3 Ways To Manage Anxiety as a Christian
If you’ve been around my blog or podcast long enough, you know that I wear many hats.
One of the fashionable hats I wear is Inner Healing and Deliverance Pastor, and in that role I put myself right in the middle of many conversations surrounding mental health and the church. It’s an area the church is (thankfully) growing in and I’m very passionate about helping that growth by continually setting a table to have these conversations around.
This is why my recent conversation with my good friend and podcast guest, Michelle Lautzenheiser, was so rich - because we talked through some very common taboo’s that surround the church, mental health, and some habits of spiritual-bypassing that commonly occur in those circles.
In 2020, Michelle found herself having a complete nervous breakdown. Her body was suffering from a dysregulated nervous system, panic attacks, and anxiety. The medication her doctor had prescribed her wasn’t working, so she set out to discover how else she could find healing for her body. But being in a brand new faith-based community, she was struggling with whether or not she was operating in ‘faith’ or in ‘flesh’ on her journey.
“When you have this idea built up… that ‘Jesus is the only answer for you’, ‘that your spiritual practices are the only answer for you’… but suddenly now you’re in a doctor’s office getting your brain scanned… I’m asking myself: “Am I taking this too far?” “Can Jesus actually be in this, here?” There was a lot of that sort of push back in my mind, like: ‘if you’re having to go outside of Jesus, you’re not good enough. You haven’t been doing it (praying, having faith, etc) right.’
This thought process is all too common amongst people of faith. We receive a dialogue somewhere, a shame-based message that says that if we go outside ‘spiritual help’, we’re somehow outside of God or His will or His approval. I remember a youth pastor once saying that ‘medication is just for people who don't know how to manage life and have no coping skills’.
This is a very common narrative that we experience and hear. But I’d like to challenge that narrative with this: God made you. He gave you flesh and bones and when He did, He said: “what I created - is good”. The Bible doesn't say that He gave you a spirit and said that just your spirit was good. It says He put flesh and bones on you, breathed life into you, and said ‘all of this - is good.’ God doesn't just want to partner with our spirits to heal us. He wants to also partner with our bodies to heal us.
Michelle found that her healing came through several modalities: a church community, emotional validation, nutrition, medication, therapy, movement… just to name a few.
“Take the expectation out that your healing journey has to look a certain way or that you have to be performing a certain way to get it. I think we all want to be loved and accepted, we want to be totally known and fully helped in all of our messiness. I found in this surrendered place that Jesus actually wants to meet us in our deepest thing - he wants to see it. He wants to hold us there. But sometimes we can't access that without medication, without nutrition - because of how our bodies operate. I discovered that He’s in all of it. Jesus is in my nutrition and in moving my body - because He’s in my wholeness. And in order to get my wholeness, I have to do these things. I think that realization has profoundly changed my mind.”
Community plays such a bigger part in our healing journey than we often think it can. Especially if we’ve experienced pain within community settings in the past, it may catch us off guard how instrumental GOD plans community to be for our healing.
Michelle found that some of her deepest healing happened straight from Leaders willing to have the courage to sit in the tension. She shared that they weren’t shy - they would ask her how she was doing and when she gave a blanket response (“I’m doing fine!”), they’d show just how invested they were by replying: “ok…now how are you REALLY doing?”
When Michelle began to have the courage to open up and share the tough things she was processing, they wouldn’t ‘pray it away’ or quote scripture to her as a means to spiritually bypass the issue. They would actually put skin on her humanity and they’d validate her emotions and experiences. Some of the biggest ways they created safety along her journey was by making sure they protected her dignity by asking her if she wanted to talk more privately when checking in on her and not always trying to ‘fix’ her. Sometimes they would have merely the courage to say: “this sounds really hard! It makes so much sense what you’re going through. We’re invested in walking this out with you, knowing that Jesus has everything you need, but we won’t leave you to just do this alone.”
Perhaps you want to show up for someone battling anxiety but you’re not certain how exactly to do that. Here are 3 nuggets to ponder on for how to hold space for someone in a helpful way:
Listen without judgment
There is hearing and then there is LISTENING. Hearing is a passive process but listening is an active process. Don’t listen to rebuttal. Don’t listen to fix. Don’t listen to provide solutions (unless that’s what the person is asking for). And most importantly, don’t listen to judge. LIsten to learn - what is this person experiencing? What are they feeling? Where have I felt similar ways in my own struggles? What are they saying they need?
Understand that GOD is for the person in their healing - even if that includes medication or other modalities
GOD is with us, in every process and every step. He is in the doctor’s office; in the pharmacy line; in the counseling session; on the couch in a friend’s living room. GOD is not restrained to a bible and He isn’t restrained to a prayer line. GOD is ‘The Great Physician’ and He is so creative that He will bring healing in more than one way, in more than one form, and in more than one method. If you’ve never experienced God in that manner, perhaps part of attuning with your friend, family member or loved one who’s struggling with anxiety may mean that you ask GOD to show up for YOU in new ways so you can know Him to be faithful in new methods.
Asking good questions can provide so much support
There is so much power behind good questions, and it shows the person you’re walking with that you really care about their experience. Some powerful questions you can ask are: “tell me what that’s like to feel that way”; “can you tell me more about your struggle?”; “what do you think you need from a friend in this journey?”; “what would it feel like to be seen in this struggle?”; “what practical help can I offer you on your bad days that I can write down and do for you that would make you feel loved, seen and supported?”
Need a holistic approach to addressing your anxiety? Schedule a discovery call with Andrea here
