If you've never experienced vertigo, there is no real good way to explain it exactly ~ but let me try. Remember when you were a kid and spun incessentaly in a circle until you were about to spew and then stopped and it seemed the world kept going. That 'kept going part' is a form of vertigo. Now imagine this happening without first spinning around in a circle.
Pretty sure I got a little ear infection or impacted water last week taking the kids to Great Wolf Lodge OR it could have been the muscle spasms in my neck OR whatever... at first I thought it was lag from anesthesia from a little procedure on Thursday last week, but when it persisted to Friday (New Year's Eve) I told Telly I felt like I had already had too many and I hadn't even had one! I had a couple of little mild attacks on Saturday where I basically felt like I was on a ride of some kind, even though I was sitting still.
Sunday was the worst... a couple of times in church I'm sure folks thought I'd got a dose of the Spirit, because I just all the sudden started swaying in response to the spinning in my head and had to grab my chair to steady myself. The loud music must have really stirred it up, because by lunch it was in full spin.
A couple of times during lunch it got so bad, I went pale, started sweating, and shaking ~ this was accompanied by a siren wail pitch ringing in my ears. Not fun. I had a few more little mild hits Monday and one of the folks in my office who had dealt with this before suggested Meclazine (http://bit.ly/hl9cV9). This helped a great deal and is apparently the right thing for typical vertigo, but only provides relief not cure.
Two more little hits on Tuesday and someone else mentioned something the person in my office had mentioned but I had dismissed as silly- lay down, turn your head and rest it off the edge of the bed sidways for 30+sec repeat other side. This apparently resets the crystalline structures in the inner ear. It sounds really REALLY dumb, but it is effective - you don't hardly trust someone telling you this and you can only know once you've tried and found it to be true.
Now here's the thing I realized on waking this morning ~ one little swollen part in my ear absolutely destroyed my perspective. During a good spin, I literally was incapacitated. Everything was moving quickly out of control and I was sitting perfectly still unable to move without fear of falling or spewing.
**
Do you ever feel this way in your life? Like everything is spinning and in motion even though you are sitting perfectly still (yeah sure you say ~ like all the time!) Whether its money, family, job, friends, or health - we all experience vertigo emotionally and spiritually. It's literally incapacitating isn't it - it overwhelms our understanding and ability to do anything else but suffer through the motion hoping to not completely fall down or spew along the way. You might find something to give you a little relief, but what about a cure.
**
It's sometime almost as if there is some small emotional part of us that is swollen up or out of alignment that causes the rest of it to spin out of control. We experience quickly moving and overwhelming feelings of sadness or excitement. They come on from the minorest of symptoms and are often incapacitating (at least relationally, but even in our physical and mental workings).
Somewhere along the way we learn to 'manage' these symptoms of *emotional vertigo - but it reoccurs persistently. The cause remains unaddressed more often than not. We might have good enough friends that have dealt with the same issues before, who can offer advice on how to respond. These inputs may even apply to our case of emotional disturbance and provide limited relief and possible explanation. They will less likely be the cure of our ills. These suggestions are often dumb sounding things like punching a pillow, acting out our feelings with dolls, or counting to 10 before acting. These things all sound so silly, but upon investigation and use we find they are in fact very effective in providing some relief. A cure for deep seeded emotional issues just might be found in exploring the root emotional cause, but is more often and effectively found in addressing the same issue deeper~ within the soul.
**
Now apply this vertigo concept spiritually... Our spirit is constantally suffering from vertigo, unattached from a solid footing, we are orbiting ourselves at high velocity. If not, then why do our hearts oscillate so quickly back and forth between so many empty things holding their momentary allure? How can we be so full of hypocrasy and lack of concern for our own spiritual condition much less that of others? To what then will we grab hold of to try to balance ourselves to no avail? To where will we go to find solid ground, some relief, much less an answer and solution to our complete lack of perspective spiritually~ while we continue still spin hopelessly out of control moment after moment?
As one who has been dealing with this condition of *spiritual vertigo for some time, allow me to suggest what has provided stablity, relief, understanding, and YES even cure for me and for MANY others I know - that is a life of faith in Jesus as Christ and Lord. It may sound simple and silly, but you should at least look into it. Having experienced it, I assure you His grace is effective ~ not just for relief but for release from this condition that ails us.
Yeah, I bet you'll have to come to that conclusion on your own when you are tired of spinning.
No comments:
Post a Comment