34. Overcoming Anxiety

We have a blended family , so there's that we talk about all kinds of things under that relational health category , as it is our passion . So we welcome you . So good to have you If you have been with us for some time . Hey , friends , welcome back .

We're going to talk today about something that is really going to be relatable for any season of relational life you are in . We are going to talk a little bit about anxiety today , so definitely more of an emotional health topic , but anxiety itself has actually played a pretty big role in our relationship .

We have been married , jason and I , for a little over 12 years and we've got five kids , three adult kids and two toddlers and both Jason and I have battled our share of anxiety from time to time in our marriage , and the implications of anxiety in a person's life and on a relationship are pretty widespread and gosh .

Anxiety and depression specifically are two , I'm going to say , plagues in our society , plagues in society in general . Right now so many people battle anxiety and depression and when you're battling anxiety , I think sometimes it feels like you're trying to fight an invisible enemy .

It's this invisible enemy and you would kill it if you could , but you just don't even know where to swing the sword . And we've learned a lot in our journey .

I would say Jay learned a lot and then helped me learn a lot , and so we're going to share I think Jason's going to share his story a little bit about kind of his introduction to anxiety and then a lot of what we've learned in our process of overcoming anxiety , and hopefully it will be really helpful for you guys today .

I'd call them at my friend's houses just because I don't know , like I would see stuff floating in the toilet and be like , oh my gosh , did that come out of me ? Am I dying ? And I know it's even kind of funny to say that now , but that was a reality that I lived in , that I didn't even know was going on .

And part of not being able to fully comprehend and understand the the the heavenly realms , the spiritual realms was , was very scary for me . The other thing , too is I didn't know that I had OCD until I was 38 , and I didn't understand how it worked .

And so I remember just going through puberty , like I'll give a embarrassing but dumb example , like when a guy goes through puberty . I don't know about a woman , but when a guy goes through puberty , like all of a sudden your nipples get hard , like underneath , you know .

And so I remember the first time I felt that , like I thought I had breast cancer , like do you know what I'm saying as a 12 ?

And that's where a ton of my addiction came from my addiction to masturbation and Was it was driving my need for some sense of relief and release , some sense of safety and comfort . And you know , didn't really understand how to explain to my parents and they didn't recognize the signs that , wow , he really struggles with a lot of anxiety .

Last story I'll share . But I went through large seasons of my life where I would end up on the floor in my parents room , just I would crawl in there late at night , just so terrified , and sometimes my dad would get out of bed and lay next to me and you know he'd pray with me and and .

But again , like we understood heaven and hell , we understood the , the spiritual realm . So that's often where we went to to try to work through the anxiety that I was dealing with . But again , a large part of my anxiety wasn't rooted in the spiritual , it was rooted in the mental , emotional , even just brain chemistry .

I kind of took on this burden of like being overly responsible for things , and so I would . I remember there was a season in my life where my parents were testing me for milk allergies Because I just had diarrhea all the time and they thought it was because I was allergic to dairy .

So I was on rice milk and doing other things , you know , as a young kid , not eating dairy , because they were trying to rule out . You know , maybe these are food allergies , turns out , I was so stressed out that my system was not even working properly . I felt overly responsible for my siblings when we were at daycare .

I felt overly responsible for the well-being of my Siblings when we were at home . I just was that kind of kid that just took things on that weren't mine and I felt nervous all the time who's going to take care of x , y or z ?

And not even because I didn't have parents that were doing it , it was just my makeup and for whatever reason , I'd attached myself to this overly responsible thing , and it caused Tons of anxiety in my life that I didn't know how to pinpoint as anxiety until after we were married .

that I'll give tools just for basic anxiety . But I first want to start with this like the tools that helped me the most was I had I had a nervous breakdown in 2009 and then we had gotten married in 2011 .

I was on the tail end , I was on medication , so clonazepam and Alexa pro is what I was on , which I won't go into my whole story now because it's just too long , but basically I'd lost use of my arms . My body had shut down . That's why I had to get on medication .

Well , I stayed on that medication for quite a long time because it was helping me regulate my nervous system and Helping me cope with the emotions and the fear that I didn't know how to cope with .

I had decided to come off my clonazepam , so I'd been on it for too long , in my opinion , and Longer than you wanted to be yeah , and I was on a really low dose and I had I had weaned myself down a really low dose , but I just decided , okay , I don't want to deal with this anymore .

And so after I had I had started to wean myself off of that medication , boom , here comes all of the stress and Fear and anxiety that I used to deal with . And it was just like so crazy . And I don't know if you remember this , but when Edie was born I had to completely weaned myself off over a five-month period , four or five-month period .

But I Felt like I was back in the old anxiety that I used to deal with Using the tools that I knew how to use . And one day I got on the phone with Dr Margaret Nagib . I was talking to her and she said you know , jay , what you're telling me sounds a lot like what people who deal with OCD Deal with .

And she said I'm not telling you that you have OCD , I'm just saying that I think that we should use some of the tools . And I was like I don't really care what I have , as long as you can Help me , because I was desperate . And so she said oh , I'm gonna give you these three things that I want you to to learn .

And so , anyway , she taught me the three Rs , which the first one is to recognize and see . What happens in your brain if you have OCD is basically your brain gets stuck like a record player on a thought and it just dies deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper into it .

So most , most everyone has the same type of thoughts that go through the brain like , oh , there's germs on that table . I should probably just wash my hands and then you go throughout your day . Somebody with OCD goes oh , there's germs on that table , I wonder if I'm going to get sick . I wonder if there's germs on this cup too .

I wonder what if there's germs on the microphone ? And you start going through , like , if I get , like , if I get sick , then this is gonna , and you just obsess , right and the . You get so exhausted because there really is no end to it . It's just a deep obsession hole that just dives . It's just unending and so .

But what you can do is if you can get your brain to focus on something else , even for a very short period of time 30 seconds . It's like when you're a record player at home , used to skip , skip , skip , skip , and then you just move the needle along and then , oh , it's back to playing its normal track . That's what your brain does .

Your brain's literally just stuck . And so what she taught me was that I first need to recognize a thought that is OCD and I can do it now almost unconsciously , because I've worked so diligently at this but I get a thought that comes to my head like I'll give you one that used to plague me a ton Like what if I have to pee a lot today ?

It's a stupid thought , right , but what would happen is I would get fear about having to pee , and then I would have to pee all the time , like I'd pee 20 times in a day Because now I have anxiety , the same way that you feel like we need to like tell the listeners .

And so , but for me , I would get stuck in that and then I would obsess about it and focus on it . So again , the first , the first step , is to recognize . The next step is to relabel and the last step is to refocus . Recognize , relabel , refocus . And so I would get this thought in my head and go .

I would start down this pathway of like starting to obsess and be like , oh , that's not me , that's OCD . So we have this phrase that is really helpful that's not me , it's OCD , it's not anything I need to solve , it's not even like this isn't coming from me , it's just this OCD thing .

Then I'm going to so that's recognizing and that's relabeling , that's not me , it's OCD . And now I'm going to refocus . And refocusing is where all the magic happens . And so part of what I used to do just to make it really clear is I used to battle the thoughts . I would battle the anxiety with scriptures .

I would God doesn't give me a spirit of fear I'd battle it with all this stuff . I try to battle it with logic , like it's okay if you pee 20 times a day because blah , blah and I'll just drink more water , but that's just an unending cycle of exhaustion as well , so refocusing is .

I'm going to break this rumination by shifting my attention to some , something else . We don't actually have the ability to do two things at once , like people claim to do . Your brain , unconsciously you can drive a car and carry on a conversation , but you can't read a book backwards and write . Your brain can't do those two things .

Like you can't be reading a book and be thinking about this and be writing and thinking about what you're writing . And so if , when your brain is stuck in this rumination , where it's going over and over and over , if you can fully focus on this other thing right here , it has to pick one or the other .

But if you start doing that a minute later , you start to come down Because I've stopped that rumination . That wasn't one that I used a lot . I could play with the kids . So if I've got fully engaged into the kids , I could put somebody on a jet ski right and hit go and they're like oh my gosh , I'm going 80 miles an hour across the lake .

You can't think about your taxes and staying on the jet ski at the same time .

This is how stupid it is . Like I always feel like people are going like except for it's like not stupid because it's biblical . I feel like people are like give me a better tool , like give me , give me nine more things to do , like I would get into crazy thankfulness . So again back to the cycle . Right , I'm starting to . I get this thought in my mind .

I feel anxiety come over me , my palms are a little sweaty , whatever dry mouth , and then I realize , ooh , this isn't me , this is OCD , and now I need to refocus . Now I'm going to get into ridiculous thankfulness because I'm going to break this rumination and so my thankfulness is in very intentional and I start to go into .

I'm so thankful for my daughter that I got to go on a bike ride this morning , even though she had a really tough time getting on the bike . I'm so thankful that I got to be there for that moment to show her how to regulate her emotions , to show her that she's loved and cared for , to bring some peace and stability , lord .

I'm thankful for my wife that I got to eat lunch with today at CR Gibbs . We had fish talkers that I love so much . Like I get into really detailed , specific and what happens is , after you do it a few times , it starts to work . Well , first time I'll start to work , but the second time it builds confidence at like oh yeah , this friggin works .

And the third and the fourth time . And then what happens is I don't have to even use the thankfulness that much , because I start to realize when I get this kind of thought , all it is is just this crazy thought that I don't even have to focus on , and if I want to , I can go into my thankfulness , but that thought's just going to go away anyways .

And that's the ninja level that I've gotten to now Is I'll literally be walking through Costco and I'll have an OCD thought come into my brain and I'll just recognize like , oh yeah , that's that stupid thing and I'll just keep going with my day and it doesn't trip me up .

So that's been massively incredibly helpful in my life and I really think that it will help a lot of people . But can I give just a couple more tools , like for people who are the important thing . If you don't have OCD , then the first thing that I think that you should do if you are struggling with anxiety .

I don't think I have OCD , but everything that you talk about with your OCD I can relate to because of how much one or some thought will play over and over and over in my mind . So I just think that , ocd or not , what we're talking about is what anxiety does to people and how to actually break out of cycles of anxiety . So okay , go ahead .

And so a couple of things that are really helpful is to stop and go . Okay , what's the story I'm telling myself ? Is it actually true ? Not does it have the potential to be true .

We have to remember our strongest instinct , our number one instinct , is our instinct to survive , and so it's why we like bad news is because when we hear good news , we don't link that to valuable information that's helping me to survive . Instinctually , we just go oh , that's cool .

When we hear bad news , we go okay , do I need to know this in order to help me live ? And so that's a massive part of why we get so stuck on these stories that we're telling ourselves is because we think that they're vital to our survival .

I , when we were first married , you know , coming into a blended family and taking on an incredible amount of real responsibility with three kids and a marriage and I was working full time as a pastor in that season I found myself in anxious thoughts a lot , and one of the things you know I want to give an example of the stories you tell yourself One of the

areas of my life where I experienced the most anxiety was in the area of sickness , and what I know now is that the kids getting sick felt like such a threat to the stability that I was working so hard to create that in the early years of our marriage .

If I was around , if I knew that my kid one of our big kids had gone to spend the night at somebody's house and then that kid came down with something , I would spend days ruminating over , worrying about whether our kids were going to get sick . Now , anybody who has kids knows sickness comes a dime a dozen . It's like kids get sick all the time .

So that is nothing that you can control , but I was telling myself I would find myself so far down the line as to what I'm going to do , how I'm going to rearrange our week , how I'm going to rearrange our schedule to accommodate the sickness that surely is coming for my family , you know , and the fear of that being so much worse than you know , the 5% of

the time that we actually did get sick .

When I was talking to Abby Stumball , one of the things she said is I used to future trip . I would get stuck in the future , the what ifs , what's going to happen . And again , unless you're doing that with God , unless you're going to the future with God and you're dreaming with him , almost all future and past focus is anxiety filled .

And so get out of the future , get into the present . So you could take your shoes off . If that helps you , you can walk on the grass and the sun's really hippie-ish , but those things can help you . It's called getting grounded right , and what I want to do is I want to get into what's happening right now .

If you feel anxiety in your chest , here's what you have to remember . It is literally just an emotion and , if you allow it , it has a life cycle . It has like a very short life cycle , that actual feeling of anxiety . If you just go , ok , I feel it in my chest right now , it's going to get better and you just let it work its course for a second .

Right , I'm going to take a few deep breaths . I'm going to breathe out slower than I'm breathing in . Right , take a deep breath , I'm going to breathe out slower than I'm breathing in and you start to focus on . There goes that emotion , it's coming down , I'm feeling better . My day's not going to be full of this . I'm going to feel peace today .

Right , I'm changing what I'm saying and I allow myself to work through just the cycle of the emotion and so , ok , now is there something that I need to start telling myself different , and that could be a million things , depending upon your anxiety . It's like are my kids , is my daughter going to throw another fit tomorrow morning ?

Well , I don't have control over that . So instead of trying to control whether or not she throws a fit , I could start to go hey , I'm so thankful for my daughter and I'm thankful that our life isn't going to always be this right , and I'm thankful that she's learning right now . It's not actually even a problem that she throws a fit .

It's her learning how to deal with her emotions . She doesn't know how to regulate right . So I'm starting to tell myself a different story . What was the story I was telling myself ? That this is going to permanently hurt her , that I'm not doing a good job as a parent , that I don't really know what I'm doing .

Those are all common things that parents go through when they're dealing with toddlers . Whatever your story is right , I'm starting to refocus , change what I'm telling myself and go back to what is real . Well , what's real ? So I do this with people a lot . I'll give you one scenario .

I'm working with some leaders , church leaders and they have a world-class church , but they also experience a lot of persecution . They have an incredible church and I get them back to okay , do your kids love God ? Yeah , they do . Is your marriage strong ? Yeah , are you guys financially stable in your church ? Yes , is God showing up ?

Yes , okay , anything else that you're telling yourself is not real . Let's get back to what is actually real , and we all have bad things happening in our life . We all have things that are a bummer . I'm gonna get God's perspective on those , not mine . I'm gonna get God's perspective .

So you know , we've all had children that are really struggling and really doing things that they're not supposed to do . Okay , I'm not even gonna solve that . The lie is that I'm gonna solve that . The truth is is that God's got a great plan that I can partner with .

So I'm gonna get back again , I'm gonna take my shoes off , I'm gonna stand on my carpet , I'm getting my feet in the dirt . I'm gonna get back , grounded into today . I'm right here . I have right now . I don't have the future , I don't have the past . What can I start focusing on ?

I'm taking those breaths , I'm letting the anxiety pass , or my sweaty palms , or all that stuff is normal , like it's normal to feel that , and it's normal for it to go away . I'm working myself through it . I can feel it going away

. Okay , now , what do I need to ? What's the real story , god ? What is the real story for me right now ? Right here , I'm fine . I'm in Northern California , my wife loves me , I'm working at a job that is incredible . I am . You know what's my task . So the next piece would be what do I need to do today ?

What can I actually do today that's gonna help benefit my life ? Get myself out of the future , get it out of the past and get it into today . What's something today that I actually can control ?

, intimate relationship when anxiety is running somebody's life because it just impacts the way that you make decisions , the way that you spend your time , how you kind of live guarded . If you're really struggling with a lot of anxiety , it's hard to let your guard down enough to actually be intimate with someone .

And I'm not talking sexually , I'm talking about emotionally or just mentally connected to people . It's hard when you're spinning out in anxiety . So I would say there's a lot about Jason's anxiety battle that I didn't understand or know how to validate until I experienced it for the first time myself .

And I would say that I didn't know how to validate the experiences of capacity limits . When you're spinning out in anxiety your capacity is so limited and that's hard to understand . If you're not the person struggling with anxiety in that relationship it's hard to get it . The need for self-care .

I didn't actually know Part of my anxiety was it was all rooted in so much over responsibility . I really neglected , genuinely neglected taking care of myself . I would prioritize taking care of things around me because it was such a false sense of control and I actually needed control in order to manage my anxiety .

So , no , I wouldn't actually ever prioritize recreation over getting things done . My to-do list was always more important until I learned that it wasn't . And then that last key that Jay shared was probably one of the biggest ones for me to stay present , because worrying is typically all about the future For me .

I remember I specifically remember driving in the car one day . We were heading to church and I was worrying , worrying , worrying about something , and you said you need to tell yourself I have permission to have a great day today , which it was essentially like getting myself out of that future forecasting mode and into . That's not what's happening right now .

What's happening right now is I'm driving in the car , it's a beautiful sunny day , the birds are chirping , I have three healthy kids in the back seat , we're on our way to church , we're gonna have a great day and just that grounding experience of getting yourself back into the present , and I would say I use that tool so much .

Even still , if I start to feel anxiety creep in , I'll often tell myself I have permission to have a great time right now . I have permission to do well right now .

We're getting right ahead to South Carolina and it would be easy for us to sit and try to plan out every single thing , every possibility , every scenario , instead of go like , okay , have I packed everything I need to pack right here , have I done everything I need to do right here , and then trusting that you're going to have the grace to handle whatever scenario

happens when you get to that point in your life that you can't figure everything out . So one other thing that I think is really important and helpful is how much other variables play into the piece of your life . So sleep is a massive one . Hormones are a massive one . People skip that stuff a lot .

When I went through my nervous breakdown , part of why I ended up in a nervous breakdown is I was deathly deficient in vitamin D , incredibly deficient . I was taking 100,000 . I use a vitamin D three times a week and I didn't know that . So that was a catalyst to what I was already had been dealing with in my life .

So now I take vitamin D every single day and I will for the rest of my life . For men , testosterone is a massive thing . That my dad crashed and what they found is oh , he was so deficient in testosterone . Is testosterone so low ? Well , the effects of that is devastating Mentally and emotionally and for women . You know testosterone but also estrogen .

You know just your thyroid stuff right ? Just all the different things that really make a massive difference in the way that our brain works Getting enough sunlight , but also getting enough sleep . So sleep is a superpower . We don't often talk about it enough and the Huberman lab goes into a lot .

Andrew Huberman , like he's a neuroscientist from Stanford University and he's got a lot of stuff on sleep , how to optimize your sleep . And we just know , like man , if you sleep really good , you're , the chance that you're gonna have a good . Be able to handle things and be robust is huge . So for me , I know lack of sleep .

Every single time I have to work harder to regulate my emotions than when I sleep . Well , I just know it is . I also found that caffeine was really jacking me up . So caffeine chocolate .

But so all those things you know , you got to just pay attention to your body and find that , find out how , how do you really work ? Because it's not just emotional , it's and we make that mistake . And it's not just spiritual .

It's not like , oh , you know , the devil's after me and I hear people do that kind of stuff and I'm like , well , you just drink three red bowls yesterday and you eat like crap and then you don't sleep . Of course , you have anxiety . It's actually coming from the physical , not the spiritual .

And so being able to really identify how you are doing body , soul and spirit , what you need in order to function well and thrive , are you getting enough rest ? Are you getting enough play ? Do you have enough connection in your life ? Do you have healthy patterns in your life ? Are you eating well , are you sleeping well ?

All those things play into you living a happy whole life . And I'll tell you the American diet I'm not talking food , I'm talking the American lifestyle is a hammer on your piece . And so you know , if you're going to live a healthy , happy whole life , don't follow the normal American diet . It's stab late , eat whatever you want .

So if you love what you're doing , go ahead . Sorry , if you love what we are doing not what you're doing you love what we are doing . Go ahead and subscribe to the podcast . Share it . If you know somebody who's struggling with anxiety , share this podcast with them . Help them out . Go ahead and leave a comment . We read those comments . I read them .

Lauren reads them . The reviews on the podcast help us so much to be known and to share a podcast with other people . We love you guys , so thankful for you . We will see you next week .