Anxiety
Anxiety is an old friend of mine, but before we were friends we were sworn enemies and anxiety almost always got the best of me. See, I have been sort of an anxious guy since I was very young. When I think back on my life I’ve just about constantly had something I was worried about. Anxiety ran the show for a long time. I don’t mean to sound too dramatic. I’ve had a good life. It’s just that I’ve always had a steady stream of low voltage anxiety running through my body.
That has changed over the last few years.
Anxiety no longer runs the show. I say I’ve made friends with anxiety because I have deliberately done so. One of my mentors said to me a while back, “It’s just your wiring. You’re kind of an anxious person just because you’re wired like that. You also have blue eyes, you like to read, you’re six feet tall, you’re naturally a very loving person, you like chocolate chip cookies, and you’re into silence.” He continued, “Anxiety doesn’t run your life, it’s just how you’re wired. That’s all.” When he said that it felt like the kindest, most accepting thing a person could say to another. In that moment I realized that not only was he right, but that over the last few years I had made friends with anxiety. What I mean by that is this - when anxiety rises up to a noticeable level in my body I pause and lean into the feeling to see what message it has come to pass on to me. It’s usually about something in my environment that is a little off or off putting. I make note of it, adjust if necessary, thank the anxious feeling for arising to give me the message, then I move on with whatever it is I’m doing.
You know what’s made the difference? I could be wrong, but I think the thing that’s changed anxiety from foe into friend is my long devotion to silent prayer.
My sense is that all anxiety has a common source. Anxiety comes onto the scene when a person doesn’t feel like they are getting their emotional needs met. When I want to feel loved, approved of, and cared for and I don’t, I get anxious. I’ll cut to the punch line: only God can fully satisfy my emotional needs. That’s just a fact. In silent prayer what we’re doing is letting go of everything that is less than or other than God for a period of time. It can be 2 minutes or 20 minutes. The duration does not matter as much as letting go of grasping matters. When I let go in the silence I drop down into the center of my own being where God resides within me and we are not other than each other, God and I are one. And over time, if I devote myself to a regular practice of silent prayer, God will dismantle my reliance on anxiety as a survival skill. God will gradually dismiss anxiety as the captain of my ship.
In my case, my wiring stays the same. I’m just kind of an anxious guy, it’s how I am wired. But now anxiety is a friend, a sort of onboard radar system who warns me when dangers large or small are lurking. Oh sure, he wants to take control and sometimes manages to get behind the wheel. But for the most part these days I get to write my own story. I let go, latch onto God in prayer, and then return to whatever is before me with God who is not anxious about a thing.
I realized two things on my journey with anxiety. One, I don’t have to get rid of anxiety. I am not going to rewire myself. I just allow God to reposition anxiety so that it is not running the show. Two, as I consent to the presence and action of God within me the power of anxiety dims and the power of love increases.
What’s your wiring? What’s running the show? I wonder what would happen in your life if you introduced a practice of silent prayer in which you let God have his way with your hangup? I wonder.