Perhaps you have a great talent for planning but it’s an ability that leaves us vulnerable! If we are living with a sense of not being safe, or ready, or enough in our lives it’s likely that we are stuck in a pattern of anxious thinking that can be very debilitating. Anxiety is part of the system of healthy emotions that help our brains keep track and no one is totally anxiety free, but we don’t want to live dominated by fear.
Faith can help those who struggle with anxiety, because it reminds us of the bigger picture and connects us to the God who loves us. Faith encourages us to weigh up what is really important in life - it encourages us to live simply and to pursue ways of peace.
We want to encourage you that debilitating anxiety can be overcome. You can grow in strength and become a more peaceful person, and we want to invite you into a journey of healing.
Skilling Up
Anxiety:
‘a sense of vulnerability to
danger or threat’
Anxiety-related problems are the most common struggles that make their way into the therapy rooms! They come in many shapes and forms but have shared features: There is a sense of vulnerability to a danger or threat. The threat can be something on the inside (e.g. physical sensations of panic) or an external danger (e.g. Covid) that is beyond our ability to control. Our capacity to imagine and think ahead gives us the ability to plan and prepare wisely but it also means that we can conjure up frightening scenarios that may never happen and cause us to remember or relive traumatic events in the past.
Fear is frequently mentioned in the Bible; it is a normal emotion that exists alongside strong faith. Feeling anxious is not wrong or bad – it’s information that we can respond to skilfully and with faith.
The alarms are going off
We all have an internal system of 'anxious arousal’ that is easily triggered and not possible to override or just switch off. It’s a bit like an inbuilt alarm system that can be really helpful in the face of threat, it triggers physical sensations that help us escape the source of danger or do things to try to bring the situation under control. A certain amount of arousal can even enhance performance.
The problem is, it is possible to become stuck in anxious thought cycles that can become very debilitating. The physical prompts to escape or control can overwhelm us with their intensity, our thoughts can speed up (a racing mind) and our imaginations can trigger vivid and frightening thoughts, images and memories.
Two Unhelpful Ways to Deal with Anxiety
When anxiety is present, we can react in one of two unhelpful ways:
We try to distract away from, or suppress, the anxious thoughts and feelings; or we get entangled in them by allowing them to dominate and control our thinking and acting.
The problem with trying to distract ourselves from anxiety is that our distraction activities often pull us out of living a rich and meaningful life. Attempts to suppress anxious feelings may lead to feeling numb or disconnected from all feelings.
We can get entangled in anxiety by attempts to control or figure out our anxious thoughts and feelings. The problem with this strategy is that trying not to think or feel something is the shortest route to feeling and thinking it! Attempts at controlling thoughts and feelings often lead to feeling more out of control.
What unhelpful ways of dealing with anxiety do you identify with? Are you a distractor or a suppressor? Do you feel numb or disconnected at times? Are you entangled by your own thought patterns - trying not to feel or think but finding yourself obsessing over details?
Here are some suggestions for you to think about and to try today as we learn together how to live more peaceful, trusting lives.
Get Practical
(Improve your skills)
Five practical steps for building awareness of anxiety and learning how to manage it in a healthy way:
1.
Notice and name it.
Fear and anxiety often make us want to look away. As a result, our fears remain vague and nameless. Turning to anxiety with curiosity and without judgment is helpful. This includes observing how anxiety shows up in your mind and body and any urges to respond in particular ways. Writing down specific anxious thoughts can help to gain perspective on them.
2.
Identify any triggers for anxiety.
Sometimes it’s possible to identify what triggered the anxiety. Common triggers include unfamiliar situations, being alone, and being in a situation which has been a source of threat to you or others in the past.
3.
Allow the feeling to be there.
It’s helpful to remember that, even though they are not pleasant, anxious feelings and body sensations are not dangerous in themselves. They are a part of us, not bigger than us, and we do not need to act on them.
4.
Anchor yourself in something that is present and real.
Grounding yourself in the present can be helpful and there are many psychological tools for doing this. A simple strategy is to take a few slow, deep breaths and then focus on what you can see, hear, taste, touch and smell around you.
5.
Show compassion to yourself.
Hold yourself with gentleness in the face of your anxiety. Try to respond to your anxiety in the way that a caring parent would – naming it, validating it and showing kindness.
Soul Care
One picture of your soul is that it is like a river that keeps you alive, refreshed and well, you are the river keeper who’s job is to keep it clear and uncluttered.
Throughout the bible we are charged to keep tending to our souls, to keep our connection with God and to understand that we are more than just blood, skin and bone. As C.S. Lewis once said, you don’t just have a soul - you are a soul, you have a body! Working through our anxiety with God involves us learning how to take steps towards building faith even while we are still struggling.
Here are some steps to building faith alongside anxiety:
1.
Pray your anxious thoughts and feelings
Turn to God and pray out your thoughts and feelings to Him. We have a God who is always near; we do not have to tough things out on our own. See this as an opportunity to build intimacy with your primary caregiver: a loving Father God who is our ultimate source of comfort, safety and wisdom.
2.
Explore what anxiety reveals about your heart.
Our fears reveal what matters most to us: our hopes and desires, where we place our trust, and the source of our identity and security. An experience of anxiety offers opportunity to notice our deepest desires and to realign them with loving God above all else.
3.
Anchor yourself in truth.
We have an ever-present anchor in the truth about who God is and His covenant promises to us. When anxiety narrows the focus of our attention to the source of threat, we can intentionally refocus our attention on the bigger story of our lives. We have a God of all compassion who recognises that we are dust and does not despise us in our weakness. Acknowledging our vulnerability and dependency on a caring God is a good thing.
4.
Accept what is your responsibility and hand over to God what is outside of your control.
Anxiety is often linked to a loss of control over events in our lives. It can reveal an unhealthy desire to over-control and limited trust in the sovereign control of God. It can be helpful to meditate on where God is in relation to this situation. We can release our need to know the future because God is already there.
Contributor: Julia Binedell - City Church Bristol, Clinical Psychologist
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