How To Live a Worry-Free Life
40 million adults in America suffer from some type of anxiety disorder. Millions more face routine worry and anxiety about the day-to-day challenges of life. Finding peace of mind becomes the goal of every day.
Of course, we know that chronic worry can be symptomatic of a deep underlying issue in your soul. We should also not belittle the amazing results medical treatment has done to relieve anxiety. To me, however, we sometimes wear a worry “filter” about everything.
What are some simple ways to get free from worry?
1. Get perspective on your problems.
If you close one eye and put your finger close to the other eye, you cannot see ANYTHING but your finger. However, as you move your finger further away, you see the rest of the room. That is “perspective.”
Is the problem really that bad? Is it possible some good could come of out of any outcome? Is there another way to look at this crisis and see growth in your life? WILL YOU REALLY REMEMBER THIS CRISIS IN TEN YEARS?
2. Meditation or medication?
The pill, the bottle, the drug may have become your “GO-TO” method of dealing with anxiety. However, it never brings peace, only postponement.
Find one Scripture to memorize. When you are tempted to worry, speak it out loud. My favorite is Philippians 4: 6-7: “Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.”
“The pill, the bottle, the drug may have become your “GO-TO” way of dealing with anxiety. However, it never brings peace, only postponement.”
3. Start early.
Believe it or not, much of our anxiety comes from procrastination. We worry about any formidable task and let it intimidate us so that we never START.
The longer you delay, the greater the anxiety you will feel. “Commence to proceed to begin to start!” You will feel worry start to melt away the moment you have taken STEP ONE.
4. Surround yourself with order.
Worry and chaos go together. You can’t find your socks. You lose things under the pile of rubble of life. Your checkbook has not been balanced in a month. If you did, you may find there was nothing really to worry about financially!
Straighten up what you can control. Why worry about what you CANNOT control when you have not yet organized what you CAN control?
“Straighten up what you have control over. Why worry about what you CANNOT control when you have not yet organized what you CAN control?”
5. Call “worry” what it really is: FEAR.
Worry is really fear of the future. You fear failure. You fear rejection. You fear symptoms that appear in your body.
Take control of fear. David ran TOWARD Goliath. God is for you. His perfect love casts out fear. Violently cast out the imaginations of a horrible future from your mind. When you FACE fear, you FIGHT fear.
Worry is real. Anxiety can become life-controlling. Before it does, check your “perspective, meditation, procrastination, order, and fear."
Watch worry evaporate!
Question: “What is the area you find yourself worrying about the most and how do you best overcome that worry?”