Chapter 37: Anxiety vs. a Calm Sense of Self
Anxiety is a serious health concern that can affect an individual’s social, emotional, physical, and intellectual health. It can interfere with happiness, limit productivity, sap energy, suffocate relationships, and disrupt focus. Anxiety often includes excessive and/or unrealistic worry. Anxiety is emotionally lacking oxygen and being continually short of breath.
Experts suggest anxiety can be caused by social disconnection, over-stimulation because of too much media, self-imposed high expectations, fast-paced lifestyle, inability to express negative emotions by keeping things bottled up, and genetics. Diagnosing and treating debilitating anxiety often takes a professional, but lesser degrees of anxiety can be improved by understanding some whys and hows.
Because anxiety is often seemingly brought on by an unexpected or unpleasant life event, it is easy to blame the event. The truth is that external events do not cause anxiety. They can trigger more anxiety in an anxiety-prone person, but the real cause of anxiety is how a person thinks about the future.
Anxiety is not experienced because of something in the present. Anxiety comes from thinking that something in the future will have a bad ending. Persons pre-disposed to anxiety tell themselves that something catastrophic or at least very awful is going to happen in the next second, hour, day, or days with which they cannot cope. This sky-is-falling mentality expresses itself in symptoms such as restlessness, fatigue, trembling, nausea, headache, irritability, diminished aspirations, muscle tension, difficulty sleeping, difficulty concentrating, and excessive worry. That’s the short list.
Anxiety disorders are the most common mental illness in the U.S., affecting 12% of children, 14% of adolescence, and 18% of the adult population. (See National Institute of Mental Health.)
If you worry that your worries are excessive, understanding worry's relationship to fear may be a first step in controlling worry.
The word “fear” is found 554 times in scripture, and the phrase “fear not” is found 87 times. When the Lord gave Joseph Smith a preview of his future in which bad things were going to happen, he taught him how to minimize fear: “I tell you these things because of your prayers; wherefore, treasure up wisdom in your bosoms, lest the wickedness of men reveal these things unto you by their wickedness, in a manner which shall speak in your ears with a voice louder than that which shall shake the earth; but if ye are prepared ye shall not fear” (D&C 38:30).
In these few words, the Lord gives a complete sermon on ways to overcome anxiety:
1. “I tell you these things because of your prayers.” If you take your fears to the Lord in prayer, He will help you know how to cope, manage, and survive, step by step.
2. “Treasure up wisdom.” Filling your mind with truth is a defense against discrediting, disheartening, discouraging, disparaging voices when they whisper in your ear to give in, give out, or give up.
3. “If you are prepared….” If you prepare (pre-think and plan) for the future, you replace negative inertia with positive energy. Worry can be wiped away with confident actions. Corrie Ten Boom, a Holocaust survivor, said: “Worrying does not empty tomorrow of its troubles, it empties today of its strength.”
Praying, treasuring up wisdom, and preparing for the future can change anxiousness into a more relaxed, unruffled, and purposeful state of being. When you empty your mind of worry, you create a place where a calm sense of self can put down roots. A calm sense of self is a workshop within the mind where determination and resilience can replace fear. A calm sense of self is where inaction is overcome by action, where agitation is conquered by contentedness, where fear gives way to faith. A calm sense of self helps you have the discipline to identify where you should put your focus. A calm sense of self helps you fight one battle at a time. When you live in a calm sense of self, doubts are replaced by the courage to do hard things. When I was enduring the side effects of chemotherapy the second time, I celebrated a minor victory. I emailed my daughter: “Today I won the battle over my pajamas. I even took a shower!”
When I find myself entangled in anxiety I try the practical how-to approach such as: get out of bed, get dressed, listen to music that uplifts or invigorates, meditate, breathe, give service, treat myself as a person who deserves to be treated kindly, do a physical activity I enjoy, smile at myself in the mirror, express gratitude, memorize or read out loud a scripture that gives me something sacred to ponder.
My two important don’ts are: Don’t mope and don’t purposefully put myself in stressful situations.
Like you, I have survived hard times, which makes us proven survivors. Like you, I experience anxiety and sometimes I'm able to quiet my fears and come to a calm sense of self. Vinny Genovesi, an actor I know nothing about, made a profound statement I can relate to: “On particularly rough days when I’m sure I can’t possibly endure, I like to remind myself that my track record for getting through bad days so far is 100% and that is pretty good.”
(c) Marilynne Todd Linford, 2018
Experts suggest anxiety can be caused by social disconnection, over-stimulation because of too much media, self-imposed high expectations, fast-paced lifestyle, inability to express negative emotions by keeping things bottled up, and genetics. Diagnosing and treating debilitating anxiety often takes a professional, but lesser degrees of anxiety can be improved by understanding some whys and hows.
Because anxiety is often seemingly brought on by an unexpected or unpleasant life event, it is easy to blame the event. The truth is that external events do not cause anxiety. They can trigger more anxiety in an anxiety-prone person, but the real cause of anxiety is how a person thinks about the future.
Anxiety is not experienced because of something in the present. Anxiety comes from thinking that something in the future will have a bad ending. Persons pre-disposed to anxiety tell themselves that something catastrophic or at least very awful is going to happen in the next second, hour, day, or days with which they cannot cope. This sky-is-falling mentality expresses itself in symptoms such as restlessness, fatigue, trembling, nausea, headache, irritability, diminished aspirations, muscle tension, difficulty sleeping, difficulty concentrating, and excessive worry. That’s the short list.
Anxiety disorders are the most common mental illness in the U.S., affecting 12% of children, 14% of adolescence, and 18% of the adult population. (See National Institute of Mental Health.)
If you worry that your worries are excessive, understanding worry's relationship to fear may be a first step in controlling worry.
The word “fear” is found 554 times in scripture, and the phrase “fear not” is found 87 times. When the Lord gave Joseph Smith a preview of his future in which bad things were going to happen, he taught him how to minimize fear: “I tell you these things because of your prayers; wherefore, treasure up wisdom in your bosoms, lest the wickedness of men reveal these things unto you by their wickedness, in a manner which shall speak in your ears with a voice louder than that which shall shake the earth; but if ye are prepared ye shall not fear” (D&C 38:30).
In these few words, the Lord gives a complete sermon on ways to overcome anxiety:
1. “I tell you these things because of your prayers.” If you take your fears to the Lord in prayer, He will help you know how to cope, manage, and survive, step by step.
2. “Treasure up wisdom.” Filling your mind with truth is a defense against discrediting, disheartening, discouraging, disparaging voices when they whisper in your ear to give in, give out, or give up.
3. “If you are prepared….” If you prepare (pre-think and plan) for the future, you replace negative inertia with positive energy. Worry can be wiped away with confident actions. Corrie Ten Boom, a Holocaust survivor, said: “Worrying does not empty tomorrow of its troubles, it empties today of its strength.”
Praying, treasuring up wisdom, and preparing for the future can change anxiousness into a more relaxed, unruffled, and purposeful state of being. When you empty your mind of worry, you create a place where a calm sense of self can put down roots. A calm sense of self is a workshop within the mind where determination and resilience can replace fear. A calm sense of self is where inaction is overcome by action, where agitation is conquered by contentedness, where fear gives way to faith. A calm sense of self helps you have the discipline to identify where you should put your focus. A calm sense of self helps you fight one battle at a time. When you live in a calm sense of self, doubts are replaced by the courage to do hard things. When I was enduring the side effects of chemotherapy the second time, I celebrated a minor victory. I emailed my daughter: “Today I won the battle over my pajamas. I even took a shower!”
When I find myself entangled in anxiety I try the practical how-to approach such as: get out of bed, get dressed, listen to music that uplifts or invigorates, meditate, breathe, give service, treat myself as a person who deserves to be treated kindly, do a physical activity I enjoy, smile at myself in the mirror, express gratitude, memorize or read out loud a scripture that gives me something sacred to ponder.
My two important don’ts are: Don’t mope and don’t purposefully put myself in stressful situations.
Like you, I have survived hard times, which makes us proven survivors. Like you, I experience anxiety and sometimes I'm able to quiet my fears and come to a calm sense of self. Vinny Genovesi, an actor I know nothing about, made a profound statement I can relate to: “On particularly rough days when I’m sure I can’t possibly endure, I like to remind myself that my track record for getting through bad days so far is 100% and that is pretty good.”
(c) Marilynne Todd Linford, 2018
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