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| MY SOMETIMES MONDAY VIEW WHILE I WRITE! |
Are You Weary And Worried?
Got a prayer for you. If you are
having a hard time in life right now or feeling stuck, I pray that
you may read the words I’ve written with an open mind. Maybe you
will agree with me or disagree; either way, I pray you will consider
these words to see if they are true for you.
My prayer is that you will have the courage, strength, and trust to seek your truth, because courage, strength, and trust are the truths taught by God, and worry is the lie we are taught by the world, which weakens our souls.
Worrying is common in our human existence, and we all experience it. It is normal to feel stressed sometimes. If an individual is prone to habitual worry, it can cause emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual chaos and fatigue. Faith is essential to our spirituality, and spirituality may be the missing link to success for those under high stress. When we have confidence, we feel good and know we will be okay.
The word “faith” appears in the New Testament over 230 times. Faith is the opposite of fear, and worry creates fear. It is my humble opinion, formed over twenty-five years of education, evidence, and experience in de-stressing our heroes in uniform and the general population, that our strength as spiritual and human beings comes from our trust in God. This trust gives us confidence in life, love, others, and ourselves. This certainty gives health to the navel, marrow to the bones, and power to a sound mind.
When we worry, we imagine the worst possible outcomes, which makes us feel distressed. Furthermore, we experience mild, moderate, or severe anxiety.
Panic triggers the fight-or-flight response, also known as the stress response. This response is helpful in acute, life-saving situations but extremely harmful on a chronic, day-to-day basis. Fight-or-flight raises blood pressure, shifts blood flow, and releases toxic hormonal reactions in the body. Many of our body systems then shut down, especially the digestive, healing, and immune systems. Stress, my friend, is the number one cause of emotional, mental, and physical illness because of the survival instincts of the body. Certainly, one can see that a stressful personality can lead to illness.
There was a time when I would receive at least a dozen emails and speak to at least half a dozen people a day who were experiencing stress, mostly worry. This worry is often a habitual way of thinking. The remedy for this habit is to cultivate calm, confidence, and faith.
You will notice, or maybe you won’t, that some people fear while others have faith. Do you tend to doubt, or do you have peace? If you are insecure, the best thing you can do is overcome it. The challenge in overcoming insecurities is believing that you can.
A successful life comes from focusing on the solution and desired result, not the dreadful possible outcome. So we have a choice: focus on the desired or on the unwanted. Either one can become a permanent habit.
You may be thinking that you have to be fearful in some circumstances, or that you are not going to ignore the situation, or that you are not going to suppress your emotions. We have a choice in the habits we adopt. We can replace apprehension with confidence. This is not about ignoring situations or suppressing emotions, but rather about acknowledging the ability and desire to shift from clinging to the habit of catastrophizing to cultivating trust.
So how does one change the habit of worry? The best way to change a habit is to consistently and deliberately change focus. The best way to transform attention is to become aware, then be reminded. We must remind ourselves of what we want when worries arise. A great help in changing doubt to certainty is learning to remember, through constant reminding, “With God, all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26 KJV).
To continue reading about overcoming weariness and worry, you can find more in my book, "How to Destress: Stress Test & Stress Relief."
Speak soon,
