Stress Management and the Institute of Hypnosis and Parapsychology – firstly to see if hypnotherapy could offer any practical help to me as I went through a particularly stressful time, and when I found that it could, to see if I would be suited to offering such help to others in stressful situations. I have since used the skills and techniques I learned during that course to great effect in countless situations.
What a truly rewarding experience it has been to witness someone who has been experiencing worries, anxieties phobias, and problems of many kinds, find the means to relax fully, to calm things down, to take back some form of control of the situation and approach life with a more positive outlook.
I did not practice all of the techniques I studied during training. For example I do not believe in reincarnation or “past lives” and so I would not have been comfortable offering this kind of exploration to potential clients. What I did was take the elements that I felt were proven to be helpful in a variety of areas and which were compatible with my own beliefs, and around them I developed a style and framework of my own.
I still believe the techniques to be sound, and most helpful in a wide range of circumstances. I hope my readers can put aside any adverse preconceptions long enough to read this chapter and try the exercises. This will give you a clearer understanding of what is involved, and in the comfort and security of your own home, an opportunity to experience a deep and beneficial relaxation.
During my first year or so of part-time practice, I also experimented with various kinds of music to see if there was a particular genre or style of music which lent itself to relaxation and hypnotherapy more readily than others (the recommendation from many sources had been towards so-called New Age music). I found that different people respond well to different kinds of music. Some will readily relax with their favourite classical pieces, whilst others favour a Celtic lament and still others a soulful ballad.
Music is essential. Well perhaps not absolutely essential, but I find it really hard to even envisage a state of relaxation without music. And how do you decide what is the right music for you? Well, basically, anything that is soothing, not too loud, not too fast, and enough of it to last around twenty minutes or more is fine. There are some good CD’s and tapes around which are specifically for relaxation or meditation (this isn’t a plug but I released one myself). If the music has some kind of personal significance to you, for example by bringing to mind a happy event in your life, so much the better. I have found that listening to a CD or audio tape through headphones can help to blot out external sounds (cars going by, the neighbour’s dog barking etc) and can also draw me right in to the heart of the music.
A comfortable chair or bed is the next requirement. Once seated or lying down, it’s necessary to remain still for twenty minutes or thereabouts, so comfort is pretty important. It’s not necessary to be in complete darkness, but sitting in the glare of a ceiling light will probably not be very conducive to relaxation, so subdued lighting is best, or perhaps it’s worth trying those eye shades they give you on long haul flights.
So sit, or lie down, get comfortable and start the music.
The first few times you do this, you might need to experiment with several different positions until you find one where you will remain comfortable for long enough (without experiencing pins and needles in an arm or leg for instance). Allow your body to become as relaxed as you can to start with. Just imagine it’s sinking down into the chair or bed and simply blending with it.
The first exercise involves focusing on each part of the body in turn. Become acutely aware of it, and then, as it were, to “switch it off”, to let go of that awareness as your focus moves on to the next. So first tense the toes, hold them clenched tight for a few seconds and then let them relax. As they relax, try and let go of all feeling of tension before moving on to the ankles and doing the same, first tensing and then relaxing. Proceed upwards through the body. It’s not necessary to be specific about the actual muscles - general areas (legs, arms, back etc) are fine.
When reaching the head, the last part of the exercise is to make a frown on your brow, then as you relax your brow and let go of the feeling and tension, try to imagine that all the feelings you have progressively let go everywhere in the body are now escaping like a column of steam through the top of the head.
This exercise will have a more notable effect each time you do it, so I recommend you repeat the whole process immediately. The aim is to have your body so relaxed that you can hardly tell where it is or where your body ends and the chair begins.