Anxiety has been a constant companion probably for more of my life than I realize. I most likely experienced anxiety attacks before I could label them. Being an chronic over-thinker hasn’t helped that much.
Also, I have the deadly disease of jumping to the worst conclusion possible as quickly as possible.
“I haven’t heard from them, they must have died.”
“I wasn’t invited, they must hate me with the power of the fiery sun.”
Or the most frequent words I uttered as a child, “Everybody hates me.” I have the natural bent for hyperbole. (Which is fun to relive every year when I teach it to middle schoolers.)
In this ailment, I can let my mind spiral out of control. I can let myself jump off the cliff of despair without much effort.
That is if I don’t catch myself. I have learned (mostly the hard way) that I will continue on the path of spiraling thoughts and will keep going unless there is a road block. I will end up in a frantic mess of a person, spouting off nonesense and unable to think clearly or focus on anything. Sometimes even ending in an anxiety attack filled with sobbing and snot.
There needs to be safety nets, stopping points of truth to catch me when I head down that path. Even more so, I have to let others know about my thoughts so that they can help stop me, people to whisper truth to me, or let’s be honest, most of the time they have to shout it.
Honestly, I didn’t know that I spiraled that much until actually verbalizing it to someone and began realizing that is what I was doing. It was all because of a crush.
I mentioned that he commented on how I lost weight. And I began saying, does that mean he notices me? Has he been thinking about me? What if he wants to ask me out? What if he is too afraid because he thinks I am not interested? How do I flirt with him? What could I do to make him interested?
This now sounds simply ludicrous when I speak it out loud or even type it out.
In the midst of the conversation, my friend stopped me and said. “You have lost weight, and he was probably being kind and giving you a compliment. If he meant something more, he will say so.”
That was it. She brought me down to earth. She caught me in the midst of a spiral. At first I was angry, how dare she burst my bubble of fantasy? How dare she say that he didn’t like me? Even though I was somewhat angry, I realized that it was exactly what I needed. I needed to be brought down to earth.
We can’t limit this to just a schoolgirl crush situation, because it can happen in any other situations, like friendships, community, and work.
“What did the boss mean by that email to everyone about getting those reports in on time? Was he talking about me? I always get my reports in, sure a little late, but not as late as other people. Was he commenting on my performance? Was he indicating that he is looking for reason to fire me? Is my job safe? Do I need to start updating my resume? Looking for a new job?”
Anxiety is an ugly thing. It tells us that we need to worry, that we aren’t measuring up, that we are not enough. Anxiety tells us to question everything, to look into everything. It is also very self focused. It draws us to just worry about ourselves.
Anxiety has tunnel vision, only seeing the things that feeds its interests.
One of the best things for when we let our thoughts get out of control is to let someone else in on what we are thinking because anxiety takes away our ability to have a proper perspective.
When we let someone else in, an objective person, they can pull us out of the tornado of our thoughts. It could be someone that points us back to truth of God’s word. Or someone to tell us about reality, since much of anxiety is lived in a fantasy world. For me sometimes, it is simply someone to say, what is really true about all of the questions you just asked.
Even more so retraining our thinking as to not be as apt to head down the path of over-thinking. What better way than to use scripture.
“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” Phil 4:8
To be honest, I used to hate this verse.(I know you aren’t supposed to hate God’s word.) But the reason was it seemed like a list of rules to me. It seemed like a standard that I could never attain, which made me resentful. I thought there was no hope to measure up. I even thought this verse was for those good Christians who just thought about rainbows, bunnies, and baking cookies for their neighbors. That me, the messed up failure of a Christian, couldn’t ever live that way.
Now in the midst of thinking about anxiety……sigh….. I see that Paul has a point. Funny that this verse comes right after Phillipians 4:6-7:
“do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.“
UGH, that verse hurts in a good way. Then for Paul to turn around and tell us to think on what is true!
It is hard now to think of that verse as a list of rules, because I realize that those instructions are actually in pursuit of that peace that he is talking about. And when our “friend” Anxiety is in the house, there is no peace, no rest for your mind.
See when we build in safety nets and roadblocks of truth, and even retrain ourselves to not even head down the path of spiraling anxiety, we will actually live with that peace of God. The more that we walk down the path of truth, the easier it gets to live that life on a regular basis, and anxiety will no longer be welcome.
Friends, let us take hold of the truth of God’s word and his peace. Let’s build boundaries and safety nets in our minds so that anxiety can’t even get through the door. Don’t live the life of anxiety alone, let other people in and speak truth to one other, so we can all experience the “peace of God that surpasses all understanding.”
What are you anxious about? What areas of truth do you need to think on? Are there other scriptures that help pull you out of the spiral?
Anchor of my Soul 