There’s no denying the increase in collective anxiety in this country, nor the impact it’s having on parents and the next generation. Certainly, learning to manage stress is important, and anxiety plays a role in physical wellness and mental health. But also, be warned of the messaging found in culture, in the media, from health care professionals, and even in many schools that’s devised to convince you that experiencing anxiety changes not only your function, but your character and purpose. Ultimately, it’s faith that shapes your character and purpose.

Common Stress & Worry vs Clinical Anxiety

Learning to manage common stress is a skill that can be learned. Having a lot of tension in your body and stress in your life doesn’t necessarily mean you need a diagnosis of anxiety or an anxiety disorder. Yes, you might have an anxiety disorder; but you might not. Or even if you do struggle with anxiety, you might be able to manage it without a medical diagnosis, without medication, and instead with a fight if given the chance to try. Certainly, there are anxiety disorders, clinical cases of anxiety, or just high levels of anxiety that prevent progress, and medication in some cases is needed and required for any sort of skills to be put into place. But just as certainly, there are also many cases of being able to reduce anxiety with applied skills and effort. And sometimes after new skills are learned, changes can even be made in medication.

Defending A Natural Approach

If you choose to at least try to navigate anxiety as a life nuisance as opposed to a crippling condition, believe it or not, you might find yourself in situations where you have to push back against “experts.” Or at the very least, you may have to fight for your right to have a hardship that isn’t fixed by professionals, but instead is viewed as a journey towards stamina and character. Again, at some point, you may choose to supplement with medical or clinical support. But if you aren’t being encouraged to save that as a last resort, don’t allow yourself to be coerced into premature clinical treatment if you and your loved ones have prayed and agree to try a character development approach first.

Developing Your Character and Purpose in the Midst of Anxiety

The following is a list of practical tools you can learn in order to overcome false, discouraging messages that tell you that anxiety has to take you or a loved one down. Instead, one at a time, you can:

• Determine to be a better problem-solver and to have a growth mindset, not a fixed mindset
• Intentionally grow in confidence according to who Scripture says you are
• Monitor your language when it comes to anxiety – talk about it as a symptom to reduce more than as a condition, so that you keep your eyes on thriving instead of remaining stuck
• Resist a victim mindset
• Appreciate having faith over having certainty, which is never guaranteed
• Bravely risk doing for yourself what is tempting to have others do for you, when instead personal responsibility could strengthen your bravery muscles
• Choose a virtue a month to focus on (click here for an article about cultivating virtues)
• Be motivated and schedule time to become more Biblically literate
• Fill your mind with right thoughts of having a healthy and right fear of God, so that you won’t fear lesser gods such as being frantic over what people think
• Replace negative, obsessive thoughts trying to pull you away from Jesus with thoughts of His grace and faithfulness to you
• Pursue biblical emotional intelligence, learning to recognize when you are prone to letting your feelings control your decision-making and when you tend to give in to irrationality
• Believe that staying at hard places (like school) even when you’re anxious is good – because it’s the place you’re called to look for Christ at work around and uniquely through you, and is the place where He wants you to be in order to develop your gifts and skills
• Examine how restful your “restful activities” actually are (click here for an article about true rest)
• Learn how to properly grieve/lament and endure as taught in God’s Word (click here for an article with more detail)
• Make sure you have inter-generational relationships in your life, and someone in your life keeping you accountable to growing in these skills
• Spend time praising God for the daily gift of His strength

Prayer & Blessing

For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. (1 Tim. 1:7)