Battleground

I had a panic attack a few nights ago.

It had been years since I’d had one, or at least one of that scale. I couldn’t catch my breath, my stomach was in knots, and even though all I wanted to do was sleep, I laid wide awake in my queen size.

I stayed up almost the entire night, and boy did I pay for it the next day. Upon arriving at my office, I sluggishly made my way over to the espresso machine and downed a double shot. I sat at my desk, exhausted, and still not fully recovered from the overwhelming emotions of night before.

I went through the motions, doing what I needed to do: answer emails, make phone calls, drink more espresso - ya know, adult things.

When 5 o’clock rolled around, I packed up my things, closed the office, and drove home. After eating some lukewarm leftovers for dinner (I definitely could have microwaved them longer, but my espresso had just worn off), I sat on the couch and pulled out my phone, intending to scroll through Tik Tok until my eyelids felt heavy enough to go to sleep.

As I sat down though, something caught my eye - it was a book that my boyfriend’s mom purchased for me awhile back called “Get Out of Your Head.” I looked back down at my phone, but something in me forced my attention back to the book. Okay God, I thought, I’ll bite.

Author Jennie Allen had me fully invested after the first 5 sentences. In a gorgeous combination of Theology and neuroscience, she explains how the enemy has taken control of our minds, and how he continues to attack not by outright hurting us, but by using our own thoughts to trap us in endless spirals of anxiety.

Yikes.

My panic attack from a few nights prior was brought on by one of these spirals. At some point during the day, my boyfriend had replied to something that I had said with low enthusiasm.

“He’s losing interest in you” my enemy whispered, “he is going to leave you.”

And just like that, my brain had jumped all the way from A to Z, filling in every single blank along the way. With little to no evidence, I had come to the conclusion that the love of my life was no longer attracted to me, never actually loved me, and the only reason that our relationship has gone on as long as it has is because he’s too scared to tell me that he doesn’t want to be with me.

Woah.

I wasn’t up all night worrying about something that had actually happened to me - no, the reason that I was sleepless and exhausted was because of a scenario that never even happened. I made myself miserable, and all the enemy had to do was make a suggestion.

Is my psyche really that fragile? Are my thoughts truly that easily persuaded? I sat in bed pondering these things, wondering where else I had allowed such lies to take root.

It became clear to me that in almost every area of my life, I was under mental attack - anxious about my relationship, ungrateful for my job, lazy in my scripture reading & church attendance…the list went on and on, and by the end of it, there were more areas of my life that the devil was digging his ugly hands into than not.

And that really pissed me off.

I didn’t want to be numb anymore. I didn’t want to be anxious anymore. I wanted to feel like myself again. I wanted to feel confident and sure, and thankfully, I knew exactly where to start (shoutout Jennie Allen).

I drew a mental map of everything that was bothering me, along with all of the possible outcomes that my brain could possibly imagine. I then forced myself to read every single one out loud, and you know what? They all sounded absolutely ridiculous.

Don’t get me wrong, it took a couple of readings before the ridiculousness actually came out - the first couple of times I was still like “yeah, that makes sense.”

But you see, it’s very easy for us to get lost in our own brains. We are able to take something that is completely preposterous in the real world and then rationalize it, giving it a permanent home in our minds. We fixate and stew and mull it over again and again and again, and each time we think that thought, it starts to feel more real.

But it’s not real. It’s just a thought. And what are we called to do with our thoughts?

Submit them to Christ.

2 Corinthians 10:3-5 says:

“We are human, but we don’t wage war as humans do. We use God’s mighty weapons, not worldly weapons, to knock down the strongholds of human reasoning and to destroy false arguments. We destroy every proud obstacle that keeps people from knowing God. We take captive every thought and make it obedient to Christ.”

Did you get that? Every. Single. Thought.

Every thought that enters and leaves your wrinkled brain is to be submitted to Christ - whether it’s about something serious or something mundane. If we do not submit our thoughts to Christ, our minds become a playground for the devil to run rampant. He will take any and every opportunity you give him to wreak havoc, and he will use the greatest weapon that he can to take you down - yourself.

The war we are fighting is not in front of us, but inside of us. The enemy is picking fights between our ears, and we’re not only allowing it, we’re encouraging it. Every single time that we indulge in the anxious thoughts he whispers in our ear, we are falling for his trap.

No more.

It’s time to wake up.

This is war.

Now, hear me say that wars are not won overnight. Unraveling all of the lies that he has so deeply woven into your subconscious are going to take awhile to locate and uproot. You are going to need to give yourself time, and most of all, grace.

I realize now that a lot of my anxious thoughts have roots deeper than the initial thought itself - things like “I am unloveable” and “I am worthless” are the culprits behind the crimes my brain commits against itself.

Let’s take my recent panic attack for example. What started with a mildly unenthusiastic word from my boyfriend jumped to:

> I’m annoying him.

> I’ve probably been annoying him for awhile now.

> I need to stop talking so much so I don’t annoy him.

> He’s going to leave me if I keep annoying him.

> He wants to leave, but he’s too scared to.

> He doesn’t actually love me anymore.

> I annoy everyone.

> Everyone leaves me.

> I am unlovable.

I know I’m not the only one who does this. I know that this is one of the most common forms of attack the enemy uses because it’s so sneaky that majority of the time we don’t even know it’s happening.

It starts with a thought, and ends in a never-ending spiral. The devil hands us a shovel, and we dig ourselves a 6-foot grave and jump right in.

We have got to get ahold of ourselves.

Or, rather, let Christ take ahold of us.

A lot of our anxious thoughts go back to our illusion of control. We have this delusion that if we worry about something enough, we’ll be prepared for it when it happens and therefore will lessen the negative effects - which is exactly what I said, a delusion.

How do I know that?

Well, for starters, my boyfriend and I are still together.

I spent an entire night fixating on an issue that didn’t exist outside of my mind. I was up all night panicking about what could happen, and it never even happened.

I told him about my ridiculous spiral the next day. He first assured me that he wasn’t going to leave me, and then followed it up with “don’t be dumb.”

We cannot keep letting the devil’s whispers run free in our minds. Your brain is a precious creation, given to you in full complexity from the One who understands it best because He created you. He knows every thought that you think before your synapses even have time to fire - let Him take care of the anxious ones.

Don’t allow yourself to be crushed under the weight of your thoughts. Your brain is a battleground, and the only way for you to win the war is to grab every thought by the neck and force it to submit to Jesus - He will take it from there.

Submitting your thoughts to Christ doesn’t mean that the bad thoughts go away - it’s actively choosing to have confidence in the fact that the One who sits on the throne is in control of your life, and that wasting another second worrying is a waste of the precious time He has given you on this earth. It’s knowing that your thoughts have no actual power over you, but Christ has executive power over them.

The battle is already won. Don’t allow yourself to be distracted by your anxiety any longer. Do not dwell on the things that could be or should be, but instead, set your mind on the Truth: Jesus decided that you were to die for, and in doing so, took on the burden of sin that you could not carry. Cast your anxieties onto Him, for He cares for you.


Link to Get Out of Your Head:


*Disclaimer - as someone who studied psychology in college and suffers from hereditary anxiety, I know that many of you reading this experience a kind of anxiety that is rooted solely in the chemicals of your brain. Please do not read this and think that I am saying “just pray it away” or anything of the sort. While I do believe that God can do anything, including heal mental illness, I am not blind to the dark reality of anxiety and depression that exists in millions of people’s lives. While you can still choose to submit your thoughts to Christ, there is no shame in seeking treatment in the forms of therapy or medication. Going to therapy has been one of the best decisions that I have ever made. Some anxieties simply cannot be managed by yourself, so do not feel like you need to do it all alone. Asking for help is not weak, it is brave.

Call an Exterminator

A few weeks ago, my world got flipped upside down.

I’m not going to go into details, but just know that it was ugly. The depression that overcame me was so heavy I couldn’t get out of bed. I didn’t want to eat. I didn’t want to watch TV. I didn’t even want to sleep, but seeing as I couldn’t get myself to move from my bed, that’s how I spent most of my days.

Eventually I got tired of feeling this way, and told my parents that I needed to go to therapy.

You see, this was a big deal for me. I’ve always been a big advocate for therapy, and even went when I struggled with anxiety when I was younger. I encourage the people around me to get help when they need it, but for some reason I felt weak going this time. I felt like I was giving in. I felt like going to therapy meant that I was damaged or broken, which made no sense considering I have always felt so positively about it.

I also felt like I wouldn’t learn anything from therapy. I thought that I would sit there and listen to some 50-something year old would ask me what events lead to this depressive episode and how this has made me feel, and to be completely honest…I didn’t want to talk to anyone about how I felt. I had all my walls up, and all I wanted was to be able to lay in bed and pray it all away, then wake up in the morning depression-free.

On top of all of that, I thought that getting help meant that I was a bad Christian. I thought that it meant I wasn’t relying on God enough. I thought that it would make me a hypocrite. I felt like since I have this blog and I’m constantly comforting people and giving advice, that I should be able to do it on my own. I felt like you guys would look at me and think I’m not worthy to talk about the things that I talk about or pray for you guys or give you advice or…you get my point.

I thought that asking for help made me weak.

On my first day of therapy, I was so nervous that I was shaking as I filled out the insurance paperwork. I wasn’t even talking about what had happened yet, and I already felt like I was going to throw up the blueberry bagel that I had for breakfast.

I felt a wave of calm come over me however, when I actually met my therapist. She was young and fashionable, and I felt my stomach knot loosen. It was nice to have someone close to my age & my same gender helping me out.

How did my first session go, you ask?

I started crying within the first 5 minutes of talking and didn’t stop until our hour was up.

I kept apologizing - “I’m sorry I’m such a mess. Ugh, I’m so sorry for crying. Wow I can’t stop crying, I’m sorry!'“

She got fed up with that pretty quickly.

“Why are you apologizing for expressing your emotions? You never have to apologize for feeling, especially not to me.”

That made me cry even harder.

I didn’t realize it until that day, but I’ve always kind of hid what I’m feeling from other people. I felt like if I told other people what was going on in my head, they would think that I was being dramatic or that I was weak. I told her that, and she said something that blew my mind.

“Other people don’t think that about you Bailey, you think that about you.”

She went on to tell me about these annoying things that our brains sometimes have called ANTs. “ANT” stands for “automatic negative thought,” and they represent your core beliefs about yourself. She pulled a list of them out of her desk drawer and asked me to check the ones that I thought I struggled with.

There were 17 ANTs on the list.

I checked 13 of them.

I was blown away. How did I not notice how sick I was? How did I not notice how unhealthy and toxic my thoughts had become? When did it get this bad? I was literally bullying myself mentally and wasn’t thinking twice about it.

“So, what do I do?” I asked, still totally bewildered by the length of my list.

“Well, what would you do if you had a large infestation of ants in your house?”

I laughed. It felt like a silly question.

“Call an exterminator?”

“Call an exterminator! But in this case, you are the exterminator,” she said. “The first step is noticing that they’re there. Now that you know that these thoughts exist in your head, you can start to change them. It’s your job to interrupt the negative with something positive.”

You guys, just this one conversation has completely turned my life around. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a daily challenge, as negative thoughts don’t just go away overnight - but I can feel myself changing. I can feel the growth. I can feel my mind de-clouding, and day by day I’m learning to interrupt my negative thoughts with positive ones. I’m learning what it truly means to love and take care of myself.

I’ve spent a lot of time taking care of other people, often times completely neglecting my own needs (enneagram type 2’s, where ya at?). I thought that I was being selfless by always putting myself last, but in reality that was actually the most selfish thing I could have done - I couldn’t get out of bed, and therefore could be of no help to anyone. I became depressed because it was the only way my body could get my attention. My brain had been screaming “hey you! I need help!” for months, only to be pushed aside. I’ve always tried to live by the verse “love your neighbor as yourself,” but I never took into consideration the fact that that verse implies that there is in fact love for myself in the first place.

If you take anything from this, please hear me say that asking for help does not make you weak. It doesn’t make you a bad Christian. It doesn’t make you a hypocrite.

It makes you human.

God put people with a passion for medicine and therapy on this earth for a reason - to be used!

You can’t give out of an empty bucket. You can’t serve others when your mind is sick. You can’t go where God wants to send you when you’re stuck in bed and eating saltine crackers with peanut butter for your third meal of the day.

Don’t belittle yourself for needing help. Take daily steps to care for yourself. Give yourself some love.

You deserve it.

_________________________

If you want to read more about ANTs, click here - I couldn’t find a link with all 17, but the ones listed are the most common.

If you have any questions or want to share your therapy experience with me (or you just want to say hi!), please don’t hesitate to reach out to me! All of my contact info is in the “contact” tab listed under “more.”

_________________________

Stand Up and Fight

My anxiety has been kicking my butt lately.

The thing is, nothing is really going on. Other than the normal amount of stress than accompanies school, I have absolutely nothing to be anxious about - yet I constantly have this overwhelming feeling of anxiety and dread that something bad is going to happen. It has become such a familiar feeling that I’ve grown completely numb to its presence in my life. I don’t even try to remove it anymore; it’s like a dark passenger that’s just along for the ride. Every step I take, it’s right there with me.

This has begun to impact my spiritual life. I keep calling out to God to remove this thorn in my side, but He doesn’t - and I get frustrated. I’m so unfocused that even doing the smallest of tasks like reading my Bible or journaling feel pointless. I find my mind drifting off to a dark place. A sinful place.

This has been going on for weeks. I was in desperate need of an attitude adjustment. I couldn’t hear God’s voice, and I was beginning to think that He wasn’t even listening to my prayers.

And then He came down and delivered the most powerful spiritual uppercut that I have ever received.

I was trying to do some Bible reading, and I could feel my mind beginning to drift and think about other things. I was determined to focus though - I was so tired of this anxiety - so I audibly yelled “NO” and pushed those thoughts out.

And all of a sudden it clicked.

I have the strength in me to say no.

A light in my brain turned on and illuminated all of the darkness that I had been sitting in for weeks. All of the crap that I had been holding onto, all of the sinful thoughts, all of the guilt and shame and anxiety that I was feeling was bathed in light, and it was in that moment that I realized that all of that bad stuff had absolutely no power over me.

And then God spoke.

Stand up and fight,” He said.

Stand up and fight.

I had spent weeks playing victim to my anxious thoughts. I had let them completely consume the precious space in my head. I thought that there was nothing I could do about it, and that this darkness that I was feeling was something that I was stuck with. The enemy had convinced me that I had no power over my own thoughts - how ridiculous is that?

We are a sinful people. It’s in our nature to sin. It’s literally bred into us. The cool thing is however, that while it is our tendency to lean towards sin, through Christ we have the ability to say no. We have the power to crush every negative thought that passes through our minds. The same spirit that brought Jesus back from the grave is alive in us. The same spirit that triumphed over sin is alive in us.

We are no longer victims to our anxiety.

We are no longer victims to our sin.

Jesus dying on the cross ensured that we never have to be victims again.

After all of this, God lead me to 1 Timothy 6:11-12. It says this:

“But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, and gentleness. Fight the good fight of faith. Take hold of the eternal life that you have been called to.”

It goes on to say this in verse 20:

Guard what has been entrusted to your care. Turn away from the godless chatter and false knowledge of the world that has been professed, and in doing so has wandered from faith.”

God created your mind to be a dwelling place for Him. Your brain is a sacred place in which God communicates with you and reveals to you his purpose, as well as His love and grace. Your mind is not a place for anxiety. It is not a place for sin. By feeding into those feelings and thoughts, you’re desecrating the precious gift that God has given to you. The enemy is going to lie to you and tell you that you’re not strong enough to change your mind. You don’t deserve to be happy. This is just how things are. He will tell you anything he can to ensure that your mind stays dark -

Don’t believe him.

It’s a daily battle. You have to want to overcome it - and I have faith that you can. Dive into your Bible, even when you don’t feel like it. Arm yourself with the goodness of the word of God. Your strongest weapon against the enemy is the truth of the Gospel.

You don’t have to be a victim anymore.

You deserve a clear mind.

You have the power to say no.

Stand up and fight.

_________________________

Songs that are sure to pump you up for battle:

You Make Me Brave - Amanda Cook, Bethel Music

Singing in the Victory - Austin Stone Worship

Gravity - Jenn Johnson, Brian Johnson

I Love You - Sarah Reeves

Call Upon the Lord - Elevation Worship

_________________________

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xo

@thelightclctive

Movers, Shakers, and Decision Makers

When it comes to making decisions, there are a few different types of people:

1. The Decision Makers - as made obvious by the name, these are the people who have no problem making decisions. Aside from the normal amount of discomfort that accompanies decision making, they experience very little additional anxiety.

2. The Opportunity Costers* - opportunity cost is an economic term that refers to the principle that you must give something up in order to gain something else. These are the people who get anxiety from decisions because of the fear that they'll miss out on whatever they don't choose. They're scared that if they pick the wrong thing, the entire trajectory of their life will be thrown off.

*Is this a word? No. But I just made it one. Boom.

3. The Survey Takers - this group is prone to being overly concerned with the opinions of others. When it comes to making decisions (especially big ones), they don't move forward without first getting the opinions of others.

I fall somewhere in between the Opportunity Costers and the Survey Takers. When I have to make a decision, I panic (like really panic). I worry that if I make the wrong decision, I'll miss out on what God has in store for me. On top of that, I worry about disappointing the people around me if I do the wrong thing. People say "you made your bed, now lie in it," and it absolutely terrifies me.

What if I make the bed the wrong way?

This fear often prevents me from making decisions altogether, which is neither healthy nor productive. My inability to make decisions has really been taking a toll on me lately, but the other day God placed something on my heart and everything suddenly made sense.

What did He place on my heart, you ask?

Mrs. Piggle Wiggle.

When I was little, I read a book series about a woman named Mrs. Piggle Wiggle, who had the cure for every "ailment" a child could have. From not bathing to eating too slowly, Mrs. Piggle Wiggle knew exactly what to do. One of my favorite books of the series was the one where she helps a girl learn how to make her bed. The girl had no idea how to do it the right way, which left her parents displeased. To fix the problem, Mrs. Piggle Wiggle dressed like a witch and teased the girl  (in a nice way, don't worry) until she learned to make her bed with absolutely no wrinkles.

At first I was confused as to why this popped into my head  (other than to bring about fond childhood memories), when suddenly, it clicked. 

No matter what you do, how badly you mess up, no matter how many times, there's absolutely nothing you can do that will ruin God's plan for your life if you're following Him.

Don't get me wrong - you can certainly get off track. However, if you're genuinely trying to follow God's plan for your life and you're just worried about how to get where He needs you to be  (like me!), I've got some good news for you: God already knows all of the decisions you're going to make, good and bad. You can't do anything to surprise Godwhich is such a relief.

If God already knows all the decisions you're going to make, don't you think that He's already worked out a plan to get you to where you need to be?

Shortly after Mrs. Piggle Wiggle, another thing popped into my head - one of my favorite verses, Proverbs 3:6:

"In all your ways submit to Him, and He will make your paths straight."

Click!

Okay, I hear you Jesus.

The cool thing about God is that He is overflowing with love. He doesn't sit up in heaven and move us around like puppets on strings, nor does He just sit back and let us ruin our lives without interjecting. Instead, He is like Mrs. Piggle Wiggle - if He sees you attempting to make the bed, He is going to honor you for trying -

and if you mess it up, He'll help you remake the bed.

What I've realized is that God honors motion. If your heart is in the right place when you're making a decision, it truly doesn't matter what you choose - God already has it all worked out. He will direct you in the way you need to go. There is absolutely nothing you can do that will ruin His grand plan.

So, breathe.

You don't have to worry about making the "wrong" decision as long as you're putting in the effort to move yourself forward. You can't just stay in neutral and not make any decisions because they're "hard" - it's difficult for God to purpose an object that's not in motion. Think of the Israelites in Exodus for example - God brought them to the promise land, but they were too scared to step into it. They took one look at all of the giants in the land and decided not to trust that God had already worked everything out in their favor.

Don't be like the Israelites.

Stop worrying about all of the "what if's" and hold onto the fact that Jesus has already worked out every single little detail of every situation you'll be in.

This doesn't go to say that if you find yourself faced with a big decision you should just choose a random one and go with it. What I'm saying is that if you're genuinely trying to follow the path that God wants for you, and you've prayed about it but haven't got an answer, then maybe you need to consider the idea that His silence is your answer.

Maybe He's turning you into a decision maker.

Stop procrastinating because you're scared of choosing the wrong thing.

God already has this all worked out.

So, take a deep breath and take a leap of faith.

Even if He's silent, He'll be with you every step of the way -

and He's waiting to catch you on the other side.

Oh, and one more thing -

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not harm you, plans to give you hope and a future" (Jeremiah 29:11).

_________________________

Songs to empower you on your decision-making journey:

Oceans (I know - a classic!) - Hillsong United

Fearless - Jasmine Murray

Never Gone - Colton Dixon

You Make Me Brave (Live) - Amanda Cook, Bethel Music

Hurricane - Natalie Grant

_________________________

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xo

@thelightclctive