The Sounds of Silence: Anxiety

We live in the age of the half-read page  And the quick hash and the mad dash.  The bright night and the nerves tight, The plane hop, the brief stop,                                                           The brain strain and the heart pain.                                                   The cat naps till the spring snaps, And the fun's done.

If life was this hectic in 1949 when this little poem by Virginia Brasier was published in Saturday Evening Post, how would life in 2023 be described?

Things definitely haven’t slowed down.

We get so used to living in a hurry, if we have a moment when we aren’t running, we think something must be wrong!

It’s easy to make jokes about our harried lifestyle and laugh about cute cartoons; what’s not so funny is how close to true that little sentiment often is.

While we are home our thoughts are still absorbed with solving the challenges we face at the office. And when we are at the office we find ourselves worrying about problems at home …. We are everywhere at any given moment in time except living in that moment in time. Jim Rohn

No wonder we are nervous wrecks!

But being too busy isn’t the only reason many people are so anxious - not even the main one.

The Bible says, “Be still and know that I Am God,” but could it be that we don’t WANT to be still?

We may not know where we’re going or remember where we’ve been most of the time … but maybe that’s the point! If the past is unsettling and the future is obscure, maybe the last thing we want is to slow down enough for distressing topics and unresolved emotions to catch up to our thoughts.

If avoidance is the goal, it isn’t destination but rather pace that matters, and all that busyness serves a purpose.

As normal as it is to distract ourselves from looking at doubts, insecurities, threatening or otherwise ugly truths we’d rather not see, the problem is - ignoring what is “unpleasant” doesn’t make it go away. Time doesn’t heal all wounds, and choosing to repress rather than resolve them never makes them heal.

Eventually, we end up “acting out” the feelings we can’t find a better way to express.

Frustration and nervousness result from being wound too tightly in a desperate effort to maintain control. We may develop compulsive and anxious patterns of perfectionism, inferiority, and self-criticism.

Anxiety may also produce moods that are volatile and overreactive. We end up lashing out at the wrong person, some poor soul who had the misfortune of crossing our unhappy path at an inopportune moment, or we turn some minor problem into a major issue.

If any of this sounds familiar, I promise you are not alone!

From occasional “edginess” to an overwhelming cycle of irrational fears, phobias, obsessive thinking, and compulsive behaviors over which people have no control, anxiety is something with which nearly everyone struggles in some form and at some times.

Besides harboring emotional scars, another way of inviting anxiety into our lives is by failing to take charge of our thoughts.

“Above all else, guard your heart,” says Proverbs 4:23, “for it is the wellspring of life.”

The power of life and death. The wellspring of life. What we say to ourselves matters!

Little negatives, when allowed to creep unchallenged into thoughts, conversations, or attitudes, can accumulate and grow into big negatives.

Take worry, for example.

We worry over the present and over the future - overthinking, overanalyzing, and defeating ourselves before we ever get started. In addition to challenges looming ahead, we reach BACK for something to obsess about - second-guessing decisions already made, regretting actions already taken, and trying to change things already behind us.

Worry creeps in subtly and works itself into a bad habit but, thankfully, one we can learn to control - at least to some degree.

Worry is creating mental pictures of what we do not want to happen; confidence is creating mental pictures of what we do.

The difference is a shift in perspective.

Don't become a victim of yourself. Forget about the thief waiting in the alley; what about the thief in your mind. Jim Rohn

2 Corinthians 10:5 speaks of taking our thoughts “captive” in terms of making them compliant with the will of Christ.

That’s also good advice when it comes to mental health … and it’s where we’ll pick up next time.

To be continued, Kim