Weighed Down

Anxiety is a way that I struggle mentally and one that I have had to be proactive in fighting my whole life. Since March, COVID has caused my anxiety to be harder to cope with. My anxiety seems to come about more often and cloud my judgment more daily. I am not afraid of getting the virus. Getting COVID is not the anxiety I have swarming in my mind. Some days I feel my anxiety attempting to claw its way back into my mind and life overall. One day I am fine practicing healthy coping mechanisms with my stress and the very next day I could be overwhelmed and panicked.

I have come to find the following is true about anxiety:

Anxiety has a tendency to waste our time.

It wastes our time on things not so important and many of the anxious thoughts we have will never end up happening how we worried they would. I have never hidden my struggle with anxiety from you. I have tried my best to be vulnerable and honest about the anxiety I struggle with on a daily basis. Although anxiety does not always feel the same one day as the next, the aching thoughts of worry are always there in the back of my mind begging my soul to believe lies; lies that I need to worry about things I have no reason to worry about and have no control over. These lies waste my time.

Anxiety has a tendency to steal our rest.

Falling asleep is much harder when anxiety decides to say hello as soon as you lay your phone down for the night. All the things unfinished from the day come into mind and it becomes almost impossible to quiet the worry of forgetting to do that list you have for the morning before work. This worry begins to control you into not being able to sleep until you just finish the list now, causing a later bed time than you should. Results include a shortened night of rest and a higher vulnerability to being anxious the next day. This is only one of the many ways anxiety inhibits and steals your rest.

Anxiety kills your joy.

I cannot tell you how many times I was in the midst of a very fun time with a friend or family member when my anxiety took over me and ruined the joy I had in that moment. Instead of enjoying the laughter, the smiles, and the memories, my mind was elsewhere. Thoughts of what I need to do when I get home that night begin to swarm my mind. I may even think “did I ever do that thing I was supposed to do before leaving my house”. Anxiety likes to avert my attention off of the joy in life and onto things that will control me and trap me in a state of stress and anxiety instead of joy and peace.

Ultimately, anxiety is the thief of peace. Anxiety causes someone to waste time, lose rest, kill their joy, and ultimately lose peace. In a time filled with so many people who are anxious, struggling mentally to keep their head up and see the light at the end of this tunnel known as 2020, I want to encourage you with some ways I have found helpful in my recent years of truly taking charge of my mental health.

Cope with your anxiety in three steps:

1. Give. God. Your. Worries.

This step is first because without it any attempts to cope with anxiety are null and void. This step is also more easily said than done. When I am anxious, there is hopelessness as I sit in anxiety and the worry I feel but when I decide to give it to God there is a weight lifted off my shoulder which allows me to make the most of my time, get sufficient rest, and be joyful in my days. Giving God your worries could be done in many different ways. My way of giving my worries to God is through prayer. I call it the worry wall tactic.

When I am overwhelmed to the point where my mind and body are not able to rest, I begin to write down on a notecard the worries on my mind. As I write a worry I have whether it be a job, school, friend, family member, anything big and small I pray about it. At the end of the prayer for each worry, I physically say “God I give this ________ to you for you to carry for me as your hands are most capable”. It sounds ritualistic but it’s a way of reminding myself out loud that it is not my burden to carry when I lay it at the feet of my Heavenly Father. The worries I have were never in my control, to begin with.

Anxiety lies to you and tells you it is your responsibility to take care of and handle it when it is actually in God’s hands all along. When coping with anxiety one must hand over the worries to God as they are not ours to handle but His to carry. Once my notecard is filled with the worries on my mind it gets taped to my wall as a visual reorientation that those worries are no longer mine but God’s to deal with how He pleases. Whether it is a simple prayer or active symbol, the first step to coping with anxiety is to “Give. God. Your. Worries.”.

2. Surround yourself with positive forces.

Something that was difficult for me during the pandemic is the complete negativity all over social media. Social media, in the past, has been uplifting for me and encouraging. It is uplifting to laugh at videos and share the joy of life happenings in my friends' lives but encouraging to see those in my feed share encouraging posts. During COVID, however, my feed became very negative. It was affecting my overall mental health as I just scrolled past one after another after another negative and/or hateful post. It got to the point I went through my Instagram account and cleansed it from people that were only posting negative things. I decided enough was enough, this was not about disagreement but about my mental health suffering due to my community becoming so toxic and negative.

Almost immediately, I felt this sense of relief as I scrolled through my feed. There were people I hadn’t seen post in so long because I was only seeing all these other people post so negatively. The cleansing of my account proved to me how much my community had affected me. I was seeing so many uplifting posts now that I was shocked. I had overlooked the people I had that are posting positively because the negativity was drowning the positivity.

The best community for a person with anxiety is one that understands, comforts, protects and pushes to be better every day. You must have positive forces around you who will comfort you when your down or anxious. In the midst of any season of life, it is necessary to have positive forces around you whether that be accountability, friends, or family.

3. BREATHE

Nothing will ever compare to when you decide to take a moment to be still in God’s presence. Doing this every day is hard to achieve and an easy task to slip out of but when done it is more than worth it. I found on the days I stop for a moment to sit still, I have better days and better rest at night. A moment of stillness in God’s presence realigns your perspective to one that sees your situation in the lens of God’s all-powerful and loving nature.

It is so easy in the busy culture we live in to be running around trying to do everything that needs to be done without taking a moment to stop and “smell the roses”. I find myself guilty of this often. I am someone who only knows one speed, fast. I like to get a job done and done well. I am the person to overload my schedule to as many experiences as possible to “live my best life”. What college taught me most about myself is that I need to take more moments to sit back and breathe. I learned in my time in college that I needed to be still in God’s presence more just me and Him.

When I am busy and running around, it is easy to worry about the little and big things I have no control over or idea how they will be provided for. When I stop for a breather and sit still in God’s presence, I begin to see my worries in light of His grace, His all-powerful, and His loving character. It is in the silence I am reminded that God cares for me and all the little details I care so much about. He made me be attentive to detail and yet He is also there for me to cast my worries on BECAUSE He cares for me. It is truly amazing what truths we see when we stop and listen to His truth.

Now, taking a moment of silence or a breath means something different to everyone. To some, it is a face mask, a movie, a workout, or a coffee date with a friend. Ultimately, taking time to be still and breathe will not only deepen your relationship with your Heavenly Father; but, strengthen you mentally and emotionally. The better you care for yourself, the more energy you will have to serve, encourage and uplift others.