How can we become mentally strong surrounded by so much stress? And is anxiety a choice? We’ll discuss this and explore our toughest thoughts, fears, and obstacles that are interfering with the abundant life that God created us to live.
In this post:
I want you to know that if you struggle with this, you aren’t weak and you’re certainly not alone. I struggle too… Did you know that anxiety is the most common mental disorder in the U.S., affecting 40 million adults?
Anxiety by medical definition is an abnormal and overwhelming sense of apprehension and fear often marked by physical signs (such as tension, sweating, and increased pulse rate), by doubt concerning the reality and nature of the threat, and by self-doubt about one’s capacity to cope with it. This can lead to panic attacks, missing out on life events, and sucking the joy out of your life.
Everyone experiences stress but it’s how we deal with it that matters. You may have very good reason to be stressed and anxious but it certainly isn’t from the Lord and we don’t have to live there in that state. I know God doesn’t want us to live in distress and fear but to have joy, hope, and peace.
We can either let the stress produce debilitating anxiety in our lives or we can see it as an opportunity to be mentally strong. Risk factors can come from growing up around people who battled anxiety, past trauma, past or current addictions, low self-esteem, etc.
Is Anxiety a Choice?
Whatever we find our reasoning may be behind the thought(s) causing us stress and anxiety, worry seems to be the root of anxiety. Worry invades our thoughts and minds. We must recognize that worrying is an action on our part and a willful choice. We can choose to control our thoughts and stop worrying.
I first must say that to experience peace of mind, the first step is having a relationship with Christ. That might be controversial to say to nonbelievers but obviously, this is a Christian blog and y’all know what I believe!
Believers know what I’m talking about when you know Jesus, you gain a peace that you never knew before that surpasses all understanding. A peace that’ll keep you grounded in the midst of all life’s storms.
If you’ve never experienced this peace before from gaining a relationship with Christ, you can do that by visiting here where I wrote about “How to Become a Christian”. Or you can check it out for curiosity’s sake and make the decision when you’re more comfortable.
The Bible says “Don’t be anxious”, and “Fear not”, more than 365 times for a reason. We all need the reminder multiple times every day throughout the year. I struggle with worrying about all kinds of things and have felt the physical effects of anxiety. God wants us to live a joyful and abundant life and gave us scripture to help us.
My Story
Recently I was feeling anxious about having my second child. I had felt worry, apprehension, and alarm before but nothing like this.
As I neared my second baby girl’s birth, I experienced the physical effects of an increased pulse rate and trouble catching my breath randomly while thinking about how to cope with the pain.
It felt like nothing helped and I kept having random panic freak-out moments or possibly anxiety attacks. Childbirth hurts y’all and complications sometimes arise and my mind drifted off to worry about it all. I kept praying for the Lord to calm my nerves, and give me peace, and I sought out things to listen to help calm me down and redirect my thoughts.
What finally helped after loads of prayer was listening to encouraging scripture and birth affirmations via the app “ChristianHypnobirthing” which I highly recommend. I also heard some advice to research what scares you the most and tackle that specific fear head-on.
I found that fear of the unknown can be crippling and knowledge can turn into power. In my case, it helped tremendously.
After I had her, I realized all that time I spent worrying was for nothing and only harmed me… I was so thankful the Lord led me to different tools to help me conquer the anxiety and have a successful childbirth, (more detail on this below).
Dig Deep
I believe it’s important to dig deep to see what’s causing the worry, fear, or anxiety but we must also learn to replace the worry with truth. Truth as in the Bible to find encouragement and lift our prayers to the Lord. Doing this and following the leading of the Holy Spirit will in turn produce good fruit in our lives. We will have hope in place of fear and peace instead of distress during even the most stress-inducing times.
For example, when I went to the Lord with my recent anxiety, He provided resources (ChristianHypnobirthing) that helped me slow my breathing and calm me down when I was about to spiral. I kept this tool in my back pocket, literally, and used it immediately when I felt the anxiety coming on. The Christian birthing affirmations and scriptures through this app helped me overcome my anxiety and gave me confidence.
We must first recognize where the stress and anxiety are coming from. I knew exactly where mine was coming from already but here are 5 questions that might help you unpack your thoughts. You can jot down your answers for reference later if you want:
- What is the thought I have?
- What is the circumstance behind the thought?
- What is the belief behind the thought?
- What emotions are connected to that?
- What is keeping me from being mentally strong with this thought?
Once you find out the source of your anxiety, you can smile because you’re halfway to resolution. You may laugh and think I’m a goof but I listened to some Zig Ziglar positive talks he gave years ago while I was dealing with anxiety.
One thing that stood out that he said was to jot down your goal and the associated obstacles keeping you from that goal. Then write what people and resources might help. Lastly, jot down the positive outcomes you desire.
After I used this Zig Ziglar approach, I gained confidence because I listed out my major fears and tackled them one by one. This process of making a goal map could help you too. Below, I created a goal map for you that can be used for creating plans to achieve any goal, whether it’s personal or professional. No, you don’t have to sign up for anything and it’s free to download and share with your friends, so just click below.
However you go about trying to conquer your anxiety, it’s crucial to pray for God’s peace and guidance. I encourage you to also look to scripture as your source of peace.
Searching scriptures about worry, peace, or fear, for example, can bring comfort in the heat of the moment when memorized. Then you could write down or save some favorites somewhere you can see and let the Word heal and strengthen you because it is that powerful! I know it helped me to memorize and post on my mirror some positive birth affirmations as shown below. It gave me confidence in place of extreme worry.
Outside Help
It’s okay to get help. Letting others know you’re struggling can help if they’re a trusted source. The Lord can use others to not only pray for you but give wisdom and clarity that you might not otherwise have on your own. Christian counseling might also need to be in order.
There’s no shame in getting help. I’ve gotten help with the aid of Christian counselors before and it has helped and is sometimes very much needed depending on the situation. Remember to always weigh in and make sure they don’t advise you to do anything outside of the will of the Lord that doesn’t line up with scripture. If they do, go somewhere else.
Take Care of Your Bod!
I’m no expert here but I did study the human body in college and continue to. Regardless, I’d suggest making sure you’re taking care of your body, the temple of the Holy Spirit which comes from the scripture shown below. When your body and the microbiome in your gut are out of wack and malnourished, it can send emotional stress signals throughout your body as well.
“Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body.”
Depression and anxiety can get worse because your gut is not in a healthy state. Probiotics, kombucha, & detox teas are popular as of late because they help restore the microbiome structure of our gut with good bacteria that we need to thrive. Getting plenty of rest, and water, and focusing on nourishing foods will help us be in optimal physical health to conquer anxiety.
Many turn to junk food or sweets when they get stressed and “eat their feelings”. I’d love to do this as much as the next person but it will only lead to further stress and depression when the effects of eating the junk affect your health, budget, and pant size.
It’s amazing how much better you feel when you buy and cook healthy foods without all the added junk. As a general rule of thumb, if the ingredient list is long on a food item, you can bet it’s got some junk in there.
The closer you can get to eating whole, fresh, organic foods, the better. I’m literally on a diet right now of meat, vegetables, some gluten-free grains, and fruits for health reasons. My pregnancy weight just fell right off quickly. I feel great despite being postpartum when hormones tend to get crazy from balancing back out after the baby is born.
Retrain Your Brain
Interesting fact, in Caroline Leaf’s “Switch On Your Brain” it’s been found that 12 minutes of daily focused prayer over an 8-week period can change the brain to such an extent that it can be seen on a brain scan”. There really is something to be said about the scientific correlation between prayer and the brain.
The Lord equips us with tools in the Bible to help us by renewing our minds by having thankful hearts, dwelling on the good things, and further instructing us as Christians to put on the full armor of God. The rest of this world is stressed out beyond belief at a very young age and on all sorts of medications. Sometimes it may be warranted but we have to ask ourselves why is this so prevalent in the world… How can we separate ourselves from the world and do things differently?
“Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.” Romans 12:2
A few months ago, the Lord was pointing me to Ann Voskamp again when I came across her in an interview. I don’t know if you know her story but she saw her sister die a tragic death as a young girl and went through a lot of other things. She had ulcers by the age of 7 and began cutting herself as she got a little older. She dealt with agoraphobia, fear, and anxiety. More on her story in an interview here on YouTube.
Her book “A Thousand Gifts” was born out of a dare from her friend to write 1,000 things she was grateful for. She learned through this process of slowing down, opening her eyes to things that bring her joy, and jotting those things down, changed the trajectory of her life.
She still to this day wakes up, has some scripture out, and writes in her gratitude journal. Ann believes that when you are working your memory muscle of gratitude, your soul remembers in crisis. Thanksgiving is a declaration that God is good no matter what happens.
“Our greatest weapon against hopelessness is gratefulness.” -Ann Voskamp
Zig Ziglar is big on renewing the mind as well with a similar approach. His strategies are still popular to this day for a reason. He has helped many people retrain their brains to think positively instead of having stinkin’ thinkin’. Both Zig and Ann have helped me get through some recent difficult times.
I got through a lot of stinkin’ thinkin’ by memorizing Philippians 4:8. A bad thought would come to mind and I would replace/redirect it to whatever is true, lovely, and worthy of praise. At first, I would recite the verse but the better I got, I could think about good things going on to replace the bad. Do you know what happened? I would feel peace just like the verse said I would.
“And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me—everything you heard from me and saw me doing. Then the God of peace will be with you.” Philippians 4:8-9
Just before this, we are encouraged to not worry but pray about everything instead (in verses 6 & 7), thank Him for all He has done, and God will give us peace that guards our hearts and minds. But they take it a step further by helping us in our mental game by training our thoughts to think about what? The positive, lovely things of life.
“Pray and let God worry.” -Martin Luther
Spiritual Warfare
“A final word: Be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power. Put on all of God’s armor so that you will be able to stand firm against all strategies of the devil. For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places.” Ephesians 6:10-12
The armor of God is how we fight our battles. Every day we can see things as struggles or we can see them as opportunities and blessings. We can see people causing problems as enemies or we can see their struggle. When we’re properly “armored” with a strong biblical perspective, we’ll see things the way we should. Lord, please give us Your eyes to see things from Your perspective.
The Armor of God:
- Helmet of salvation (our identity in Christ as a son or daughter of the Most High)
- Body Armor of God’s righteousness
- Belt of truth
- Shoes of peace that come from the gospel
- Shield of faith
- Sword of the Spirit (knowing the truth and applying it accordingly!)
We must realize our family members, friends, spouses, coworkers, circumstances, etc. are not our enemy. God has equipped us to fight the enemy’s attacks by putting on the armor of God (figuratively of course). The Bible has all that we need to learn how to fight the right way with the right tools and know who is truly behind things working to destroy us, our relationships, and our self-esteem.
The Bottom Line
I pray that you will be able to dig deep to find the source of your anxiety and fight hard to find hope and peace in the midst of your battles mentally and otherwise. We’ve discussed a variety of ways to combat anxiety and be mentally strong in general above. You don’t have to currently be struggling with something to start better habits. These better habits will help your soul find rest and even joy when troubles come as you prepare yourself.
Whether you choose to start a gratitude journal, write out your goal to overcome your specific anxiety and what obstacles stand in your way, memorize encouraging scriptures, listen to positive Christian affirmations, etc. make sure you’re going to the Lord for guidance first. Years ago, I took on a challenge to listen to uplifting Christian music daily. I ended up discovering just how toxic the music I had been listening to was and was in turn affecting me in a very negative way.
Give yourself grace because you’ve had years of the mental habits you’ve formed that have become learned behavior so it may take patience and persistence to chip away at it. But I think you’ll be surprised rather quickly how making some small changes makes a big difference mentally and emotionally in your life for the better.
Remember that God truly cares for you and that He’s right by you walking through life with you. You aren’t alone. If you need someone to pray for you but don’t have anyone, you can always reach out to me with a confidential prayer request. I’d be glad to pray for you and stand with you. You might also need to seek help from a medical professional such as a licensed Christian counselor.
When you don’t see a way out, know that there is and what you’re going through is temporary. It hasn’t taken God by surprise and He’s already working on your behalf. Don’t give up, don’t lose hope. Keep believing and fighting for what is right and true, and God will see you through. God can always be our strength when we’re falling apart but we have to let Him in and call out to Him for help. He will be faithful to respond and take care of us, pointing us to the help that we need.
“Give all your worries and cares to God, for He cares about you.” 1 Peter 5:7
A Prayer For You
Lord, I need Your help. I know what I’m going through hasn’t taken You by surprise and thank You that You’re already working and providing a way out of it. Please give me the strength, peace, clarity, and all the tools I need to be mentally strong and make wise decisions. Help me to replace my anxious thoughts with a quiet confidence in You and Your ability to see me through. In Jesus’ name, I pray, amen.
Stay hopeful!
Next Post in Series:
Is It Okay to Not Be Okay? Becoming Mentally Strong Part 2
Part 3 Building a Stronger Relationship with God: Moving from Trust to Confidence in the Lord