Hope & Help For Your Anxiety

Today, we're diving into the topic of anxiety and aiming to leave you feeling hopeful and equipped to starve out the worry in your life. I’ll share my experiences with anxiety, including postpartum struggles and my first panic attack. We'll distinguish between true anxiety and anxious thinking. 

For those feeling anxious, I’ll offer some hope through scripture, prayer, and ways to help you renew your mind and redeem your thought patterns. Remember, God hasn’t given us a spirit of fear but of power, love, and self-control. To manage anxiety, I suggest things like cutting out caffeine, improving sleep habits, staying hydrated, and avoiding social media or true crime shows. It’s crucial to address any underlying triggers and lean on the support of friends, family, and scripture. Together, we can pursue peace and find comfort in Christ!

Recommendations 

Book: Get Out of Your Head - Jennie Allen

Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPcD77cjrpk 

Song: Still Waters (Psalm 23) 

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Transcript

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Jesus died for our sins, but he also died to redeem our stories and to restore us into not only a right relationship with God, but also right thinking because he's good and he's kind, right? He restores all things. He redeems all things for good. And I hope that encourages you today, even if you're really feeling like all hope is lost. It is not. You are not crazy. You are not alone, but you do have control over what you think about to an extent. Welcome to Going Deeper. This podcast challenges the cultural status quo and societal norms keeping us from a deep life of faith. Discussing topics all across the spiritual secular spectrum from social media and consumerism to fasting and scripture memory. Come burdened by the constant stimulation and have it all mentality of modern culture. Leave refreshed and encouraged to go deeper in your relationship with God. Friends, thank you so much for tuning in to this week's podcast. This week, we're getting candid. We're getting candid. I also am not going off of a script because I just feel that this episode requires some authenticity, some, yeah, candidness. There's really no other word to use here. just some genuine, this is what I've walked through. This is what I'm walking through. And this is what I'm learning, what I've learned, the wisdom that I've gleaned, but also the hope that I have for you, because I want this episode to be both practically helpful and spiritually encouraging. I want you to leave feeling equipped to actually Take tangible steps forward in your battle with anxiety if that's something that you're wrestling with. Or if you're not wrestling with it and you have somebody in your life who is, you can pass that information along to them. But also I want it to be, as always, as I always want to do in this podcast, I want to point you to the hope of the gospel because it can be found in everywhere. So we're going to dive right in. to today's episode, you're probably noticing that we're a little off schedule and that's because life has been super hard. I was two weeks ahead on this podcast season two and you know, RSV, crazy busy, like unexpected schedules, changes, you know, people coming into town, uh, anxiety, crippling anxiety, those sorts of things just really got me off schedule. So, but we're back on schedule and that's okay. There is room to be flexible here. And I know you guys don't probably notice any of that. So we're going to dive right in. But first, we always start with recommendations. And I feel like the best recommendation to go along with this episode is the Get Out of Your Head book by Jenny Allen, Stop the Spiral of Toxic Thoughts. If you've not read that book, it's wonderful, very practically helpful. And it really just illuminates the idea that you have a choice in what you think about. You have a choice in your thoughts, your thought patterns, and she really helps you to take captive, take your thoughts captive and redirect your thoughts in a way that is edifying and actually going to starve out the anxiety rather than feed it. Which is something that we're going to be talking about today's episode. But also, I'm going to be sharing down in the show notes a couple of podcast episodes that I have found helpful about anxiety. And I think one of them is Jenny Allen and Sadie Robertson talked about it. And then finally, a song. This song is really encouraging to me. It's a newer one. I think it came out this last year. And it's called Still Waters, Psalm 23 by Leanna Crawford. I think that's how you say her name. Liana, Liana, very just sweet. And it reminds you of Psalm 23. And it's a, it's an easy way to sort of memorize that passage. So jumping in here, anxiety, we're talking about it, how I'm overcoming it, my story with it, and just practical ways to, to starve anxiety and not feed it. but also hopeful encouragement as you're walking through it. So first we got to talk about my story and sort of, I never thought if you had, if you had come to me three years ago and said, yeah, you're going to be talking about your struggle with anxiety on the podcast, I would have probably laughed and be like, what? Not me. I'm not a worrier. I don't worry about anything. I don't worry about anything until it comes until I'm face to face with it. And that's, True. That was true of me all the way up until six months postpartum with my second baby, which is wild because in all honesty, up until I guess 27 years old, never in my life was I an anxious person. Never in my life was I a worrier, never had experienced anxiety. Like I used to think naively that but also insensitively that other people who struggled with anxiety were just worriers, you know, just natural worriers. And I do think that there are people who are natural, you know, maybe have a predisposition or, you know, whatever that makes them a little bit more, maybe neurotic or uneasy, just personality wise on a, like on a basis. But I always used to think, oh, you know, either they're being dramatic or whatever. I just, I didn't understand that. anxiety. I truly could not empathize with people that had it, which is probably why the Lord was like, here you go. You know, that's what he does, right? He allows us to walk through things, you know, the comfort with which we are, that we receive when we're going through a hard time, we can then comfort others with that same comfort that we received. So anyways, I feel like I am now able to do that for others. And I'm also trying to do that now via this episode. So like I said, never struggled with anxiety, wasn't a worrier. And I would even say that when I am healthy, like when all my things are in alignment, which we'll talk about, and I've gotten things under control, I don't feel anxious or worried. And I tend to even be able to be like really optimistic and have a really healthy mentality on worrisome things, you know? But yeah, so up until six months postpartum with my second baby. Had no anxiety with my first. No postpartum anything with my first, which is wild. But it was the second. Who knows why? Only God knows why. And what was interesting about it was that it came in the form of hypochondria. So most of you know what that is. Hypochondria is essentially just this paranoia and fear of health concerns. You think... either you or somebody close to you has a health problem and gets paranoid and takes something small and spirals and turns it into something big that's not even there. So I can remember vividly, again, between that like six to eighth month period, I didn't have a name for it. All I knew was that out of the blue, I was all of a sudden worried about everything health related, whether it was me, whether it was my kids, most of it was me, which is interesting because it's actually flipped now. If I got a bruise on my arm and I never get bruises, I would think to myself, oh my gosh, are my white blood cell counts low? Do I have a serious underlying health condition? Do I have cancer? I just would spiral to the worst case scenario. any little tiny trigger thing that was wrong, which is wild to think about. But if you don't, if you've never struggled with anxiety, you can't even really wrap your mind around what that's like. So I remember a good four to six month period after it started, I started to piece, piece things together and think to myself, okay, maybe what I had have is postpartum anxiety. Maybe that's what this is. Like, is this, is this what anxiety is? Because I'm constantly thinking about, for me, what I noticed first and foremost was that it was my thought process that was changing. Where I used to be able to look, as an example, where I used to be able to look at two bruises on my arm and be like, oh, I wonder when that happened. Not think twice about it, not even, not go down any sort of rabbit hole and just be like, oh, got a bruise sometime at some, at some point during the last week I hit something. And that's where that thought would have ended and never would have given it a second thought. Two, all of a sudden, my thought patterns were changing to, oh my gosh, I've got a bruise. Is there something underlying going? I never get bruises. Why do I have bruises now all of a sudden? Do I have cancer? Do I have a serious illness? Am I going to die? Like, whoa, wild. I keep using the word wild, but that's kind of what it felt like. It was not me, not something that I'd ever experienced before. So once I finally realized, oh, this is anxiety. This is what people are talking about. I was able to sort of do some research on it, talk to people who had struggled with it. And then it was almost as if it sort of went away at bay. It got to be where I don't remember it being a huge, huge problem. And then I noticed something. when I was about a year postpartum with Sutton before getting pregnant with Tatum that it was like around my period or whatever that I would notice more anxiety and then it would kind of not really be that strong any other time. I can't really truly tell you. I don't really remember struggling with anxiety while being pregnant with my third, at least not at all, at all to what I've experienced since having her postpartum. But so flash forward, I give birth to Tatum back in October, October 7th. Immediately after giving birth to her, within the first three weeks of her life, I was extremely anxious about losing her, my family dying in a car accident, driving anywhere with any of them. I was convinced that something was going to happen to them. And to the point where I was unwilling to like drive anywhere with them a lot, like I was very fearful. There was a lot of fear and paranoia, uh, around that specific thing. And then it would kind of go in waves. I feel like there would be a few days where I wouldn't really feel anxious. And then all of a sudden I would feel really, really anxious about something. But for the first like six to eight weeks, and it's still kind of lingering this underlying random, uh, fear was that I was going to like lose one of my kids or we were going to get into a car accident or something like that. Something was going to happen. Then I would say it was, it was December. So it was a Christmas parade. I had my very first panic attack that I've ever had. Haven't had any since. I haven't had one since, but this was truly what it was. We, to make a long story short, I attempted, my husband was in the And I thought, oh yeah, I can totally do the parade by myself in the 20 degrees with three kids. Yep, I can handle that. Nope. Totally was way too big of an undertaking. Was very stressful. The whole experience was just way out of my hands. Way out of my, just, yeah. I was at my limit. And then get home. Husband and I have a disagreement about the parade. Don't need to go into details. I end up going to bed early. I turned in early and I'm laying in bed. And during this time, moms, you out there, you know, if you breastfed, when you go from not breastfeeding at all to breastfeeding and you're turning your head down in the middle of the night, you oftentimes get back and neck pain. So I was having a lot of like back and neck issues in the first, you know, parts of first, you know, couple of weeks, couple of months postpartum. And I was having a lot of neck pain, laying in bed. And I'm so like angry about what happened in our conversation, but also thinking about my neck. My neck was, and then I felt my arm start to go numb and get tingly. And then all of a sudden I'm convincing myself that I'm having a stroke and And that I was going to die. Like if I fell asleep, I was going to die in my sleep. And it was so real, you guys, it was so real to me. This, this thought that, that this is what my neck is. This is the neck, like all of a sudden I'm going to have a stroke, you know? And so all of a sudden I've got this next pain, my arm starts to go numb. And then I notice, you know, my heart is pounding out of my chest and And what kind of triggered me to be like, what is going on? Was I had to sort of, I started to have like kind of like a hot flash a little bit. I was getting really flushed and sweaty. And I was like, I got to get out. I've got to get out of the bed. I've got to get up. I've got to get some water. I got to walk. I feel off. I feel wrong. I need to tell Jeremy. But before I did that, I Googled my symptoms, which don't do that. Okay. Don't do that. But I, I thought to myself for a brief moment that, is this a panic attack? Is this what this is? Am I, is this anxiety? And sure enough, all the symptoms, panic attack. And it made sense because one of the even symptoms are thoughts, you know, irrational thoughts that you're going to die or something. I'm like, Oh, that's me right now. And I curled up next to Jeremy and I was explaining to him how I thought I was having a panic attack. So that happened. And then essentially over the past year, You know, Tatum is, I'm four months postpartum as I record this. So it's been four months. And over the past four months, it's ebbed and flowed. Some weeks are harder than others. Some days are harder than others. But I have learned quite a bit about what feeds my anxiety. I have figured out what keeps it at bay. I have figured out what makes certain days just 10 times better than than other days. So what I want to do now that you kind of have an idea of my story is I want to, one, I want to talk about sort of this perfect storm that I realized talking with some friends, processing things out loud and talking with friends that have gone through the same thing, this sort of perfect storm that can happen that triggers the really bad anxiety on those days, what those things are and how I've look to sort of mitigate, uh, help keep the anxiety under control. If I'm able to control them even at all, then I want to talk about just this idea of true anxiety versus just anxious thinking, because I do think there's a difference for sure. I think there's a difference. And then finally, I really want to help you give you, I want to give you some tools, the things that I've looked to that I've leaned on while I'm in the thick of it, When I'm in a moment, when I'm in a day, when I'm in a moment, when I'm in a season where I'm having some anxiety and how I get through it, but also just hope. Just hope for you to look for in the midst of it. So the perfect storm. What is that? This was an epiphany that I had. And I realized there were two huge factors. Well, mainly three. Well... Okay, so there's one, two, three, four, five, six, six. There are six things that I want to kind of talk about here. But the two biggest ones that I noticed right off the bat were there was a day, it was a specific day that I remember it being really, really bad. And I stopped to think, what is, what did I do differently this day? And first thing that was very obvious was that I had gotten terrible sleep. That night, Tatum had been up multiple times, way more frequently than she had been. She, you know, had gotten sick. And so she was obviously up more. I wasn't getting longer stretches, you know? So when you have like a newborn, three to four hour stretches, pretty dang good. It's when you're up every hour, every hour and a half that that really takes a toll on you. So I'd had terrible sleep. And because of the terrible sleep, First thing, what I do, cup of caffeine, cup of coffee. And I had probably two, which that's a lot for me. I don't typically drink a lot of coffee or have a lot of caffeine, but I had had two in that day. And by the afternoon period, which that's one thing that I'll say, I don't know if this is true for everybody, but for me, I have noticed that the mornings, the mornings can be really, really good. They can go well. I feel good. I feel like my thought processes are healthy. And then for whatever reason, by that 2, 3 p.m. mark, that's when I see an uptick in my anxious thinking, my anxiety, and I have a harder time in the afternoon evenings with anxiety, struggle with it more. So poor sleep coupled with caffeine, and it wasn't even that much if you really think about it, was Two main things that I was like, okay, I don't, let's see, let's test this. Then I remember I had had a night of really, really good sleep. I decided no caffeine today. And I barely, very rarely, or very little had any anxiety for that day. And I felt as though I had a lot more control over my thoughts than I had had previously. Then I started to think through, okay, what are the other things that are contributing to this? And there's four more things that I noticed. So to add to the perfect storm, the things that have made days even harder or probably would have made or probably made the anxiety worse had I not were lack of nutrition, so not enough calories, So maybe I had terrible sleep, woke up, first thing, got a cup of coffee, didn't even have any water, forgot to drink water, and didn't eat till 11 a.m., 12 p.m. Had a small snack lunch because I'm feeding my kids and not feeding myself. Notice that was also not helping because then all that's in my system is caffeine. My body is running off of adrenaline, essentially. Then... Hormones, that's a pretty obvious one, considering all of my anxiety tends to occur, happen, become heightened around being postpartum. And postpartum hormones are out of whack. That's, you know, a given. And so the hormones I can't necessarily control very much postpartum. So that's something you just got to ride out. But then the fifth thing is there's always a trigger. So if I have no trigger in a day, there's nothing that sort of sets me off that gets me to spiral. Typically the like go-to thing that I become anxious about is something happening, like losing my kids in a car accident or something happening. And I just, it's almost like there's a level of anxiousness that I feel no matter what I'm thinking about. No matter what's in my mind, I tend to lean towards worrying about it rather than being able to think rightly about it. And then the sixth thing that I have found totally makes everything worse is isolation. And it's been really cold. We've had a lot of snow, sick kids, and being home... with the kids and just not being around people, not being around, um, not being in my community and having friends and, and talking, you know, that's just naturally, it's a distraction, but also it feeds your soul, right? You know, it feeds your soul when you're around people. And when you're not isolation is extremely not good for my anxiety, but it's just, you know, that's, I think that's just pretty obvious. That's what we saw during COVID when everybody was isolated, just the amount of mental health issues that went up. We need each other. We need community. We need support. So those are the six things that I have found to be sort of the perfect storm that when they're all together, they cause anxiety in me. Maybe it's true for you. I've talked to quite a bit of people who can say those things are true for them. So, and we'll break those down. I think we're going to come back to that, but I want to talk about this idea of true anxiety versus anxious thinking. And I didn't do a ton of research on this, but it just feels like this is what has been true in my story because I didn't struggle with anxiety until age 27. So I just have such a clear, stark black and white picture of the difference between the two in my own life. And I wonder if this is true in yours. So I have noticed that there are days where I'm having true anxiety, meaning it's sort of a chemical issue that is causing me to have cloudy judgment, irrational thinking and thought patterns and paranoia. Paranoia about things that make no sense. that, yeah, truly the next day, if I have no anxiety, I look back and I'm like, what were you thinking? You know, why did you think that? Why did you think that you needed to go to the ER over that situation? That was totally not rational. And so I've found that that's very much a chemical, the true anxiety is very much chemical. There's something that's causing my anxiety brain, my thought patterns to be really off. And I don't feel in my right frame of mind, which is honestly given me a ton of empathy and perspective for people who struggle with mental health issues on a daily basis and are on medication for it. Um, because it's very real how you can not be in your right frame of mind and not be thinking right or thinking clearly. So I have a ton of empathy for anybody who struggles with it. And then I feel like there is anxious thinking or just anxious thought patterns where you're more or less, you're struggling with control. So maybe... You had great sleep that night. You're not really a caffeine drinker. Your hormones are pretty imbalanced. You've ate well. You're in a community. You don't really have any triggers. There's nothing that chemically would lead you to have true paranoia. But for whatever reason, you tend to just worry about everything. And it's an anxious thought pattern where you... can in the moment, you know, take it captive or you feel like you can, but you tend to, what's the word I'm looking for? You sit in the worry and you're choosing to sit in the worry rather than, whereas I feel, and I can, I can juxtapose these two things because I've experienced both where, when I'm having true days that are really hard, where I'm struggling with crippling paranoia and anxiety, It's not that I can't take my thoughts captive. It's not that I can't do those things to stop the spiral. But I don't feel like I have any control to get out of this state that I'm in, if that makes sense. It's like I almost have to just ride it out, wait for it to pass. And then when it passes and I get into... you know, a normal, normal Justine mode, if you will. Then when I start to have like an anxious thought, you know, like a normal, healthy fear, right? A healthy fear. I then, the anxious thinking can begin when you are, you're setting your minds on something. the bad. You're choosing to sit and wallow in the worry, if you will, as opposed to actively looking to renew your mind and think on what is good and right and true. Do you see what I'm saying? And so, okay. So we've talked about just true anxiety versus anxious thinking. And I also think that if you're somebody who really wrestles with anxiety daily and And it's a pretty normal part of your life. I wonder if you can relate to me that sometimes, especially right now, my sleep is not restorative like ever. I'm up multiple times in the night, but some nights are better than others. And when I'm having caffeine, I feel almost a low grade anxiety that sort of lingers throughout the day. And like, it's just this anxious state. It's not, there's no trigger. I, it's not terrible. It's not crippling. I don't have paranoia, but I'm just, I just feel more uneasy. And I almost wonder, I don't have an Apple watch, but I wonder if my heart rate is elevated as well. So I want to talk about practically first, some of the help improve my actual anxiety. And I truly believe that the Lord has been kind and has given me wisdom to tackle this. I'm not at all attributing any of this practical stuff as just like, Oh, I figured this out on my own. No, I think the Lord has granted me wisdom through other people's, other people's walks in wrestling with anxiety, my own research, just my own cause and effect, noticing things in my life and having some self-awareness and discernment to take a step back and look at what is going on. So I, and I also believe that a lot of this stuff is just his common grace to us. Whether that be in the form of taking medicine for your anxiety, I think that's a form of His common grace. But also just having Google and knowledge at our fingertips to be able to understand the brain and the body and how things work to result in the anxiety that we have. So all of it always goes back to the Lord and His kindness and His grace towards us. But Here, tackling the perfect storm. So first thing that I did was cut out caffeine. I had such a bad day. There was a day where I knew this, I'd never want to feel like this again. I never want to be this paranoid that I feel like I am thinking so irrationally. I got to cut out the caffeine. No matter how bad sleep that I had that night before, I'm going to pray and ask the Holy Spirit for energy, that supernatural energy, as opposed to relying on coffee or stimulants, because it absolutely exacerbates the problem. And I have noticed a night and day difference when I have caffeine versus when I have zero caffeine. And I mean, we're even talking, I will be mindful of eating dark chocolate, Even decaf coffee sometimes can have a small amount of caffeine, and even I noticed that can have a little tiny effect. So cutting out the caffeine is huge. Trying my best, and I'm going to encourage you, if you're somebody that struggles with it, get restorative sleep. You have to get restorative sleep. Our pastor actually just told us this fact, and it kind of blew my mind. There was a guy... I think he was on the Joe Rogan podcast. I could look it up and I'll link it in the show notes. He was a sleep expert, done all this research on sleep. And he said, we have a biannual experiment that happens every... He said, we do a biannual experiment every year. And he said, it's called daylight savings. What's wild is that he found, the study found that... All 365 days of the year, if you look at the statistics on heart attacks, every day there is a consistent average number of heart attacks that happen in a day. It's pretty steady. But on the two days of daylight savings, so of course there's where you lose an hour and where you gain an hour. So on the day where you lose an hour, the heart attacks go up. on that one single day by 24%. Isn't that crazy? And then on the day where you gain an hour of sleep, the heart attacks, the number of heart attacks decrease by 21%. I just thought that's insane, the importance of sleep in our lives. So getting good restorative sleep is so crucial. So whether you need to get to bed at a decent time, or you need to wake up at the same time every day, if that's even possible for you, but getting good sleep is important. Now, obviously I'm a mom and I've got a newborn. My nights are very unpredictable. And so that's something that I can't necessarily control right now. And so I got to ride that out. Also getting good nutrition, nourishing my body, making sure that I'm getting a lot of protein and good, healthy fats, because those are really helpful in, you know, energy and giving your brain what it needs to be sharp you know and so i make sure that i have i have a protein packed smoothie or i have eggs i don't want to just eat carbs all day long if i'm eating sugar if i'm eating carbs i am just spiking and elevating my blood sugar and then i'm running on adrenaline in that way as well and so just limiting sugar and nourishing my body is also key. Hormones. Can't really control that right now, but you may be able to. There's a lot of pathways and avenues and people that you can seek out to try and balance your hormones. Maybe you get a hormone panel and you figure out what's going on there and figure out where your adrenals, how your adrenals look. Maybe you've got an underlying thyroid issue or something. I'm no holistic doctor, but I wonder if there could be something underlying there that could lead lead to some anxious thinking or some anxiety. Also isolation. We talked about this briefly, but if you are alone a lot, that has got to change. If you can, if you can control it to find, find whether that be a church, get plugged into a small group, find, you know, friends and do life with them, you know, uh, do whatever you can to not be isolated all the time. You know, getting out, being around other people and having a support system, telling other people that you're dealing with anxiety and not struggling alone with it. And then finally, I think, I don't know how much we can control triggers, but I think what we can control is Googling. I was talking to my mentor about my anxiety and one thing she said that was really true that I hadn't thought of was she said, we were not meant to have all knowledge at our fingertips. We were not meant to have immediate access to infinite information. It's not healthy for us. She said, so as much as you possibly can, don't Google everything you think about. Don't Google all your symptoms as best that you can. because that's what caused me to spiral last week. I didn't even know about this one condition, and then I Googled it, and then all of a sudden I'm freaking out about it, and that was what caused me to spiral that day. And so can you control your triggers? Maybe, maybe not, but you can for sure control what you're thinking about as far as what you're Googling and that sort of thing. You know what I mean? And so those are sort of the practical things that I think that you could start with. But also, along with the isolation piece, talk to other people. Talk to people about it. Because you may know somebody who struggles with it and they're not open about it. But once you find out, you guys can talk about, okay, well, maybe you can work on it together. Maybe they have tried something that's worked for them that could work for you. But don't go at it alone. So now what I want to do is I want to talk about sort of the spiritual aspect of it and what tools and things that you can do in the midst of it that can really help and that give you something to cling to when you're in the midst of having either a panic attack or you're having just a day of really hard anxiety or paranoia, or even just a week where you're really struggling, what I lean on. So this is obvious, but I think that it's overlooked. Scripture and repeating scripture out loud is extremely difficult. helpful. In fact, it's my go-to thing. When I'm having a day where I am in the thick of it and all that's sitting in my mind is anxious thoughts, I essentially have to, like the Bible says, take that thought captive and honestly just replace it. If I'm just repeatedly saying, You have not given me a spirit of fear, but of power and love and self-control. You've not given me a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and self-control. If I repeat, don't be anxious about anything, but in everything through prayer and thanksgiving, present your request to God and the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. If I'm repeating these things, my peace I give to you, my peace I leave with you. I do not give as the world gives. Those sort of scriptures, if you have them memorized, if you can work to have them memorized, or if you can write them on your hand, get a tattoo, get a temporary tattoo, what I mean. Put a big old fat poster on your wall, a sticky note, wherever you're sitting, if you're working, whatever. Keep them right in front of your face. Keep them at top of mind. And they are helpful, of course, but supernaturally, the Spirit of God, can work to give us peace, that does pass all understanding and can give us a sense of warmth and joy and relaxation to settle in Him and His truth. So that's something that can't be overlooked. Also, prayer, of course. Praying instead of worrying is... Another thing that I do, I will just genuinely eat. Sometimes on the hard days, I'm just saying, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. And then on not so hard days or whatever, I'm maybe actually praying full out prayers. And I'm just asking for God to help me through it and for him to comfort me through it and for him to give me wisdom and right thinking and a sober mind. I'm just praying and you can't be... worrying or you can't have anxiety while you're praying at the same time. And with that, I want to also share a piece of wisdom from my mentor. I can't believe I'd never heard of this. Genuinely. I just never had heard of it before, but it, I love it. And I took it and I ran with it. And so I want to pass it on to you. We do Marco Polo. Have you guys ever used Marco Polo? Love it. But I was sharing with her my struggles with anxiety. And she came back with a video. And her son is a pastor in St. Louis, a good family friend of ours. And he told her, and so she passed it along to me. He told her, you know, you can't worry while worshiping. And it was like a poof. It's true. It's true. You cannot worry while you're worshiping. And so I, like I said, when I say I took it and ran with it that day, I immediately implemented it. The second that I caught myself worrying about something, I just started to sing worship. She said, you could sing a worship song that you've been liking, that you've been going to. So maybe that's Stillwater's Psalm 23 song. Well, that's not technically a worship song. That's just scripture. But a worship song, a song that is, worshipful to God. She was like, or you can just read a worshipful Psalm. And so that's what I, that's what I started to do. And it was, it was so practically helpful, but it gave my soul something to cling to when I was in distress. I just started to sing and worship and open my hands, even though, you know, like in the hard fought hallelujah song where he's like, I don't always feel it, but that's when I need it the most. And so when you have anxiety and you're struggling with it and you're in a really hard day where everything physically feels off, your thought patterns are off, your heart is racing, you almost feel shaky and you don't feel like you have control over anything. You do have control over what you think about and You do. In a sense that you can, in that moment, what you can do is you can worship. You can pray. You can say scripture out loud. And so by doing that, you're renewing your mind. By doing that, you are replacing unhealthy thought patterns with healthy thought patterns, with God's word, with the truth of God. And so... Don't feed your anxiety. Starve it, right? Starve it out with the practical tips that I shared with you. Starve it out through scripture. Starve it out through prayer. Starve it out through worshiping. Starve it out through recognizing that there's nowhere safer to be than at the center of God's will. Starve it out with the truth of God's word and that he is good and that he knows best. So don't feed it. And so that's the next aspect of what I want to talk to you about is you, you could be causing yourself to have anxiety with things that are within your control. And I want to talk through a few of those things right now. So you could be, of course, drinking tons of caffeine. You know, these are all things that we've already talked about, right? The sleep and the caffeine and not eating good and the what are you consuming? Right? So, cause what we think about is a lot of what we're looking at. I just posted on social media, you become what you behold. So you think about what you behold, you think about what you're looking at, what you're watching, what you're consuming, what you're taking in. So do you listen to a lot of true crime? Um, Do you scroll TikTok and every six videos, there's some viral news story about some war or about something terrible that's happened? Are you sitting in sin, unrepentant sin? Are you struggling with idols in your life? Because I have found that... My anxiety stems from, you know, if you dig down completely down to the root of it, it's an idol. It's an idol of whatever it is that I'm worrying about. And so, for example, my kids, I have really tight fists on them. You know, I don't want to release them. I don't want to surrender and open my hands and say they are yours because it terrifies me. But that reveals an underlying belief that I don't think that God is good, that I don't believe that his will is the safest place to be, that I don't think that he has what's best in mind. And what it reveals is a sense of control, but also it reveals that I love them more than I love him. And that's something that I think most moms, most parents would have to wrestle with and lay on the altar every day. I don't think that's going to be a one and done idol. I think that there are some one and done idols where we're like, nah, the Lord's redeemed that aspect of my story and I don't struggle with that at all. But I think that the good things, the good things that can become idols are even harder to lay on the altar because it's tension. You're working through... How do I love this in a godly way? Because it's a blessing and a gift from the Lord. But how do I not love the gift more than the giver? How do I not love creation more than the creator? Right? And I think that's the tension that we just as Christians will wrestle with until we are, you know, in the glory of the Lord. So that, you know, when good things become idols, I think those are almost harder than when sin can become an idol. So do you have idols in your life? Do you have sin in your life? Do you just constantly consume crap? But because if you're replacing the crap with what is good and right and true and pure and honorable and praiseworthy, you're probably just going to see a genuine, you're probably going to see just a natural increase in healthy thought processes. Does that make sense? And so I just want to leave you with just this idea that we already live in a world where that is going to promote anxiety. We just do with the amount of technology at our fingertips, with a little phone or a computer in our hands, access to all the information, all the news, all the bad stories. It's all over the place. So we're already just almost in a way being set up to fail, set up to have anxiety. And so we have to really Actively work against it. Actively starve it out. Actively pursue peace. We have to be intentional. If it's something that you struggle or that you wrestle with, you're not going to be able to just sort of sit around aimlessly and hope that it goes away, right? You're going to have to be active and intentional and work to... to bring it under control. And whether that means that you are doing all the different things that have helped me, whether that be support, a community, a church, whether that means repentance, whether that means scripture memory and prayer or just cutting out caffeine, whatever it may be, or whether that's getting on medication, right? But to conclude, I don't think that we can end this episode without just reminding... I can't end this episode without reminding you of the hope of the gospel. That one day there will be no more anxiety. That God has a plan. What Satan meant for evil, he will use for good. That... He works all things together for our good and His glory. That the peace He gives us isn't as the world gives. That He does give supernatural peace. That His will is the safest place to be. That He is kind. That He is trustworthy. That He is faithful and good. He is. And I've seen that time and time again play out in my life. And it will be true in yours. It has to be because that's who he is. He is good. He is trustworthy. He is faithful. So you have to remind yourself of that. Renew your mind of that truth when you're in the thick of anxiety. Jesus died. for our sins, but he also died to redeem our stories and to restore us into not only a right relationship with God, but also right thinking because he's good and he's kind, right? He restores all things. He redeems all things for good. And I hope that encourages you today, even if you're really feeling like all hope is lost. It is not. You are not crazy. You are not alone. but you do have control over what you think about to an extent. And there are resources and there are tools to help you. And I pray, I genuinely pray that this podcast has helped you. And if you know somebody with anxiety, please share it with them. I hope that it encourages you. If you found anything that resonated with you, let me know, leave a review, share it with a friend. I love you all. And I will catch you in next week's episode.