In every area of my life, I’ve always managed to make friends. Some of these friends stick around for a short span of time and others have been with me down the path of life for quite a while. Sometimes their canoe drifts to a different part of the stream and sometimes it floats back to the same river I’m on. A friend of mine named Gabriel, who I was friends with in both middle school and high school. He has reconnected with me on that wonderful means of communication called Facebook. Were gonna have lunch sometime soon in the not-so-distant future. Last time I saw him we went out for lunch back in the late 90’s or early 2000’s I believe.
Even though we disagree theologically on some things we still got along back then and get along now. I was a Catholic altar boy who was really into my faith, and he was a pastor’s kids really into his. But we found common ground in both Loving Jesus and wanting to have a good time doing fu n things together. Last year he contributed an article to the Catholic Bard.
It’s Healthy To Experience Grief
How Experiencing Grief Is A Healthy Part Of Life
I’ve processed lots of grief, and have learned to allow myself to experience it. When I was
younger, I would have said that allowing myself to experience something so painful would be to
move past it. Now, I believe it’s healthy and part of life to experience grief and loss, and the pain
of it makes us more grounded, not less. Learning to lean into difficulty rather than avoid it will
accelerate maturity and experience.
He recently wrote a book about anxiety, and I thought why not let him do an interview about that and Christian writing. You’ll find in true ecumenical fashion that he has been influenced by a few prominent Catholic writers. I think you’ll be inspired when you…
Meet Christian Motivational Writer Gabriel Andreason
- Tell something interesting about yourself.
I’ve had panic attacks in the middle of business meetings and closed million-dollar deals in the same week. For a long time those two things lived in completely separate compartments — the anxious version of me and the capable version. Writing UnAnxious was the culmination of a process of realizing I was always the same person. I also enjoy playing golf, which my wife finds significantly less interesting than I do.
- What makes a good Catholic/Christian writer?
Honesty, first. The kind that is vulnerable and costs something. Christian writing that sanitizes the struggle doesn’t serve anyone well. The result of sterilizing our experiences is a way less impactful Church that ultimately makes people feel more alone in their struggles. A good Christian writer tells the truth about how hard it actually is to follow God, then tells the truth about why it’s so worth it. Jesus demonstrated that faith is real, not decorative.
Today’s readers are looking for authenticity and can smell the difference immediately.
- What do you like about being a Christian writer?
There’s a framework underneath everything I write that I didn’t have to invent. Faith, Connection and Commitment; these aren’t just theological words to me, they’re the architecture of how I understand marriage, business, and leadership. Writing from inside that framework means I’m never starting from zero. The foundation is already there. I remain committed to write honestly on top of it.
- What is the main focus of your writing?
Encouragement that produces Hope — specifically, the kind that doesn’t require you to have it all figured out first. Most of what I write is for the person who is holding things together on the outside and quietly struggling on the inside. They don’t need another framework. They need to know someone else has stood in that same spot and found a way through. UnAnxious is about anxiety, but underneath it is an invitation: you don’t have to stay where you are. My second book is about entrepreneurship, the third will likely be about marriage — different contexts, same core message. There is a way forward. Your story while it may be difficult isn’t all that different from others. You are not alone.
- How does your Christian faith influence your writing?
It sets the terms. I don’t write from a self-help framework — I write from a covenant framework. Those lead to very different places. Self-help says, “you can fix this.” Covenant says, “you were designed for a purpose, and the path to it runs through surrender, not willpower.” My faith doesn’t show up as a chapter at the end. It shapes how I define the situation in the first place.
- What’s your favorite piece you’ve written?
Chapter 3 in UnAnxious
“Coping gets us through the moment. Healing asks what the moment is trying to teach us.”
- What is your favorite topic to write about?
The gap between who people present themselves to be and who they actually are at 2am. That’s where all the real story is. I’m not interested in the polished version — mine included. The tension between the public identity and the private reality is where faith either proves itself or doesn’t. That’s the territory I keep returning to.
- Favorite scripture verse.
While my relationship with God is consistent – He’s always doing something new in me. Therefore, my favorite scripture verse changes based on the season that God has me in. Currently it’s Ephesians 3:20
“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us.”
This verse was always one that I just breezed by because it was too big for me to settle into. More recently, like for a couple of years now I have been deeply contemplating the ramifications of what Paul wrote to us. I’m definitely thinking too small. God isn’t bound by the ceiling that my limited thinking has put around Him and me. His power isn’t out there somewhere; it’s actually already at work within us. That there is an invitation into our potential… and more.
- What are you currently working on?
The second book in what I’m planning as a trilogy — this one on entrepreneurship and leadership, drawing on what I’ve built with Inovis Energy over the past six years. I’m also building out the UnAnxious platform, a digital product ecosystem, a self-scoring assessment, and a speaking track. The goal is five states in the next twelve months. I want the book to be a door for others and myself to grow.
- Name a figure who inspires you.
Here are three: Jesus — what else needs to be said? He’s the standard.
My dad, for his utter commitment to loving God and people over a lifetime. Not occasionally. Not when it was convenient. Consistently, quietly, for as long as I can remember. And my wife Sonia for her tenacity in facing real physical difficulty and refusing to quit. That kind of endurance is one of the most inspiring things I’ve ever watched up close.
- Who is your favorite living writer?
Currently it’s John Maxwell for the way that his faith forward approach has impacted leaders across the world.
What’s your life story? When I meet people for the first time, as soon as the introductions are out of the way, I ask them to share their stories—to tell me who they are and where they’re from, where they’ve been and where they’re going. I want to understand what matters to them. Maybe you do the same. The telling of our stories becomes an emotional connecting point for us. It bridges the gap between us.
- If you could have lunch with any deceased writer, who would it be, what would you eat, and what would you talk about?
I can’t pick just one, so I’ll give you two…
Thomas Merton because he did something I’m still learning to do: he went inward to such a degree that it impacted the outward in me. His contemplative writing has shaped how I approach silence, prayer, and interior life in ways I’m still unpacking. I’d want to ask him what he actually found in all that quiet, and whether he could put into words his encounters with God. We’d eat simply.
“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.”
― Thoughts in Solitude
Or Tolkien. Because he built an entire: Universe in Middle Earth. And he built the gospel story right into it. He maintained a genuine testimony of Christ while producing work that transcended any one tradition. I’d want to know how intentional that was. I suspect the answer is: completely. We’d eat something hearty. Second breakfast, obviously.
Frodo:
I wish the ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.
Gandalf:
So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. There are other forces at work, Frodo, than the will of evil. Bilbo was meant to find the ring. In which case you also were meant to have it, and that is an encouraging thought.
- Name a favorite movie, TV show, or music worth sharing.
I love modern worship music, it’s part of how I’m wired.
But if I’m adding some flavor to my answer, Phish is one of my favorite bands and has been for years. Their music draws me in. The push and pull between the band and the audience is something I find genuinely inspiring. They build tension, hold it, and release it at exactly the right moment. There’s real craft in that. And honestly, more than a few leadership lessons are buried in a good Phish jam.
- Can you see one of your books being made into a movie or TV series?
UnAnxious would probably work better as a limited docu-series than a feature, something that follows real people through the process of dismantling the anxiety identity and building something more honest in its place.
- Favorite historical event.
Sorry to disappoint, but when the Red Sox finally won the World Series it was quite a moment for me.
The Patriots winning the Super Bowl was also an emotional moment due to growing up never having seen them win.
This interview was published on May 15, 2026
The day these events took place
1571 – Venice, Spain, Naples, the Papal States, and other Italian states establish the Holy League to fight the Ottomans, resulting in the victory at Lepanto later that year.
1602 – Cape Cod is sighted by English navigator Bartholomew Gosnold.
1725 – Bach leads the first performance of his cantata Ich bin ein guter Hirt, BWV 85, about Jesus as the Good Shepherd.
1891 – Pope Leo XIII defends workers’ rights and property rights in the encyclical Rerum novarum, the beginning of modern Catholic social teaching.
2010 – Jessica Watson becomes the youngest person to sail, non-stop and unassisted around the world solo.
- What else do you want people to know?
Anxiety doesn’t disqualify you. It never did, and God is not ashamed of that struggle in your mind. Some of the most grounded, purposeful people have spent years convinced their inner life was evidence that something was fundamentally wrong with them. It wasn’t. It isn’t. The work isn’t to eliminate the feeling — it’s to stop letting the feeling make the decisions. That’s what UnAnxious is about, and it’s what I’ll keep talking about for as long as people need to hear it.
Learn More
Gabriel Andreson | Speaker & Author
Author of UnAnxious | Co-Founder, Inovis Energy | Speaker & Leadership Advisor
(186) Gabriel Andreson |
Calm Leadership Under Pressure – YouTube
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