Some people feel guilty about their anxieties and regard them as a defect of faith. I don’t agree at all. They are afflictions, not sins. Like all afflictions, they are, if we can so take them, our share in the Passion of Christ. -CS Lewis (Letters to Malcolm)

Anxiety is a very crippling affliction, for me it consists of a tight chest, racing thoughts, anger, fear, dread, panic and intense sobbing when the tears are able to pour forth. It can be debilitating in some sense, sometimes I don’t even want to people around people, mostly I just want to escape to a quiet and peaceful place.

In our modern society, anxiety is either as a mental health issue, and thus prescribed anti anxiety/anti-depressants. On time of counseling of some form or another. I have mixed emotions about it, sometimes when they anxiety is so bad it doesn’t seem like anything helps calm the rage inside me. Honestly, in these moments I turn to an ice cold beer to aid in helping numb the numbness.

I know that there are healthier ways of dealing with it, physically and spiritually speaking. So I’m sorry to disappoint. On the other hand some in the scientific community are saving that the war against anxiety lies within our gut and what we eat. I don’t have with a problem with this idea, other then the fact that some within this community try a pit the physical against the mental and so on. Rarely is it ever both at the same time.

In recent years I have taken a more holistic approach to self-care, being sure that the body, mind and spirit are all taken care of to the best of my human ability. No, I’m not always perfect at it, but I do the best I can by Gods grace. Jesus knew anxiety very well, and was a man of sorrows (Isaiah 53:3). To see this, all one has to do is look at his reaction in the garden of gethsemane, His reaction to what was about to come before Him, was not just a physical, spiritual, mental or emotionally one but rather the harshest wave of each of them.

Be that as it may, if Jesus experienced this sort of anguish (which I believe He did) then He is the most vital figure to look at. This is not to imply that others who struggle with anxiety aren’t worth gleaning from,  but because how He (Jesus) understood deeply and overcame triumphantly, our affliction. He is the truest path to peace.

Even when words fail, when everything else fails us. He will not. He will uphold us with an out stretched arm. Furthermore, it is vitally important to note that Jesus does not minimize anxiety as some in our culture do. He knows it, He has jumped head first into the deepest anxiety for you and me.

Again I say, medicine, therapy, exercise, community etc is not bad, but more than anxiety is the calming serenity and joy that we long the most for.   He will hold you close to His chest, He will hear your cry when no else has a moment to spare.

Know that this moment will pass, it might not pass when we want to. But it will.

Pray,

Journal,

Cry out to God, for He hears you before anyone else will,

Find a few loyal friends you can depend on, in the darkest moments.

Eat healthy, avoid processed food and sugars

Exercise daily, get your body moving.

Go to a counselor if you want to.

Cry. Scream. Slam things if you need to. Just don’t stomach it any longer.