/christian/ - Christian Discussion and Fellowship

Read the Philokalia and the Imitation of Christ, stress is just another test we have to endure with love and patience and wisdom. This doesn't mean putting up with all sorts of injustice and being a puppet for others.

It's helpful if you have a prayer life, a meditation practice so you can refill your focus and equilibrium at some point, the bigger your internal "well" is the more you can draw from it as you need. And once it becomes empty you need to replenish it with spiritual food, prayer, good deeds, reading etc. There are more books to read than just the bible.

don't just live obliviously and then get surprised that you can't handle stressful or painful situations.

“Sometimes men are tested by pleasure, sometimes by distress or by physical suffering. By means of His prescriptions the Physician of souls administers the remedy according to the cause of the passions lying hidden in the soul.” + St. Maximos the Confessor, Four Hundred Texts on Love 2.44, The Philokalia: The Complete Text (Vol. 2)

>either shutting myself down emotionally or bottling up my stress until it becomes unhealthy for myself.

On top of simply learning more I highly suggest that you exercise your body and learn how to do proper breathing to mitigate stress. Stress is a physiological response to stimuli. To read the bible while never really dealing with root causes of your stress will just leave you unsatisfied. Use your common sense.

> When I read the Bible… It seems to instruct a stoic existence of silent suffering,

which bible are you reading friend, and do you completely discount the Old Testament?

if the latter is true, i would turn you to the numerous examples in the New Testament of men who openly and publicly proclaim their immense struggles; sharing them with fellow disciples of Christ

in this they were following their Lord who openly wept, was heartbroken in numerous ways throughout his ministry and declared His emotions aloud, being a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and even embraced the cross with open heartedness recorded for us by those who heard His prayers in Gethsemene

if this sounds 'stoic' to you, i think you may be filtering the words of scripture through a lens of tradition rather than a plain reading of the text

and if you don't discard the books of the Former Covenant then you have an embarrassment of riches afforded to you in the Psalms alone; where men of God cried out their deepest longings and pains - and that's before we look to the ravaged souls of everyone from Job to Jeremiah, lamenting their condition to their God

that same God seeing fit to declare the expression of their wrought emotions as being inspired by The Holy Spirit, and so their articulation of pain is now Scripture - which now fully equips every believer for the life of carrying Christ's cross while being sanctified by the sharing in His sufferings

the stoics were hellenistic pagans who had no true gnosis of the God who created them - disregard such developments of their philosophies as to make you repress that which Christ as seen fit to share with you and so conform you to His likeness; and learning from men of God, give your broken heart to the One who created it

>>554512

>It seems to instruct a stoic existence of silent suffering, either shutting myself down emotionally or bottling up my stress until it becomes unhealthy for myself.

There was a sermon on Psalm 88 in church today about how people in the scriptures didn't just swallow down their problems, but did in fact complain to God about percieved injustices.

I'd honestly recommend you pray to God and let it all out. He knows your heart anyways, so there is no point in hiding or suppressing it. Ask for guidance and relief if you like. (Basically as >>554767 wrote, I guess)

I've personally found hand writing the Bible to be a relaxing endeavor. Get a nice fountain pen or a dip pen like I'm using and some ink. Fountain/Dip pen will force you to slow down your writing which will both calm you and help you better understand the scripture.

Supposedly, I got angry that my pen wasn't working as well as it should have and nearly chucked it all into the trash. I suppose an outburst of anger is a bit of an improvement over crippling anxiety and panic attacks though.