Embracing Anxiety: A Path to Peace in God

Anxiety will tell you the way that you deal with all that is, you worry about it, you brood about it, you think about it constantly, you allow it to preoccupy you and if this problem goes away, another problem will pop up. It's like playing whack-a-mole, and that somehow if you just keep them in your mind all the time, if you live with this obsessive sense of preoccupation, like a magic bubble of worry that will somehow protect you, that will somehow keep things at bay, anxiety will try to cause you to torment your mind in that way. [00:88:48]

Be anxious for nothing but then he doesn't stop there he doesn't say try really hard not to be anxious but in everything, in prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, thank you god that you're real and you care, let your requests whatever it is that you want whatever it is that's going on inside of you, be known to god bring them before god and the peace of god that passes all human understanding will guard your heart and your mind in christ jesus. [00:170:00]

Here's the thought to let ring in your mind over and over again own, don't enthrone own it, acknowledge it admit it, but don't allow it to rule over you and here's how to do that that little word own is an acronym this comes from our friend rick the therapist and uh each of the letters stands for something the o stands for observe, we begin now not by trying to control our mind through willpower, but just actually observing what's going on in our mind. [00:212:48]

You have a mental dialogue going on inside your head that never stops, it just keeps going and going have you wondered why it talks in there, how does it decide what to say and when to say it how much of it turns out to be true, how much of what it says is even important and if right now you are hearing, i don't know what he's talking about i don't have any voice inside my head, that's the voice i'm talking about if you're smart, you will step back and learn to recognize this voice and come to understand it. [00:275:68]

God invites us to be aware of our mind it's a first step in the transformation of our minds of owning and not enthroning so to begin i just observe as i go through the day what's going on in my mind just be curious about it don't be so quick to judge yourself, you don't choose the thoughts or the emotions that automatically come into your mind, so you need to very carefully evaluate actions, but if we get too judgmental about our thoughts and our feelings, we never simply have the freedom to observe them. [00:325:12]

The w stands for welcome, all right come on in anxiety, come on in worry i already know you're there, and the the irony is the paradox is if i try to stop worrying through willpower and resistance and pushing it away i give my mind an impossible job, i try to make my mind do what a finite human mind cannot do and so we torture our own minds. [00:365:52]

I simply acknowledge to myself and before god, i'm just human welcome fear welcome anxiety, you are not me and and this leads to the end the end is to name it whatever that fear is whatever that negative emotion is whatever that negative thought is, instead of just having a vague sense that something unpleasant is going on or i don't feel great, i actually name it i'm feeling frustrated right now, i'm feeling anxious right now and an amazing things happens when we name it it gives me a little distance from that feeling. [00:461:28]

A week later it was the group of people who had named what they were feeling that when they had contact again with that tarantula in the glass jar their blood pressure was lower, their heart race did not speed up as much they didn't sweat as much, and what happened was simply naming the fear created a kind of distance that keeps the fear from being on the throne, and god has made our minds that way and he invites us, when anxieties come and attack us instead of trying to deal with them on our own or make our minds take care of them by ourselves to bring them to him. [00:544:56]

Make it kind of an adventure whatever is going on and they may be ordinary one of the real mill problems they might be really awful ones, i know i know, but they don't get to be on the throne, you know the bible says we live in a great kingdom and it's the kingdom of god the range of god's effect of will and i get to bring my little kingdom into his great big wonderful kingdom, that's the only way to live in the kingdom of peace under the prince of peace. [00:589:36]

I learn how to grow towards a life beyond anxiety precisely by living learning to live with anxiety when it comes today, just observe it what's that little maniac inside your head saying, and then welcome it it's okay be very gentle, fear anxiety it's okay, and then naming it together with god, i own it but i don't enthrone it i enthrone him. [00:622:80]