We recently had our Winter Workshop as a church, and there were five general sessions over the course of the weekend. Afa and I are the children’s ministry coordinators, which meant we needed to lead five children’s ministry sessions as well. I understand that for some people, especially in large churches, five services might seem light, but for us, it was exactly five times the number of sessions we are accustomed to hosting in a single weekend.

There are many Sundays when I allow coordinating the children’s classes to stress me beyond belief. I don’t always handle it well, so going into this weekend, I decided that I had to make a conscious decision to accept the situation, whatever that may be, as it was instead of what I wished it was. To help with that process, I am learning to use the tools in my mental health toolbelt. 

When I sense anxiety about a particular topic, I choose a bucket for it, a process I describe here. Winter Workshop went into the bucket of things that I can do something about. I employed my first tool months before the event took place in January 2022: Preparation. Afa and I started writing the lessons for the workshop weekend in October. We ordered all the materials for the games and activities in November, and then had some pre-teen girls come over early in December to help sort the items by classroom and session so that everything was ready for the week of the conference. It took the three of us about four hours to get everything sorted, so I am still grateful for their help. This allowed me to enjoy the holidays instead of wondering if I would have time to prepare

We had anticipated about 80 children for the weekend, so we planned for 4 classrooms that would have 20 students and five teachers in each room. When we arrived, there were only 2 classrooms, and after a small moment of panic, I reached into my mental health tool belt and pulled out Radical Acceptance. There was nothing I could do about the fact that we didn’t have enough rooms, so we would have to make the two rooms work. It ended up working out because the conference was in the middle of the omicron surge, which meant there were far fewer students than we expected. 

Tardiness is almost guaranteed to increase my stress levels, a fact of which I am well aware. The next tool that I had to deploy was Choosing Joy. One thing about anxiety that I am learning this year is that there are so many times that I still have a choice about my display of emotions. I cannot necessarily choose what I am feeling, but I can choose what that looks like on the outside. (Disclaimer: there are times in the middle of an anxiety or panic attack when I am literally out of control of myself. It can feel like I am dying. However, this is a very small minority of situations in dealing with my anxiety. Overwhelmingly, I can still make the decisions about how I respond to external situations.) When people show up late, it frustrates me, and too often that frustration is visible. For the Winter Workshop, I decided beforehand that I was going to be grateful that our teachers chose to show up rather than fretting about what time they showed up. As each person arrived, I greeted them with a genuine smile and hug, welcoming them into the fold.

Over the course of the weekend, a vast majority of the work was done by these incredible volunteer teachers. We had more than 50 people work with the students over the weekend, and this allowed me to use one of my most important tools: my Support Network. I physically couldn’t have been present in multiple rooms leading multiple lessons. I had to depend on other people, provide them with detailed instructions and trust that they would do their best to serve the children who were in our care. I am so grateful for my husband, my friends, and my church, all of whom are a source of love and support. I could not have made it without them. 

I also had my mom friends to touch base with over the weekend, and distracting myself from the weight of Children’s Ministry was also helpful. Even short conversations, checking in and catching up, helped me remember the bigger picture. The workshop, and our contributions by making sure the children were safe and having fun, was meant to equip everyone to go into 2022. My friends could help widen the aperture of my myopic viewpoint. We went swimming with two other families on Saturday, had some pizza, hung out and laughed. I can think of so many times that my anxiety avalanche has crushed me because I wasn’t reaching out enough for help.

The final tool that I used for the weekend was my anxiety medication. I take a daily pill that has helped tremendously in my ability to function in normal circumstances, and I have another pill that I can take during panic attacks or before situations that often lead to them. For me, a weekend like this in which Afa and I had our own children and then the responsibility of many additional children for the week, coordinating activities, lessons, and people would easily have sent me into panic mode. On my way out the door the first morning I took my short quick acting pill, which increased the activity at the serotonin receptors in my brain enough for me to enjoy the process instead of meltdown about it.

Throughout the weekend, people would ask the common question “How are you?” Every time, I answered it with honest enthusiasm. I had such a great weekend. It was a weekend that could have easily led to me crying in my bathroom each night, but as I practice using my mental health tools, I am able to tackle challenges like this one without losing my temper, a huge victory for me. It has certainly been a long road to get here, and I don’t get it right every time. But the joyful memories of this weekend will serve as a reminder to me about the benefits of hammering away with my new tools.