anxiety management

Today, I have a special request from a podcast listener, Crystal from Mississippi, so thank you, Crystal, for providing this. With the war that's going on in Israel, she was asking for my insight on how we can conceptualize being mentally and spiritually and emotionally able to handle and process times of crisis.

Specifically, I think we need to start with what Crystal said she's already doing, which is praying. She's been in prayer for Israel and for the peace of Jerusalem. She's trusting in God and asking for Him to come into the situation and have His hand and His healing and His presence absolutely. First place you go, right? Well, maybe second, if you're in the attack, the first place you go is getting out of the attack so you can survive, so you can pray. And that's just how God made us. So, if there's time before there's something that happens that is fearful and there's time to pray, great. But if we think about what trauma does and the fight or flight response, the people who are actually on the ground there who have been affected, they may not have had time to think, okay, I'm going to pray now. Their spirits may have been praying, but they didn't have time for that conscious thought. In many cases, when crisis is imminent, survival becomes the first thing as that's what God put into our bodies. When we're alive, then guess what we can do? We can pray.

Survival and prayer would be the first two things. The thing about trauma, such as a crisis or war or the COVID pandemic, is that there's a lot of unknowns. There's a lot that is something we can't tell when it's over. We can't tell if something more is coming, if there's more danger, if there's more threat. So, it seems scarier because it's out of our realm of understanding because we've never been here before. It's something that we're not used to and that's a big "T" trauma. And the difference between a big "T" trauma and a little "t" trauma is not the amount of trauma that you have, but whether it is something that is a kind of big isolated, one-time kind of event like a war. I mean, even though it may go on and on, the fact that there was this attack is a big "T" trauma. It was like out of nowhere and overwhelmed everybody's system and everybody's in survival mode.

And now what do we do? Right? And as the rest of us in the world who aren't affected are listening into those who are affected by it and the news of what's going on there, we're going to have different perspectives. It's a lot different when you're in the midst of it and you're the one experiencing the crisis than it is for those a continent away. Now, that doesn't mean that we're not all traumatized, but the effects of the trauma and how to deal with it are different. So, for the people who are actually in the war zone, or the medical crisis is imminent, for when they're the ones who are in that pain point directly and the pain point is still going on, even if it's like a one-time attack, but the fallout is still there. We're not minimizing it but we're just saying like this is something that we can kind of put a finger to and say this is the problem. Like the COVID pandemic is the problem. There may have been lots of people who were hurt by it and lots of people who were affected from the ripple effects of it, but the people who were suffering with it in the midst of it, they were the ones who were surviving it in that immediate moment.

The people in the war zones right now, for instance, are experiencing it in that immediate moment, and the best thing that you can do try to slow down your thoughts, your movements, your breaths and just gently, compassionately soothe yourself. Once you're in a safe place and able to survive, basically at that point it is hunkered down and continue surviving. Especially when the threat is still going on. It's too soon to heal from trauma when the threat is still there, the unknowns are still there, the fight or flight is still there, and you're still in survival mode. So, at that point, the best that you can do is hunker down with the basics of taking care, of trying to make sure your basic needs are met, that your loved ones' basic needs are met, and that you just at this point survive. Try to get to water. Try to take slow, deep breaths. Try to focus on something physically comforting in your present space. If there's anything like that, get to shelter if possible. If you can eat, try to have something to eat that can settle your stomach. Just go back to the basics of your physical body. There will be a time where you will know that the threat is passed, but it may not be immediate. And that's okay. It's not okay that you're going through that, and I'm so sorry that you are, but it's okay that you don't have to have it figured out.

You don't have to know your next steps. In fact, you can't, because your brain can't even fathom what has happened. It hasn't made meaning of the story because you're still in survival mode. All you need to do at this point is give yourself grace and compassion and do the next thing that you need to for your physical body to survive. We mentioned prayer as well, also being able to ground yourself in the present moment and your present location. If you are safe recognizing, okay, for this moment, I am just focusing on where I am right now, or I'm just focusing on these words, I'm saying them over and over again in prayer. If that brings you comfort or stroking a stone or something that you can just hold on to and caress it over and over, anything like that can be helpful. So survival first!

Then the next thing is for those who are coming out of something tragic, is to not judge it, not put a time frame on it for recovery, not put a time frame on it or a judgment on it for what it should look like or how it should be handled. There's no rulebook when things that are out of the ordinary happen. It's not like, okay, you should be past something at this point, at this mile marker of loss here. You should be over it by this month or this many days out-that's individual. To try to put pressure on yourself or anybody else for not healing or getting back to normal according to a timeline is absolutely unhelpful.

It's a lot better to just be present for those if you're walking alongside people who are going through the battle, whether that's a physical bombing type of battle, an emotional battle, a relationship battle, medical battle, financial battle, whatever it is, if you're walking alongside somebody, just be present. Meet their basic needs, pray for them. Don't try to throw in anything amazing to say. You don't have to fix it or make it better. There's nothing you can do to fix it or make it better, so just take the pressure off of yourself and just sit with them. Meet their basic needs, hold them or don't if they don't want that, give them space if they need it, but be available, provide them with resources. Provide financially or food or whatever you can if you're not the one in the circle of the crisis at that moment. And that can be helpful too, to feel like you're doing something.

Now, for those of us across the world from, for instance, the stuff going on in the Middle East right now, we might have loved ones there, we might have just heard it on the news and care, right? Either way, the same things apply. If you have an ability to be part of the solution of providing for basic needs normalizing, providing comfort for physical needs, sending money to a reputable place, doing something that brings meaning and support and care, you will feel less powerless. Praying, donating, serving, comforting, letter writing, sitting with somebody who needs it, who's on the other side of the world.

Praying that you happen to know this, praying for someone who knows someone involved in something like a war or is having some sort of threat or trauma or danger in some other way. Taking action when you are not in the center of the trauma circle in that immediate moment may look like prayer. It may look like a financial donation. It may look like dropping off blankets or clothes. It may look like putting a sign in your front yard to support something. Doing something is better than nothing because it gives you a sense of agency. It's more traumatic to feel stuck and unable to do anything. So put some good out into the world and try to be there in whatever way is possible that you can.

Support doesn't mean being responsible for everything, and it doesn't mean trying to fix everything. It just means noticing what you have to give, noticing what other people have need of and prayerfully, considering what actions to take, and giving it all to the Lord and then showing up.

It starts with stabilizing. Whether you're in the battle or you're next to somebody in the battle or you're just hearing about the battle, whatever the trauma is, the steps are stabilizing after survival, making sure that the trauma isn't continuing or reoccurring. If it is, then it's not over yet. Trying to give skills for how to hunker in and deal with things if the battle is still going on. And that might mean doing the best you can in circumstances that are not ideal to meet basic needs, physical needs, safety needs, nutritional needs, comfort needs. Then once those acts of survival and physical being are certain, once the story has solidified and it's like, oh okay, I see what happened and now that danger is passed, we're no longer in survival mode, even if we feel like it.

Then it's a matter of getting some extra things like some therapy help or getting some trauma counseling, getting some ways to deal with the anxiety or seeing a doctor for medication if you're having trouble sleeping because of what you've been through or whatever. But those are not things for while you're in the middle of it. First is survival, second is stabilization, and then it's rebuilding.

If you're not in the circle, it's being somebody who can take action towards a positive result to help somebody who is in that circle will make you feel a lot less helpless and a lot safer or at least doing something. Understanding that we've had wars for a long time, there have been pandemics before for a long time, there have been atrocities before, doesn't minimize what anybody is going through at any given time. Pain is pain, hurt is hurt. War is war. Illness is illness.

It is all super unpleasant and not stuff of God, it's not the stuff of heaven, so we're not going to be able to understand it other than it's suffering. When we realize that what suffering needs is comfort and love and safety, we can provide that for ourselves, our loved ones, or those that we see who are affected. Taking that action helps us to survive the human spirit, to survive human beings, and to move on. The hurt may linger, but when you're in the middle of the crisis, it's not the time to figure out the next year of your life or the next ten years. You're still just where you are. Trying to figure out this next survival instinct or how to support the person who is in that survival place.

I hope that's helpful. It's. Taking the practical and being there, going back to basics, taking away judgment, taking away trying to understand in our own human understanding, trusting that God loves us, and He's there to be our comforter and an ever-present help in times of trouble. Praying for those we love and those we know are going through difficult stuff. So Crystal, thank you so much for sharing that. I really hope that that was helpful in some way.

I just want to pray right now, Lord, for the peace of Israel, Jerusalem, the Middle East, Lord, that You will work miracles of healing and help and wisdom, protection, salvation.

Thank you, Lord, in Jesus' name.

If you've ever wondered, why am I anxious? What's causing me to be anxious? I don't even know why I feel this anxious. Some of these things might be stuff you can trace back and find out that they contribute to it in some way. Obviously, you're not going to have a perfect answer that has the exact right proportions of what is causing any particular flavor of anxiety that you might experience, because there are many factors.

The factors can fall into some genetic predisposition. So just kind of in your biological makeup and wiring of having a physical human body, there can be some genetics that play into a higher opportunity. Let's say, for anxiety and given the right environment where there are stressors or trauma things that were not optimal, it might flip the switch and say, okay, you already had a predisposition genetically, and now the environment is turning the switch on, and now you struggle with it.

It also could be strictly your environment. It could be that you've had a traumatic experience. You've experienced something that felt unsafe, that felt life threatening, a situation that you felt trapped in, or that you couldn't get out of. It could be an emotional trauma. It could be a physical trauma. It could be like a car accident, or it could be verbal abuse, people calling you names, or bullying you experienced. It can be not having enough of what you needed. It can be being overly protected and now wondering how to stay safe. It can be based on environmental factors. So maybe there are things in your environment that are not optimal and they're causing stress and anxiety. It could be because there's a lack of something and you're concerned about being able to be safe and to have enough of what you need.

It can be physical symptoms, so it can be related to perhaps when you have a cold coming on or PMS or if you've been under a lot of stress. As far as physically, it can really just be something that is more likely to kind of be the straw that breaks the camel's back, so to speak. It sets it over the edge. And you might feel that for a certain time frame or season could be because of a medical condition. It could be because of the side effects of medications or the different symptoms from medical conditions.

So, there are all kinds of things that can cause anxiety as far as the underlying causes, but there's often not just one. It's often a perfect storm. It may be one, but it may be other things. And the problem with anxiety is that sometimes it breeds anxiety. So, it may have started off as one thing, like, let's say, childhood bullying, but then it might turn into something else, like being insecure of how you perform. And so there you can't perform in the school play. Well, it may have started with bullying, but then it might turn into insecurity and then anxiety about something else. Sometimes it can just change based on the situation, but the anxiety is still the same underlying thread of, will people hurt me or disapprove or am I going to be treated poorly? And that makes me anxious.

The messages that the anxiety situations send to you may be similar across different environments. So, for instance, if you're feeling like you're not good enough, you might start that way. Because maybe a parent compared you to a sibling or to a classmate and said, why can't you be more like them? Right? So then when you go out for the team and you didn't make it, that message stayed with you. See, I must not be good enough. I'm not good enough to be chosen. I have to perform a certain way or act a certain way or look a certain way. That underlying message can be what is the root of a lot of the negative self-talk and therefore the insecurity and then the fear of what that's going to cause and what might happen that might replicate that pain from the past, and that can set you on edge. So, it's something that can snowball in that way.

It can also snowball in that if you feel anxious, you're more likely to be alert for anything that could reinforce that anxiety because you want to prevent it from happening. So if I get concerned that I'm about to be bit by a dog because that happened in the past, then when I'm taking a walk through the neighborhood, if I see a dog, I might start walking on the other side of the road. Well, because I walked on the other side of the road, my mind might start going and go, oh, see, that dog is going to get me. And then maybe it's like, oh, if that dog's going to get me, maybe I should look on this side of the road. Maybe there's a dog here that's going to come out of nowhere. And then the next thing you know, you've stopped taking your neighborhood walks, or you're walking down the middle of the street and people are like, why isn't she walking on the sidewalk?

Or it just can snowball into, okay, if I feel that uneasy, then maybe it's true. Maybe the feelings are telling me there really is a threat. Even if there are no dogs in your neighborhood, or the dogs are all chained up, or they're all tame, or they all have fences around them, your logic goes offline when you are anxious, and therefore you might feel that there's a very real threat, even when the likelihood of that very real threat isn't found in reality. Sometimes just the awareness of being anxious and having your system kind of on high alert for, uh-oh, I'm anxious, that means trouble is coming. And then looking for trouble and continuing that anxious cycle. Oh, trouble must be coming because I feel it. Uh=oh, I feel it...trouble must be coming. It can be a vicious cycle.

So, we need to reign ourselves in and tell ourselves more helpful information. Such as, even though I feel afraid that I'm going to be bit by a dog, I know that there are no dogs on this street, so I can feel it and still take my walk, or even though I feel like there's a dog going to attack me from every side, I know that only one of these neighbors has a dog and that that dog is tame and they're on the left side of the street. So just to be sure, and because I'm uncomfortable, I'll walk on the right. I know that this isn't a realistic threat; it just feels like one, so I'll still take my walk.

We have to tell ourselves the truth, which can sound something like, hey, nervous system, I know you feel, however you feel scared, nervous, insecure, afraid, whatever and I understand that. Here is how I can help, by telling you the truth: there isn't danger, even though it feels that way, or the danger is not very likely, or let's be reasonable here, we can do a little bit of protection, but we don't have to do everything because that's out of proportion.

If you can calm the automatic sympathetic nervous system that makes you feel like there's a threat, your logic can come on. Therefore, you'll be seeing things clearer because you'll be able to blend what it feels like with logical information so you can make a much better calculated estimate as to how much of a threat you're in and what you're going to do about it. Being aware that anxiety can breed more anxious feelings is often a key that can help you to say, I see what's happening here. I'm not really spiraling because there's all this threat or such a high level of threat. I'm spiraling because I noticed the feelings of anxiety and I negatively attributed, I mean, I accidentally attributed them to actual threat and it was just feelings and they weren't indicative of actually what the level of threat is.

If you could realize that it might help your system to go, oh, so I was kind of continuing the cycle. If I can tell myself the truth, then I won't feel as nervous, which will make me not think that I am in as much danger because my logic will be able to come on and help me to understand the level of threat is not as intense as I had thought. So, I hope that's helpful.

As you look into dealing with anxiety further, I hope you'll check out the upcoming episodes. I'm going to talk more about it, but for now, I just want to remind you that if you need help with anxiety, feel free to reach out for a next step discovery call. Just go to Mental Health for Christian Women and hop on my schedule. There's a button there where you can pull up my schedule and find a time for a free 15-minute consult. I'd love to hear what's going on with you and see how I could possibly help. Take care.