Fear, Worry & Anxiety
Articles mainly about fear, worry, anxiety, stress and finding peace instead.
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Grief at the Crossroads
Smoke hangs heavy in the Spokane air. I try to block out the images the ash or smoke represent.
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During the Watches of the Night
I am reading a memoir of a Russian interpreter who helped with the identification of the body of Hitler.
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Henri Nouwen’s 3 Thoughts That Heighten Anxiety
Before going into the three thoughts that heighten anxiety, first, let’s consider what the scripture says: “be anxious for nothing.” That is an interesting expectation. Be anxious about zero situations, zero scenarios.
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Sea of Love
I like to break down verses word for word. “Cast all your cares.” What an image that is, one especially given to us from St. Peter who would know all about the skill of casting.
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Artist Work
Shann and I went with our daughter Bella as part of a ministry team to work with children born into brothels.
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Bonhoeffer on Death
“…LIFE ONLY BEGINS WHEN IT ENDS HERE ON EARTH” – Bonhoeffer St. Paul has often been quoted, “Death where is thy victory, where is thy sting?” In some mysterious way, both the apostle Paul and German martyr Dietrich…
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Just the Right Time
In my walk as a Christian for many years, one of the biggest surprises to me is how consistent God is at surprising me when I feel the most need for Him.
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Waiting for the Shoe to Drop
I am sitting in my office feeling a mixture of hope and a small sense of dread. My dad’s picture is to my right. I consider how he would like me to live right now.
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My Last
I am in my 35th year of marriage. It is a lovely and loving time. We survived the first year of empty nesting after 27 years of children in the home. Now the house is very silent.
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Praying for Good Fathers
My friend had a difficult father. He was complementary but distant to her. They had limited time together. He was unfaithful to her mom. My friend still struggles with this relationship.
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Praying with Hope
I have been praying for many years for two gifts. They both were answered the same week. I laughed and cried with joy at their fulfillment. How immediately the dread lifted. What a gift!
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Reaching for Comfort
My husband Shann and I watched a touching movie about addiction called, “The Year of the Dog.” It speaks to how addictions enter our lives through our wounds and traumas often as a tool to cope with pain.…
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How to Live in a Broken World
It is a serious thing Just to be alive On this fresh morning In the broken world This poem by Mary Oliver brings me back to my center. What is required of me?
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Terminal Anxiety
The apostle Paul encouraged us not to be anxious about anything. Unfortunately, too few people take his admonition seriously or take the time to learn the skill mastery to defeat this common enemy.
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The Discipline of Gratitude
I am keeping a gratitude timer on my phone. Every hour and a half, I check in with myself. How grateful have I been? How much news or negative thinking have I jumped into?
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Sacred Blue Prints When Life is Hard
God has been surprising me lately. I have been meditating on these verses, “Do not be anxious about anything but through prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.” I have a section in my daily…
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Are you listening? God is speaking.
We had a staff meditation on Psalm 4 and Philippians 4:4-8. These are some of my favorite memory verses. I am always surprised by the demands of the Psalmist, which is David in this case.
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Perfect Love Casts Out Fear
My husband Shann was speaking recently to a group of people describing his life before Christ came to him with healing power.
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Preparing or Living
I love this quote, “There are people who go on infinitely preparing for life and not living it.” I can be like this. Most of my work life and daily living revolves around preparing for an event.
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Let Your Heart Take Courage
With war stories and upsetting news, I believe the most powerful decision is to praise and pray. When we as followers of Christ become afraid, when we take our eyes off Jesus, we give fear power.
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Predicting the Future
I like to guess what will happen in the future. I would like to be a prophet. I hate to be caught unprepared.
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Memorial Day
I am feeling afraid to remember. What if I struggle to remember? What if I don’t want to think of all the white crosses and the families with an empty place at the table?
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Peace on Earth
Recently, I had a waking vision of my dad. I was walking on the treadmill, praying through the Pray as You Go app. I saw Dad walking toward me, hugging me and welcoming me.
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God is Moving Mountains
How important is hope? I can’t believe how I need it. I have five big hopeful dreams right now and they are easily toppled with a few fearful thoughts. My husband Shann is infinitely more pragmatic.
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Wild Imagination
I have a bad habit of imagining someone else’s suffering will pass to me like a contagious disease.
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Solid Rock
The words from the hymn, “On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand,”rang through my mind this morning. Dad loved this song. I can hear him trying to sing it.
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Best Thought
One of Dad’s favorite hymns came on when I was listening to my Pray As You Go app.
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Good News
Dad and I memorized a beautiful poem by Wendell Berry. One of the poignant lines says, “when despair for the world grows in me…” Despair is the opposite of hope.
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Emotional Discernment
I admire how my dad navigated his emotions. He grew very calm under duress. When others became aggressive, he became clearer-headed. He slowed down, spoke less, and listened more attentively.
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Stalwart
I love words and the word stalwart isn’t a common one, though it should be. Stalwart is a synonym for stable, committed, foundational, and secure.
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A Life of Peace or Fear
I have a dreadful notion that arises now and then of God as a punisher. As soon as it comes, I remember one of the most consistent messages in the Bible, “Do not fear.” There are many different…
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The Kingdom of God is Now
I was praying about what to write in Words of Hope and I kept feeling asked to write the Kingdom of God is now.
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An Elegant Question
During date night, Shann asked me an elegant question. In the metaphor of sowing and reaping, he asked what two seeds I am thankful I am planting in my life.
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Truth or Hypocrisy Awakened
I recently watched a movie about a man who demands a perfect world to the point he abuses others to achieve it. Perfection is so seductive.
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Right Intuition and False Suggestion
I am reading Swiss Reformed medical doctor Paul Tournier. He writes that neurosis is the division of right intuition and false suggestion. I see this easily in myself.
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Relational Joy
I read recently that researchers have discovered a connection between relational joy in your fifties and wellbeing and flourishing health in your eighties.
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Joan of Arc Hope
I find Dad’s title, “Words of Hope,” so crucial during difficult times. I say difficult times because I feel a deep battle raging in the world — one between joy and despair, community and division, and peace and…
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Facing the Year of Fear
On March 11, 2020, we received news the March Basketball Tournament was closing. Games were canceled across the country. We met as a staff in the conference room for the last time.
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Anxiety Healed
Shann is a forgiveness researcher. I was listening to a lecture in which he enumerated the physical benefits of forgiveness— a more robust immune system, lower heart disease, lower cancer, lower autoimmune diseases, and lower anxiety, to name…
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The Slippery Slope of Crisis
One February, we lost our cat, Crystal. She never came home. I was devastated. I held to the fantasy she would be found at a pet shelter. I was grieving but not attending to my sorrow.
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Sing Until the Miracle Comes
I keep a few old gratitude journals on my desk that I review from time to time. Today I read about an overnight trip my daughter Ari took with her class six years ago.
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Whose Job
Growing up, Dad was assigned family jobs. Mine was to haul wood to the basement every Saturday and clean up after the dog. This last task wasn’t easy.
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Can You Feel the Peace?
At the celebration of life, we had a video of my Dad talking about peace and the importance of pursuing peace.
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Loving what the Beloved Loves
Shann loves loud music. He likes to feel the sound and hear the music throughout his entire body. I don’t love loud music. It is a trigger of anxious feelings in me. Dad hated loud music.
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Compelled by fear or love?
I read about a twin separated from her sister for years. Her grandmother lost her in a crowded market in Korea when she was quite young. Though her family searched for her, they never found her.
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Contentment Mindset
When I think about the many things Dad taught me, contentment is one of the most crucial. Contentment is the state of living where we are peaceful and, for the moment, happy.
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Unafraid
My Mom and I went to tea the other day and talked about Dad. This journey of grief is new for me. I want to support my Mom but find my sorrow overwhelming me in the process.
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Garden
As I plan for Dad’s Celebration of Life, the person helping me organize the décor told me that because the stage is large, she imagined we could make it like a garden and asked if my Dad liked…
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Fear of Being Taken In
Years ago, one of our dear friends had a church interview to lead a small group, and it had a level of harshness that surprised us all.
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Our Present Darkness
I am reading Czech writer Bohumil Hrabal’s novella, Too Loud a Solitude . Hrabal experienced not only the horrors of the Nazi occupation of Prague but also the dark years of communism under Soviet Russia.
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Next Steps
The news of Ukraine and Russia is everywhere, with images of war, suffering, and trauma. Just watching it is unsettling to a high degree. It can overwhelm.
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Mapping out Trauma Triggers
Trauma triggers happen when you have had something difficult happen in your life–for example, a car wreck.
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Caesura Pause
I have been thinking about my Dad’s skills and gifts that I aspire to have in my life. One skill he had was the caesura pause.
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The Book of Peace
Shann had his first dream of my Dad last week. He had been wondering when he would have one.
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Surprise Journey
Dad loved surprises. We liked to take him and mom on a secret trip each year. It would be a 3-4 day trip within driving distance of our house. Dad LOVED the secret trip.
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True Peace
Dad sat down with me in the New Year of 2018. He asked me to consider a few tasks for my life. I will be sharing these in the New Year as a form of inner resolution.
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Consider the Birds of the Air
Dad loved New Year’s Eve. He loved to clean out closets; he loved to organize and plan; he loved fresh starts. New Year’s Eve was a big event in my home.
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A Beautiful Mind
I opened my journal from 2017, where I had listed concerns I had during that time. They seem so trivial in light of my current point of view.
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Psalm 23
Dad and I often talked about life balance. Dad was a juggernaut of energy when he was younger. He was a make it happen person. But as he developed cancer, his ability to power through became harder.
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Friendly Flowers
The other day Mom and I walked through our neighborhood together. We stopped to see a woman planting in her yard.
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Dear Parents of Teens
When my daughter Natalya turned fourteen, our relationship didn’t feel the same. I felt like she didn’t want to connect, and I wanted to blame her. I read books about teens.
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God supplies our Needs
God shall supply ALL my needs?! What a sentence! Do I live like I believe this? I know this is something Dad wrestled with for a long time.
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Be Anxious for Nothing
I opened up Dad’s journal from 1987 recently. The year I survived a severe car accident on my way to school.
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Right Here Right Now
Dad loved to do crazy things, like two-footed hops down the middle of main street Disneyland or teach strangers how to laugh or practice his Qi Gong breathing technique in a crowded elevator.
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Not Afraid of Anything
Fear is a dominating emotion that cripples performance and steals success. Is it possible to live without fear? Probably not because there are two types of fear. First the good type of fear.
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Exit Hell Hallways Enter Peaceful Rooms
Key Statement: “Ex” means to get out, and “en” means to enter. Get out of the hallway and enter rooms of beauty, grace, peace, joy, and love.
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No Taxes?
I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethoughts of grief. – Wendell Berry No taxes – no future fears? No takes – no worries for tomorrow?
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99.9% vs. 100%
“Fred, how do you do it? How do you have such peace and joy going through the challenges you are facing? Four times in the past few days, this has been the question asked of me.
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Heavy Heart Therapy
Imagine a valentine heart shape burdened with a heavy backpack running to jump and clear a high bar.
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You Are Enough
My Dearest of Friends, When St. Paul wrote his many letters from his Roman prison cell, I am sure he did not know they would reach his friends, let alone be read.
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How to Make Hope Work for You
This Word of Hope is written to my hero Mike. He is responding to a fellow employee who has just been given a cancer diagnosis. In this respect, HOPE is our ANCHOR! It is not dormant.
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Healthy Silence
The base note of our lives is silence. The trees must be in it, the birds sing, the dogs bark, cars beep – people speak – but the silence is the deep ground.
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Sacred Place – Secret Garden
The most beautiful and blessed place on earth. Slow the bus down is a favorite expression in the Crowell home when one of us gets too busy, anxious or troubled.
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Certain Path to Peace
With many mental parts moving about in the “Crowell Cooker” today, I wonder how do I find peace where there is so much pain in our world, both micro and macro?
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People Fear
“Do not be afraid of people or I will make you look foolish in front of them.” – God’s words to the Prophet Jeremiah Elegant question: Are you afraid of people?
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Relax
Slow the bus down. Relax. Breath. Call Time Out. When the pace gets too fast, relax. When words flow too quickly, relax. When the conversation heats up, relax. When anger seethes, relax.
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Wake in Darkness
When I awaken in darkness in the middle of the night with a sudden thought that cancer will defeat me, fear grips my heart like a villain.
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Today’s Light
My 20% PMA advantage plan today is gratitude. I am thankful I am alive with a strong heartbeat and breathing ability.
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Hope Wins, Cv-19 Loses
When fear grows in me at the least unexpected time (now concerning CV-19), I go to my secret place, my secret garden.
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Protect Your Mind
“But Jesus didn’t trust them because He knew human nature.” – St. John The words “protection” and “guard” have been on my mind and my heart these past days.
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Death Is Not the Enemy-the Enemy Is Not Living
Hey, wanna come over for dinner tonight and have a meaningful discussion about death? How about a conversation over a latte about what you want to see happen at your funeral?
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We Saw Giants
“We were like grasshoppers in our own sight and so we were in their sight.” – Numbers 13:33b An essential element in preparing for a basketball game is scouting the enemy.
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Not Havin’ Any
The Crowell-Ferch family delights in really good movies. The great ones we watch over and over again. Over 30 years ago, SILVERADO was a family favorite. Brian Dennehy played a rugged, tough sheriff.
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Existential Diagnosis of Self-love, Part 2
For the best subconscious nanosecond’s response, I suggest these four literary prose are worth reading repeatedly. They will support our inward peace and rest.
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The It Phenomena
Key Statement: The IT of life is anything and everything that is on our radar screen. The IT demands our time, energy, and attention.
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A Special Rest
“So, there is a special rest still waiting for the people of God.” My beloved Susie asked me an elegant question last week.
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FEAR FACTOR, Part 1
Surveys indicate some of our most fearful times are public speaking, heights, the unknown and death. Do you relate?
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Interior Inspection
Accountability without inspection leads to irresponsibility. Responsibility without inspection leads to mediocrity. Inspection is vital to winning. Winning is a choice. Elegant question: Why is inspection commonly rejected? We strongly tend to reject being inspected.
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Crowell on Second Guessing
The second of two WOH’s on the destructive habit of second guessing oneself. The biggest little word in the English language is the word “if.” Two letters that can make a big impact.
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The Snake Line
A powerful solution to stop worry, fear, self-pity, and other forms of negative behavior. I happened to hear a portion of a sermon about not controlling your thoughts and emotions. Babies can’t control their emotions.
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Love People or Love Things
In this world of people and things, we can either love people more than things, or things more than people. If we love things more the people, we will use people to get things.
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Cleaning House, Part 2
It is wise to know inner house cleaning is good for us. It is wise to understand inner house cleaning is good for us. Yet, if we don’t do it, we really don’t know or understand!
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Know the Enemy, Part 2
Here is a personal example of facing the No. 1 spiritual enemy. One night I had a horrendous dream. It was so intense and real.
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FEAR FACTOR, Part 2
If the word “ fear “ is found at least 80 places in the Bible, I tend to believe God knew the FEAR FACTOR was part of our human nature.
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Expand Your Happiness
For years at NBC Basketball camps, the crucible question I asked was: “Where are you?” The correct response was: “ RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW !” Many say if we spend time living in the past, depression becomes more…
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Quicksand and Roto-rooters
KEY STATEMENT: Too much to do. Spent the past two months trying to clear my plate, feels like running in quicksand. In what way or manner would any or all of the quote above describe you?
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Be Strong, Be Brave
In the wee hours of this morning, it seemed crystal clear the challenge before me is to be strong & brave. I expected Matthew 14 to have a teaching point for me on forgiveness. Not so!
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It’s Gonna Be Alright
“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.
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Life Is Not an Accident
“The motorcycle crash that nearly killed me taught me how to live; to be a better person.” – Jay Williams At a management conference, I was asked this question.
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What Happened?
“Days are long sometimes. Very long, but life is way too short, way to brief.” -Fred Crowell 30 years ago, Fred Crowell was living in what he calls the Golden Era of Life.
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Anecdote for Bullies
“Do not be afraid; be strong and courageous.” -Joshua Joshua was challenged three times to: Be strong and of good courage. Only be strong and very courageous.
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Protect Your Peace
“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” – John 10:10 The Spokesman Review reported that the Washington legislature awarded Spokane $300,000 to help reduce…
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The Missing BILLFOLD
Peace is the virtue that moves frustration and or conflict to resolution and consolation. The billfold is my best piece of exercise equipment.
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It Is Well with My Soul
“A life lesson in being an over-comer not under-comer” Saturday in Spokane is a lazy day for me. Lazy means I don’t have important tasks for NBC.
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Do Not Be Afraid
“His appearance was like lightening and His clothes white as snow.” Today my remarkable friend David Tucker will be honored at his memorial service. Mr.
