I Learned How to Stop Being Anxious (Though I Often Forget This Lesson)

As a young teen, I was voted Most Happy-Go-Lucky in school (but not Most Brainy or Most Likely-to-Succeed – those titles went elsewhere). It was natural for me to notice bright, happy things back then. But by the end of my teens, I realized that the sky does fall sometimes, people are awful sometimes, and wrongs are not always made right on this Earth.

That’s when I began to struggle with occasional anxiety, as so many do – perhaps the roughly half of us who don’t struggle with depression). It’s enough of a common struggle, that “anxious thoughts” are mentioned even in ancient writings, such as, “Be not anxious for anything.” These words are pivotal to my story’s ending.

My husband no doubt married the happy, bubbly, carefree girl, and God bless him for sticking through the years when I was less that girl, and more of an anxious, stressed-out, sometimes angry one. My tendency, when stressed, is to fight, not to flight.

Still, even though I’d have occasional moments, I was able to self-regulate and keep a pretty good perspective on things, as is normal. Circumstances beyond my control piled up over the past few years, while the collective world’s sky fell. Along with so many of you, these events were enough to send my fears and anxiety (which is also fear) through the roof. I probably would have been okay, but it (the fears and the series of unfortunate events) kept accumulating.

I’m here today to share what I did, in the hopes that it will help someone else.

There I was, anxiously going bonkers one day last Spring, in a situation where I was “a stranger in a foreign land,” all alone, scared, and in the middle of adversity. The devil knows how to get to me, and did he ever! A blood vessel in my eye burst, any joint that has arthritic tendencies became painful and inflamed (ie. old wounds bothered me again), my heart beat irregularly, I kept sighing, and then – I got very ill. Our bodies sure do break down when we’re super stressed! I was also hundreds of miles away from my family.

Amid the body-breaking-down experience, and before I completely lost my marbles, I learned how to stop anxious thoughts before they continued to permeate my mind and become more physically disabling (that sounds so dramatic, but we all know worry does just that).

While I was in the Pit of Despair (said as dramatically as said in The Princess Bride), I read my Bible. Turning the pages, I found a verse I’d highlighted years ago:

"Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God." (Philippians 4:6) 

I’ve read that many times, but this time, I noticed we’re given instructions:

1. Pray
2. Supplicate (I looked it up – it means “humbly plead”)
3. Thank

The next verse says what will happen if we follow those instructions:

And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

Yes! Peace that guards my heart and mind is exactly what I want to have!

I decided to take the verse as a promise, so began to follow the instructions. Since I was “beyond myself,” as we say in the South, I could only come up with “I pray for peace. I plead for peace. I thank You for Your promise of peace.”

Every moment an anxious thought came to mind (which at first was all-the-moments), I’d say aloud or silently, “I pray for peace. I plead for peace. Thank You for Your promise of peace.”

It took a couple of days of simplicity to reach a point where I was ready for a different line. Now, my pray-plead-thank is longer and deeper. But there are occasional moments when the old anxiety comes back in force and I say the simplest lines again.

why would anxiety stop AFTER SUCH SIMPLE WORDS?

It seems too simple, doesn’t it? When we pray-plead-thank, we are giving our problems to our Creator. We’re letting Him “worry” over the issues. Does this mean we don’t have to do anything? Of course, we’ll still have action – but we’ll perform the actions out of a body that is well, respond with peaceful clarity, and think with a decluttered mind. Our actions will be better because they’re coming from a heart that is at peace. I have witnessed this in the past 9 months since the moment when I found (or, realized) those verses.

Here’s a story that also explains why it’s important to stop worrying:

In How to Stop Worrying, Dale Carnegie writes of a stressed out businessman who was told by doctors that he would die. He agreed with the doctors, as he felt like he was going to die, too.  So instead of dying in front of his family, the man said a tearful goodbye to them and left.  He packed a coffin on a cargo ship to China to accompany it until his death.  He gave the crew burial instructions. While at sea, the man waited to die.  At first, he waited in his room on the ship. As he didn't die in the first days, he went on deck to wait to die.  Soon, he was bored and began helping the crew. The dying man made it to China, not dead, and made it back to America, still not dead, where he walked off the ship as fit as a fiddle and surprised his family not only with his presence but also, with his renewed sense of purpose. What cured him? Sunshine and sea air helped, but what cured him, is that he stopped worrying about dying. He decided he'd never let worry cripple him again.

This is a vulnerable post for me, but I wanted to write it for the one reading who may need it.

God bless you,