Imagine an embarrassing or traumatic moment in your life. How did you feel? Nervous? Afraid? Ashamed? Worried? Now think about experiencing these feelings without them being tied to a specific moment. This is anxiety. Anxiety can feel like a heavy nest on your head that feels impossible to shake off.
Growing up, I experienced normal feelings of anxiety. For example, the anxiety you might feel about the first day of school, making new friends, fitting in, etc. However, once I left high school my anxiousness skyrocketed more than ever and these feelings became more and more frequent.
From about the age of seventeen to my early twenties, anxiety weighed me down. It felt overwhelming, and I truly believed I would never be free of it.
I remember there would be times when my mind would just wander and wander for hours at a time and go into a place of darkness, fear, and worry. I would feel weighed down even to the point of feeling physically numb. My thoughts would range from possibly not being able to graduate, not having a real purpose, people not liking me, being too far from God, etc. These were my thoughts for the majority of my day. I had more anxious thoughts than peaceful ones and even when the peaceful ones came, they would only last for so long.
I’ll never forget my junior year, breaking down on the phone with my dad about an anatomy exam I was about to take. I didn’t take the test yet but I was just so nervous and anxious about it. I was confident that I was going to fail and have to take this class over again. My dad tried to reassure me and he would always say “pray your way through the day” but in my anxiousness prayer seemed too hard. Even after we got off the phone, I just sat there and cried because the thoughts were too much.
When I think about that time in my life, I wonder if the anxious thoughts and feelings I was dealing with could have been due to experiencing so many major life changes at the same time. At this time, I was entering adulthood, living on my own for the first time, and trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. There’s no denying that these changes could have contributed to a new state of mind but looking back I now realize that it was deeper than that.
When you look into the soul, you see that it’s made up of your mind, emotions, and will. Once my thoughts were tied, my emotions were tied, and then my will became tied. I never experienced thoughts of suicide, but I did experience losing the will to do anything with my life (if that makes sense). I believed the lie that the only time I would experience peace from my anxiety would be if I spent most of my time extremely busy or sleeping in. These were my ways of “escape” to not be alone with my mind.
Studies have shown that the young adults of this generation are more anxious than any other generation before. Thinking about these results naturally, it’s easy to say the reason for this is because of the “cares of life” – high student loan debt, unemployment, comparison, etc. These are real contributors to anxiety but I think the root of it is spiritual warfare.
The devil will always try to steal, kill, and destroy no matter what stage of life you are in, but I believe the enemy is especially after your mind when you are young. Youth is a time to not only figure out your purpose but also walk in it. How can we live purposefully and anxiously at the same time?
Over time I started to become sick with how anxiety left me feeling. I decided to push aside the shame and embarrassment I felt about my thoughts and ask for help. Choosing to reach out to trusted spiritual leaders helped me to realize that I wasn’t as weak as anxiety made me feel. These conversations reminded me of who I was (a child of God), and they encouraged me to know that I wasn’t alone. At this time I learned that simply speaking to someone and getting counsel helped me confront anxiety.
I understand that not everyone is comfortable with speaking to others about their struggles because they are afraid to trust others with their pain. I think also in certain cultures/communities anxiety is not taken as seriously as it should be and it’s seen as something that you just “get over”.In these situations, it’s always important to remember that you can trust Jesus with your anxiety. He knows you better than you or anyone else knows you. Even after speaking to people I trusted about the anxiety, I still had to personally wrestle for my freedom in a lot of prayer, scripture memorization and fasting.
Letting go of anxiety is a process. Especially if you’ve carried it around for so long. It takes time to heal your mind, and for me, it didn’t happen overnight. I had to learn that just because I have anxious thoughts, that doesn’t mean I am an anxious person.
I would never want to give anyone the idea that today I don’t deal with anxiety. This would be a lie and make me a hypocrite. I’ve wrestled with anxiety even in creating this site. If I think deeply about it, I find myself getting nervous and I’m tempted to take the site down altogether. Will anyone read the blog? Do people think I’m trying to make a name for myself? Are people saying mean things about me? Is this weird? ..and the list goes on. I have to remind myself that I run anxiety (away), anxiety does not run me.
I’ve learned to stay more vigilant about what runs across my mind and how long it stays there. I remember my pastor mentioning one time that “if we can wake up feeling sad, why can’t we wake up feeling happy.” You don’t have to sit on your bed for an hour thinking about everything that can go wrong. If your struggling to think about what could go right, you can focus on who God is instead, because He never changes. Anxious thoughts will come but they don’t have to stay.
The scriptures below have helped me through anxious times:
- “When my anxious thoughts multiply within me, Your comforts delight me.” -Psalms 94:19 AMP
- “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” 2 Timothy 1:7 KJV
- “…I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one.” -1 John 2:14 KJV
Please feel free to share your thoughts on how you combat anxiety.
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