Dear Dr. Norquist:
I am a 32 year-old father of two young boys and have been married just over 10 years. I’ll make over six figures this year, just bought a dream home and paid enough down to keep my bills very manageable.
For some reason, I am feeling more stress now than ever before in my life. I owe nothing except the mortgage on my home and love my wife and sons dearly. I am thrilled to be living where I am now and I am pretty much my own boss at work. My wife stays home with the boys and so we don’t have to worry about childcare, and we have a wonderful church that we love.
What I worry about are things like my son’s safety & health (ear infections & asthma), the competence of my boss, my wife’s safety, flying in airplanes, and my health. I should be on cloud nine but for some reason I’m not. What’s going on?
Dr. Norquist responds:
Can you let yourself enjoy the abundance and blessings in your life? Sometimes we get so used to trying to make everything “right” in our lives that we have trouble shifting gears and enjoying our lives. When things are good, we want to hold on to it. We become anxious that it won’t stay this way and as a result are unable to enjoy all the good in the present moment. In order to feel safe and secure, we long for control over what happens in our lives. But security sought in this way is forever eluding us, since change is a constant. Many things will happen in your life that you can’t predict or control.
Have you ever noticed that joy, happiness, and contentment can only be experienced in the present moment? Your worries are a mental habit that leave you anxious and unable to be with the contentment that can be experienced through fully being with, accepting, and experiencing the present moment. You say you love your church. Use your faith to your benefit here. Learn to trust yourself, and God; that together with God, you will be able to handle whatever comes your way (as you have proven to yourself for the past 32 years), and that whatever comes your way will be the Will of God. What matters is how you perceive and react to whatever comes your way. Everything can be approached in a manner that is uplifting to you and those around you. Everything that happens can be an opportunity for growth. Life is an adventure. Practice having faith, embracing the present moment, and living life full measure.
Dear Dr. Norquist:
I am a 22-year-old female. My boyfriend and I recently broke up. We were going out for about 3 years and I truly thought he was the one. We have fought and broken up before, but we’ve always managed to work things out. Now he tells me that if I love him I’ll let him go. Well I do love him, but I am scared of losing him forever. I feel like the love of my life is gone, and that I’m all-alone in the world. I am not sure why I am bothering you but I have been feeling depressed lately. I’m feeling like a quote that I read recently “loneliness is like cancer, only worse. It doesn’t kill you, it just gnaws at your mind until your constructive thinking is permanently crippled.” I have tried to let him go but I still end up calling him and sometimes even dropping by his place. We were very close and I don’t know how to let go of that, but it feels like I am pushing him further away. I just want him back. He promised me he would love me forever and I can’t seem to let go of that promise. I even get desperate at times and my thoughts get so confused. One day I waited for him at his place and when he came home I cried and cried and told him I needed him. I think he thinks I am crazy. Sometimes I feel like I am. I still feel like he is the one for me. How can I let him go when it is not what I want, and make up for what I have done?
Dr. Norquist responds:
Your heart is broken, and you are in a painful, lonely place. My heart goes out to you. Life lived from the place you are in is a miserable experience. For your own well being you need to work on healing yourself. The first step is to recognize that your boyfriend cannot fix this hole in your heart. You need to do this yourself, with the support of friends and loved ones if possible. Love is not something you have to get from others-although it certainly appears that way according to the messages we are given in our culture. Love is born of an inner experience. Have you noticed how someone can be surrounded with others who love her, and yet not feel loved? Love has to be experienced on the inside for it to be true and lasting. You need to make an effort to experience love. Don’t just wait for it to happen. Difficult as it is to do right now, it is vital that you find a way to reconnect with the inner experience of love. Without the experience of love, everything is meaningless. Without love, the processes of entropy, death, and cruelty take over.
Be diligent in pursuing this goal of reconnecting with the experience of love. Dostoyevsky put it this way "Love all of Gods creations, both the whole and every grain of sand. Love every leaf, every ray of light. Love the animals, love the plants, love each separate thing. If you love each thing, you will perceive the mystery of God in all." Be a phoenix rising from the fire of your misery. Use this experience to reconnect with an inner source of love and vitality that is independent of the feelings or actions of others. Strive for the highest, most beneficial way of reacting to this situation.
(Dr. Sallie Norquist is a licensed clinical psychologist in private practice and is director of Chaitanya Counseling and Stress Management Center, a center for upliftment and enlivenment, in Hoboken.)
Dr. Norquist and the staff of Chaitanya invite you to write them at Chaitanya Counseling and Stress Management Center, 51 Newark St., Suite 202, Hoboken, NJ 07030 or www.chaitanya.com or by e-mail at drnorquist@chaitanya.com, or by fax at (201) 656-4700. Questions can address various topics, including relationships, life’s stresses, difficulties, mysteries and dilemmas, as well as questions related to managing stress or alternative ways of understanding and treating physical symptoms and health-related concerns. Practitioners of the following techniques are available to answer your questions: psychology, acupuncture, therapeutic and neuromuscular massage, yoga, meditation, spiritual & transpersonal psychology, Reiki, Cranial Sacral Therapy, and Alexander Technique Ó 2002 Chaitanya Counseling and Stress Management Center