Be-You-tiful Soul, Dear Be-You-tiful Soul, Kristin Clouse, Overcoming Anxiety, restored retreats, Uncategorized

Overcoming Anxiety

 

Dear Be {You} tiful Soul,

 

Are you feeling tired today?

Do you feel anxiety has taken over your life?

Are you struggling with life changes and in general feeling overwhelmed with life issues?

Do you feel as if you can’t catch your breathe and you are struggling to keep your head above the waters of anxiety?

 

 

Today my thoughts and prayers are towards you, Be-You-tiful Soul, yes you.

 

 

When anxiety hits us, our thoughts can feed the anxiety, the lie within our hearts and minds, and then anxiety can be crippling.

 

 

Anxiety is fear-led or fear-controlled.

 

 

Fear tells us we can’t do things, we are making the wrong decision, or we need to go isolate and hide from others.

 

Fear, when allowed, can make our life small and limited.

Fear tells us not to step out and try new things.

It tells us we can’t do certain things because last time we did our anxiety was triggered. When we give these lies room within our thoughts and heart they grow and grow until we are overwhelmed with fear, thoughts that we have no way out, our lives will never change, and we need to just give up.

 

I would like to encourage you with a few steps to help you with your anxiety.

 

1. Focus on breathing, just breathe.

 

 

You may be thinking, “Kristin, I breathe everyday, how will this help me?”

 

 

I am so glad you asked.

 

 

When anxiety is triggered we often have a tendency to tense our muscles and hold our breath. Our breathing becomes shallow and this leads to us feeling lightheaded, dizzy, and adds to our inability to think beyond our anxiety thoughts. When we breathe slowly imagine you are filling your stomach with air and then empty the air when you exhale. This is how to do deep breathing and it helps us to calm down and decrease the anxiety symptoms.

 

With each breathe, focus on the breathe of God filling you up and breathing out the anxiety when you exhale.

 

2. Instead of focusing on the issues that contribute to you feeling overwhelmed, create a mantra or use scriptures to tell yourself in the moment.

 

“I’m okay.”

“I’m safe.”

“I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.”

 

 

3. Finally, we need to change our negative self talk.

 

 

When we focus on negative thoughts, negative emotions are produced and then we react out of our fear, anxiety, sadness and other negative emotions. Reframing our negative self talk is the key to decreasing our anxiety and feelings of being overwhelmed.

 

We need to be truth tellers to ourselves, based on God’s word and not our fear-led or fear-controlled thoughts.

 

 

You may be asking, “How do I do this.”

Great question!

 

 

Instead of allowing our negative and hopeless thoughts grow, we need to reframe them. When we reframe them we are able to decrease negative feelings that contribute to our anxiety overwhelming us.

 

Here’s an example on how to do this:

 

 

“I can’t do this. It’s too hard. I always mess up. It’s never going to change. I’m just stupid and a failure at life.”

 

 

Now let’s reframe our negative self talk.

 

 

“I’m okay. I can try this. I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength. Just focus on one thing at a time. You got this. It’s okay if we make mistakes, just try your best.”

Now it’s your turn to try these steps. What are the areas you struggle with anxiety in? I would love to hear from you. Comment below and share. I would love to pray for you as well.

Blessings dear friends, Kristin