Dealing with Anxiety

 Read Time: 8-15 minutes 

Dealing With Anxiety 

| the FOUR keys to beat anxiety |

Hello, Sweet Friend! 

Today I want to talk about anxiety. 

It's not a pretty word or feeling. I think most people have felt this feeling of having anxiety, but it is also different for each person. Anxiety can look different for you than it does for me. We can have our own triggers. Some anxiety is fairly minor and others make you feel like you are dying or can never live or function again. 

Anxiety can feel like a forever sentence. Something you feel you can never escape. 

But I don’t believe in that. 

Anxiety can feel like a forever sentence. It does not have to be something you are stuck with forever or something you just have to deal with. 

It is something you feel you can never escape. There is a way. You don’t have to be held captive forever by this. 

“Well,” you might think. “How can you say this? How can you say that anxiety can be taken away? I’ve tried everything and nothing ever works. It's fine, I guess. I have to get used to it. It's just a part of my life.” 

To that I say, “I used to have anxiety too. Everyday of my life was filled with stress and anxiety. But did you notice what I said? I said used to and was. I was able to beat my anxiety. If I can do it then so can you. I believe in you!” 

Beating Anxiety 

Now, that is quite a big statement. “I beat my anxiety.” But it's true. 

That isn’t to say I don’t have my bad days or have triggering events. No. I’m human. I still have bad days and suffer from anxiety from time to time. 

But thankfully this is an anomaly. This feeling, this constant dread and anxiety used to be my daily life and it was debilitating. It's not my daily life anymore. 

I want to, in this post, show you how I got through my crazy everyday anxiety and now am in a place where anxiety is rare and I am at peace. I’m not saying I can cure you—I can’t—but I do want to encourage you and challenge your beliefs.

Anxiety can be beaten. 

Here is how I beat it. 

How *I* beat my anxiety 

Well, first things first, I did not beat anxiety = God did. 

God beat my anxiety and that is the simple truth. Now, I want to share a bit about my story—my writing story. 

When I started school and through the beginning of high school I hated English *jaw drop*. I hated writing *gasp*. I hated grammar *nods that makes sense*. If I had to write a paper (2,000 words) I would get SO ANXIOUS. I would need THREE MONTHS AT LEAST to finish that one paper plus a ton of crying and debilitating worry for all of those three months. I couldn’t write and I couldn’t take corrections of any kind. Nope, not me. 

My parents would be worried about me, I know that. I was THE MOST  dramatic person with writing and that made it hard for my parents to help me. Say I needed a paper corrected. They’d look over the paper and say it was good but that I misspelled a few words or was missing a comma or something. I would then take on that correction to say I was the most awful writer in the whole entire world and that my family hates my writing and if they hated my writing then they must hate me because my writing is my heart and if they hate my writing then they hate my heart and now I’m just going to cry for an hour and start the entire paper from scratch after I rip the first one to shreds like they shredded my heart. Can you see how dramatic I was??? I would misspell “because” (not gonna lie, but I still will misspell because XD) and would have a mental breakdown. So the thought of having to turn in a quarterly paper for school and send it to a teacher felt like the end of the world. I would literally wish for the end of the world to happen so I wouldn’t have to write a silly school paper or book report (which is hilarious because I write book “reports” almost weekly for you all *wipers* its book reviews) because it gave me SO MUCH ANXIETY. 

It wasn’t just for writing either. It was also for going out of the house. Not wearing makeup out of the house. Changed plans. Going somewhere short notice. Talking. Interacting with people. Eating. Basically my whole life was a trigger and I was triggered every single day. 

So, how does a girl who cannot write a single 2,000 word paper in three months without having a mental breakdown go on to write four almost five books and the first one was written in 30 days? That's impossible. 

I thought so too. 

Not impossible 

With God NOTHING is impossible. In fact everything is possible. This included turning a girl who would have an anxious meltdown at the very thought of writing a paper to writing novels. 

How did that happen? 

Well that is what i've been waiting to tell you all! I also wanted to let you know that because of this moment (the one I’m about to tell you) I was able to defeat all my other debilitating everyday anxiety. 

So I heard about this writing challenge which basically is to write 50,000 words  (a novel) in 30 days. I thought that was ridiculous. I could NEVER do that. But then it kept being brought up. I would see people, bloggers, and then even my COUSIN talk about it. Once my cousin started talking about it I was already hooked. She gave me the push to actually do it. Guess what? I DID IT!!!! 

So what exactly did I do to beat my anxiety? 

The Battle Plan 

These are four keys to me beating my anxiety and they are listed least important to MOST IMPORTANT (the first two can be negotiable but the last two are NOT NEGOTIABLE = you MUST do the last two points to beat anxiety (they are the points involving God. That's why it's not negotiable). 

—Letting Go Of Perfection—

First, I am a protectionist. I would guess that if you have really bad anxiety that you are probably also a protectionist in some way.

So, the first thing I had to do was tell myself not to be a protectionist. I was not going to overthink (that is what the outlining and editing process are for) and I was just going to write even if it was messy and awful. I was going to push myself to not be a perfectionist. And I was going to give myself permission to be messy and fail. 

This is really important if you get anxiety over being a protectionist and the little details. You need to tell yourself like an affirmation that you:

1# are not going to be a perfectionist 

2# are not going to get stressed out by being perfect 

Remember: This is a MIND BATTLE. Anxiety lives in your head. So to beat anxiety you have to fight with your mind.

You must take control of your mind and change how you think. 

“…we take every thought captive to obey Christ.” —2 Corinthians 10:5 

—Having A Support System— 

Two, I had a support system. I told my cousin about it, I told my family about it, I told my best friend about it, I told all the people that matter to me about this. I needed people to cheer me on, to hold me accountable, and make sure I was not burning myself out, being a perfectionist, and that I am eating (because when I am writing I will forget to eat and drink anything XD). 

Tell people about what you are going through. Bring your closest people together and have them be there for you to hold you accountable and to encourage you.

I promise you this will help you. 

—Giving Your Anxiety To God—

Three, you must give your anxiety to God.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” —Matthew 11:28-30

This was such an important verse for me through all of this. I had to give it all to God. How? You tell Him. You let it go and you hand it over to him.

Imagine yourself piling all your worries, trauma, pain, anxiety, everything that weighs heavy on you and putting it into God’s hands. He wants to take away your hurting and your pain. Give it to Him. He is asking you to trust Him. 

—Pray & Read the Bible—

Four, pray and read God’s word. You must pray and read the Bible every day first thing in the morning. This to me is non negotiable. You must pray and read the Bible. By building a relationship with God, by knowing Him, by knowing His word He will take away your anxiety.

I have found that when I am anxious it is because I am focusing on things. I’m worrying about the future. I’m worrying about school. I’m worrying that a dog could possibly attack me that day. I’m worried about being worried. I’m anxious that I won’t be able to sleep tonight. I’m worried that I’m going to lose people. I’m worried I won’t be able to post enough. I am focusing on these things and they are destroying me slowly but surely from the inside out. You need to not focus on these things. 

How do you NOT focus on these things? You focus on God. You place Him FIRST in your life above everything else. You focus on Him and not the world. You focus on Him and not on your anxiety. 

The Bible says that you cannot serve two masters. 

“No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and be enslaved to money.” —Matthew 6:24 

This is about masters—not just money. You can just as easily say, “You cannot serve God and be enslaved to anxiety.” 

Going into psychology there is a concept known as “reciprocal inhibition.” This is the concept that we are unable to feel two opposing emotions at the same time. You cannot feel anxiety and peace at the same time. You cannot feel anxiety and God’s peace simultaneously. One has to win over the other. 

Anxiety wants to be the master over your life. God wants to be the master over your life. You have the ability to choose who wins. Will you let anxiety rule your life or will you let God who loves you rule over your life?

How do you give that rule over? Well, when you start your day, do you wake up worrying, anxious, disaster planning, worrying about what will happen that day, the next, and fifty years from now? That is giving anxiety the power and rule. Or are you first praying and focusing on God and His word? That is giving Him rule over your life. 

What about when I’m anxious in the middle or end of the day? You pray then. Whenever you need Him, pray. Read His word. Prayer and the Bible are not one and done things. They aren’t part of the good Christian checklist (note, I’m being sarcastic XD). It's our life. It's how we connect to God, our Father and loving creator. It's how we speak to Him and know Him. It's a relationship and not a checklist. 

If you want to get rid of anxiety then you need to build a relationship with God. He will in time take it away. This isn’t exactly an instant thing. It might take time. It might take YEARS (as it was with me). You may not even realize that God has taken away your anxiety until one day you realize you can breathe and you are smiling for no reason at all (that’s how I knew). 

You want to beat anxiety? God will beat your anxiety! You have to trust Him, give it to Him (this is something you may have to do daily), pray, read His word, and build a deep relationship with Him. You are His child. He loves you. He doesn’t want you to be trapped in anxiety for the rest of your life. No, He wants you free. 

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the oppressed will be set free, and that the time of the Lord’s favor has come.” —Luke 4:18-19 

In Him, in Jesus, through the guidance of the Holy Spirit, this can be true for you. I believe that for you. I really do. 

I’m not here to preach to you or tell you what to do. But if you take even one thing away from this is to…build a relationship with God and watch Him change your life and take away your anxiety. 

He can do it. 

Will you let Him? 

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Discussion Time

Thank you so much for reading this post! I hope you found this encouraging and inspiring and maybe you found something helpful! <3

I want to hear from you! Meet me in the comments and tell me what you thought of this post? Do you or have you struggled with anxiety? When faced with situations that give you anxiety, what do you do? Is there anything I can pray for you? I would love to pray & chat! 

ALSO, if you have any topic you’d like me to cover—writing help or tips, book/movie reviews, thoughts on faith/life, anything—please let me know down in the comments! I want to write posts that can help you and that you would find valuable in (I’m also always looking for new post ideas to write about)!

If you have any questions or want to talk, make sure to comment down below! Be sure to subscribe to this blog to stay in the know because I post new content here every week. ALSO, If you want to hear more about my writing and read snippets from my stories, make sure you are subscribed because I am doing special updates for BLOG SUBSCRIBERS ONLY! 

Love, Moriyah 💛