Living With Anxiety

For most of my life, I’ve been prone to anxiety, but only in the last few years have I known what it is.

Anxiety is a disorder where your mind obsesses about things that really shouldn’t make you worried. Your mind focuses on bad things that might happen, and it can transform even minor fears into major dreads. The whirlpool of fear that results can even bring physical effects like shortness of breath, headaches, and (in my case) sciatic pain.

Though I’ve dealt with major anxiety and panic attacks for a few months, I’ve finally learned to live with the anxiety. At this point, I can live a normal life, even a happy and fulfilled life.

Although my experience may not be yours, I’m sharing it here in case you’d find it helpful in your journey. Here’s what I do to live a fulfilled life, even with anxiety.

Avoiding Triggers

The first step is to stay away from the things that trigger the worst of the stress. For example, doing taxes stressed me out, so I hired an accountant. I’m also very careful to be painstakingly honest. I recognize that this is overboard, but if I say something that’s not quite true, even if people will know what I mean, I try to correct it right away. I know I’m being obsessive, but that will keep my mind from latching onto it and creating a panic attack.

But this will only take us so far. Stress is just something we live with in today’s world. The more good things, like family and responsibilities, we have in our lives, the more stress we will also have. And it’s not really healthy to need to be obsessively and technically honest about every little thing. So the rest of these methods are needed, too, in order to work against the anxiety.

De-Stressing

Anxiety comes and goes, for me. I’ll have a few weeks where it’s not a problem at all, and then I’ll start feeling more and more stress as the days go by. When I’m in a stressful time, I make sure I regularly do things to de-stress. Here are two things:

• I relax the muscles in my shoulders (or another tense part of me), shut my eyes, and focus on listening to the sounds around me. That helps me refocus and take my mind out of obsessive thought processes. I do this a few times a day, for about half a minute each time.
• I write down my fears on a paper that I’ll later discard. I don’t ever reread these papers or show them to anyone. This helps me be honest about my fears, and yet not focus on them too much. I do this once a day for about five or ten minutes.

Transforming Our Minds

But it’s not enough just to combat stress. Until we learn to focus on better things, just minimizing stress and worry aren’t going to be enough. Instead, we need to fill our minds with good things. My go-to passage on this is Philippians 4:

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; 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. 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. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you. (Phil 4:4-9 ESV)

If we want to have peace, here’s what we can do. First, rejoice in the Lord and be thankful. Spend time thinking about the goodness of God and about all the good things that we’ve been given. This can include singing songs, listening to worshipful music, and praying prayers of thankfulness.

Second, think about good and worthwhile things. Spend time with people you love. Do activities that you enjoy. Read heartwarming stories. In other words, replace your negative thoughts with positive ones.

Here’s what I do:

• I practice playing hymns on the piano. I’m not very good at it, but I enjoy it.
• I do something enjoyable with my wife or spend time with friends.
• I pray prayers of thankfulness for all the blessings I’ve received.
• I sing songs that remind me of God’s nearness to me and his care for me.
• I read or recite Psalms.

Knowing God

The most important thing for a Christian, of course, is to know God. I put that last, partly because sometimes our anxiety attaches itself to our relationship with God. We may feel that he’s missing or that he’s even condemning us. While we do need to be living in line with his teachings, often what’s happening instead is that we’re being obsessive. Our mental dysfunction is getting between us and him.

So sometimes we need to work on the first few things in this article before we can get in tune with God. We should always pray, but we might not always want to trust our feelings about what God is trying to communicate with us. They might be deceived into thinking that God is against us, when he’s actually trying actively to seek a relationship with us.

That shouldn’t be so surprising. When I haven’t spent enough time with someone in a while, when I do, it takes some time before it feels like our conversation becomes meaningful again. It feels like my communication receptors are crusted over, until I’ve spent enough time with them again.

But until we are back in communication with God, how can we tell where we stand in relation to him? In a sermon that I gave for Sound Faith Ministries, I discussed how we can tell we are right with God even when we can’t feel him. One is if we love each other:

We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death. . . . And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. Whoever keeps his commandments abides in God, and God in him. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us. (1 John 3:14, 23-24)

If we live for other people and love them, that’s an effective sign that can show if the love of God is in us.

Living in the Light

By practicing these things, I’m able to live a normal and enjoyable life. In fact, I feel very fulfilled, since I’m spending my life doing meaningful things. At this point, I haven’t needed to take medication for anxiety. That’s not to say medication isn’t ever needed; after all, everyone’s situation will be somewhat different. However, I’m confident that these practices will at least give some help to anyone who struggles with anxiety.