Matt Tuckson - Faith & Anxiety - Class 2 - Processing Anxiety

Automatically transcribed. Accuracy is good but not perfect, and words are sometimes wrong. Trust the audio over the text.

1. 0:07

   All right, I’ll give you guys a minute. A couple minutes to finish up passing around the thing that way. It’s not distracting. Well, we’re going to class. I’m sorry.

2. 0:18

   I’m not going to die. Do this on the fly. I’m out of my material. Like, I can’t do it on the fly. All right, where are we at this? OK, good. We’re back there. All right, Sweet. We’ll go ahead and get started. Hello again, brothers and sisters. Hello. Hi there. So in our last class, we really dealt with the relationship between anxiety and faith and really the implications on that, of how it should relate to our moral framework, of how it should relate to how we evolve guilt and things like that. I mean we’re going to start off this class dealing with a bit of a recap.

3. 0:56

   So we’re going to kind of re walk through that in a very kind of hopefully 345 minute kind of shortened version. Once we do that, we’re going to spend a little bit of time dealing with thinking about how do we start processing anxiety and through that we’re going to have to understand a bit about kind of emotions and how our brain works.

4. 1:12

   So we’re going to be dealing with some science philosophy kind of thoughts and we’ll be dealing with that for a bit. And then we’re going to get into a lot of biblical examples. We’re going to get some real practical steps. You’ll see some of those on your sheet now and we’ll talk about those when we get there, some real practical steps on how do you deal with anxiety. And we’re going to see how David does it, because he does it a lot.

5. 1:33

   He was seemed to be a very anxious and emotional person, at least in his Psalms. And so we’re going to see how does he deal with his anxieties, how does he deal with his struggles, his trials. So that’s going to be the goal for today. And again, the ultimate intention of the whole series, the whole weekend really is going to come down to this class where it’s.

6. 1:49

   I want to show you guys the agency that you have in this battle. I want you guys to be able to walk away and say I know what to do in the battle of anxiety, actually know the steps to take. I know how to go through this. It’s not something that’s happening to me that I have to deal with. It’s something that I can actually work on and work through.

7. 2:04

   That’s really the goal of kind of this class. It’s dealing with a bit of a recap. Remember we talked about the relationship between anxiety and faith, and we used Matthew 6 as kind of like our main focus point of that class. That was when Jesus says, oh ye of little faith, the people who are anxious about things that make sense why they’re anxious about them.

8. 2:25

   It’s food, it’s clothing, it’s very base needs. And we looked at how the reason Jesus says that or can say that it’s because of values. It’s because, well, these people were missing a value. They were missing the fact that God values them and they were prioritizing food and shelter more than their understanding of the truth.

9. 2:46

   And things are about God. They essentially were miss evaluating things because of their anxieties. And the same is true for us. When we are anxious about various different things, our anxieties tell us to miss evaluate things around us. They say whatever we’re anxious about is the most important thing top of the value system.

10. 3:03

    This is because anxiety comes from deep personal cares. The reason I’m anxious about something is that I care about it or something related to it. And so that’s really why faith and anxiety connect. It’s because of values. That’s the connector, That’s the middle bit that’s often times missing when we think about it. And then from there we went to OK, well how do we think about guilt in this relationship?

11. 3:25

    Because when we connect anxiety to faith, often times the kind of side effect of that is you feel really guilty every time you have anxiety. And that’s not really the goal. The goal isn’t to feel guilty. The goal is to work through anxiety. So how do I think about guilt? With this? I went through how anxiety is similar to other temptations. We likened it to anger or lust, and we really saw how when you liken it to those other ideas, OK, anxiety itself isn’t a sin and I shouldn’t feel guilty about it. However, I do have a responsibility to work through it in the same way that if we’re angry, we have a responsibility to work through it.

12. 4:01

    Not to sit in it, not to stay in that space, that space of anger, but to try to work out of it, to pluck the the eye out. That causes us to sin, to pluck the temptation out. And that’s hard. We’re going to look at how do we kind of do that in this class? That’s the goal.

13. 4:14

    It’s not to feel guilty because of that. The anxiety, the anger and the lust, That’s not just make you feel guilty, but it is supposed to say, I need to get out of this. And on top of that, there is times where guilt is appropriate. So if anger acting on it, you know, punching somebody because they stepped in your toe, that’s that’s you should feel guilty about that, that you sinned, you acted on your anger.

14. 4:37

    Likewise, sometimes we act on our anxieties. So if we’re anxious about a social situation with the example we gave, a social situation where we’re worried about, you know, being embarrassed or what have you, and we kind of prioritize that fear, that anxiety over helping a friend in need, well, that’s acting on our anxiety.

15. 4:56

    That’s acting on our MIS evaluation of what’s important and how important things are. So that would be a state where, yeah, actually, guilt is kind of appropriate here, but it’s appropriate to make you realize, hey, I don’t actually want to act like that. I don’t want to be like that. I want to actually prioritize the things of God and prioritize being righteous and all that. And so, OK, I need to work on this. And once you say I’m going to work on it, the guilt has fulfilled its purpose.

16. 5:19

    We don’t carry that guilt anymore. It’s done its job, and we can now keep working at the anxiety on the temptation level, not focusing on the transgression level. So how do we do that? That’s the question of this class. How do we actually work on anxiety? And to do that, we’re going to have to work through a few kind of ideas of how the brain works about how emotions come to be.

17. 5:42

    So this is the the science, philosophy sort of stuff that I was talking about earlier. See, all emotions, all of them, come from a combination of a few things that come from your beliefs about the world, your values and how they interact with one another. I don’t mean beliefs about the world, as in, like, do you believe in God?

18. 6:04

    I mean beliefs about the world is like, do you believe this chair will hold you up if you sit on it? That’s a belief. I believe it’s true. But if I were to sit on that chair and it falls, I’d have an emotion. I’d be like, whoa, that was surprising. And that hurt.

19. 6:16

    And, you know, I’d be having a different emotion if I sit on it and that doesn’t happen. I have a very different emotion. OK, this happened. This was normal. This is what I expected. Essentially, our beliefs are what lead to our emotions. Another example of this is a bit more of a complex one than sitting on a chair.

20. 6:33

    I’ll use a real life one. That luckily hasn’t happened, but it’s not too far off of what could happen. If Cilla and I were planning to go on a date and I forgot I forgot the date. It hasn’t happened, but I can very easily see it happening. Yeah, that’s just, that’s just me. So and I forget.

21. 6:51

    I completely forget. Don’t show up to the date. I’m at home. Like, where’s Silla? Like, what’s going on? A few things have happened here and she reacts. Like, I’m really angry. She’s frustrated, you know? Why did he miss the date? A few things have happened and a lot of it is because of the beliefs that Silla carries in that moment.

22. 7:08

    Silla likely believes in this moment. She’s really angry and frustrated at me. Well, that I should have remembered the date. That’s of belief. He should remember this. OK, that’s 11 belief hold she’s holding. Another belief is that the lack of remembering suggests a lack of importance. If I didn’t remember, it’s because I don’t think she’s important, and that would be another belief that she’s holding in that scenario that’s leading to emotions. And then there’s another belief that let me find it real quick, that the date was important enough to her that me forgetting, which also implied to her that I don’t care, is upsetting.

23. 7:48

    The other day, it wasn’t important to her. Me not caring about it wouldn’t matter. But because she cares about it, the fact that I forgot it, it hurts. And so we see how there’s three beliefs at least just in this One example, one, that, well, she she thought that I should remember the date. 2.

24. 8:06

    That me forgetting the date implies that it’s not important. And three, it’s important to her, and so she wants it to be important to me. These three beliefs that lead to an emotion, disappointment, anger, frustration. However, what if we change some of these beliefs? What happens? What if, for example, I’ve had a lot of concussions in my life? I have.

25. 8:27

    And This is why I say it’s not too far off. And I forget it because I, you know, I am actually forgetful because of my concussions. And instead of believing that I should remember it, Silla believes sometimes he forgets things because he has had a lot of concussions. OK, and what if instead of believing that it’s not important to me, it’s actually that no, he has concussions and sometimes he forgets things, even if they’re important to him, that forgetting it doesn’t actually relate to importance for him. And lastly, that she has a core belief that she is important to me and she has that truly ingrained it. And if we look at those beliefs in scenario instead of going, I’m really mad at him because he forgot this date. That’s really important to me.

26. 9:12

    The take away would be I’m a bit disappointed because I was looking forward to the date. It was something that slowly wanting to happen, but she wouldn’t be thinking he doesn’t care about me. She wouldn’t be thinking how dare he is a terrible husband. All these kinds of things it would be this is one of those really frustrating things that happens because of his concussions.

27. 9:31

    Maybe we can like try to figure out a system of like maybe using a calendar or something to help him remember. It would go from this deep personal attack on her as a, as a like a, as a wife to a. This is a a frustrating, practical thing that we have to deal with.

28. 9:46

    We need to deal with it. The the emotional output changes when you tweak the beliefs. And the reason I’m getting into this is because this is also how we’re going to deal with anxiety, because anxiety is an emotional output and that comes from ingrained beliefs, from beliefs that we have about the world. And so we’re going to look at that as we keep digging. But before we get into that, we’ll deal with that until we get to our steps here.

29. 10:09

    And a bit before we deal with that, there’s one more thing I want to cover, and that is some signs about how your brain works. This stuff is super interesting to me. So your brain works in a way, a bunch of electrical currents happening. And when an electrical current happens from point to point in your brain, a little divot happens in your brain is a way to think about it. And it’s so small that doing it once really won’t. You won’t see anything.

30. 10:35

    But they’ve actually been able to measure that. If you do it over and over and over again, the same electrical current, that it physically changes your brain, Something has physically changed. And then on top of this, electrical currents follow the path of least resistance. And so when you create a divot in your brain or you create a pathway in your brain, and because you’ve done the same thing over and over and over and over again, when you’re not thinking about what you’re doing, you’re likely to do that same thing. That’s how habits are formed.

31. 11:01

    That’s how patterns are formed. Even mannerisms come from this idea. The problem is that this also effects emotions, and they’re come from our beliefs. And so if we believe something that leads to us having anxiety, We’ve had anxiety for years. We’ve got a really deep divot. And then when we aren’t thinking with intention, we’re just living our life, kind of going through life.

32. 11:26

    Well, our electrical currents are going to follow that divot because that’s what we’ve done in our brain, but not by choice, but kind of just by going through life we’ve created these divots. I think a way to think about it in another picture, if you’re if you’re struggling to imagine this, think about our brain like a graphite block.

33. 11:42

    And plus it’s a soft metal, it’s a block and every time you do something you’re like running a credit card over that block. You’re swiping, you do it once, the block doesn’t change, it’s still a flat surface. You do it 100 times, you got a small little divot, you go to 1000 times the credit cards like an inch deep. And now what I’m saying is we need to do is we need to intentionally change that, change that divot, because that divot was formed from beliefs and we didn’t fix that. So you have to pick up the credit card, twist it and start going on a different path.

34. 12:13

    The issue is if we’re stop being intentional about it and go kind of back to being on autopilot, just living life, you’re going to go the path of least resistance. And the other challenge with this is when you go that path of least resistance, you’re reinforcing the initial pattern. You’re not just going it, you’re actually making it deeper.

35. 12:32

    And so this is what I mean when I say this class is going to be a lot easier said than done because you have to live your life with intention all the time. That’s hard. That’s exhausting. That’s what we have to do. So how do we take all these ideas about how our brain works and about how emotions stem from beliefs and turn that into steps to process anxiety?

36. 12:52

    How do we take all these ideas and turn into practical thinking? And that’s where we got some steps on your handouts that we’re going to walk through and think about. So step one on dealing with really anything but an anxiety in our case is recognize that you have it. That’s step one. This is actually a lot harder than it sounds.

37. 13:15

    When I was going through my anxiety and kind of the story I shared in the last class, it took me like months to realize, oh, I have anxiety. And then after that, months to realize, like, when do I have anxiety? I was able to realize like, oh, as a whole I’m going through anxiety moments. But it took me like months to realize, oh, this is this anxiety moment is coming.

38. 13:33

    I’m. I’m having anxiety right now. This is the state I’m in, the mental state. And one of the tools that a therapist at the time actually gave me that blew my mind how useful it was, was to think about your physical, what you’re physically feeling in those moments. So for me, it was I get really cold when I have anxiety, I get like almost like fever, chills.

39. 13:53

    I get a pain in the stomach and then in extreme case I get like, don’t want to eat lots of appetite and almost like nausea. That’s kind of what happens to me with anxiety. And once I was able to realize that for me, cold is the first thing that happens and I would start feeling like almost feverish, but I wasn’t sick. But that’s anxiety.

40. 14:11

    I’m starting to get into that anxiety state. Gotcha. This is, this is where I need to start thinking about stuff. It took me like months to get to that point. This can take some people longer, some people shorter, some people are a lot more in tune with their emotions than me. They can get there faster. The point is that that’s kind of step one. And then once you’re there to be honest, because your anxiety is telling you to care about something a lot and you’re going to be honest about what that is, that’s not always going to be comfortable.

41. 14:36

    Sometimes the thing that we care about in that moment, we don’t want to care about. I don’t want to care about this, but you do. That’s what the anxiety is telling you to care about. And so be honest with that and be honest to God about that. So God, this is what I care about right now. I don’t really want to care about this. This is what I care about.

42. 14:53

    And for me, with relationships, that was saying, God, I really clearly want this relationship to work more than I care about most of the things. But I don’t want to stay here. This isn’t where I want to be, but this is where I’m at. I need to work on this So it’s recognize you have anxiety and then being honest with God about that.

43. 15:11

    And they kind of digging into like, what is the thing that you’re putting on the top of the value system? What is that care? What is that thing that you really care about? That can also be really challenging. Sometimes what you care about isn’t readily obvious. I think social anxiety is one of the biggest ones with this. We’re almost I I very rarely have heard like the reason somebody’s socially anxious is because they don’t like interacting with people, period.

44. 15:31

    Usually it’s like a fear that’s related to that, or it’s a a challenge related to it. It’s not just interactions with people scare me because they’re scary people. It’s more like I’m nervous about maybe socially blundering, being made fun of, being embarrassed, all of these kinds of things. And so it’s not necessarily readily apparent what is the thing that you care about deeply.

45. 15:53

    And so you have to dig into that and have some self examination time to think, What is that? And then Step 2 is think about who God is. What do you know about him? What might he think, feel, or do in this scenario? This is where you’re comparing where you’re currently at with where God’s values would be. You’re comparing your current value system, what you care about when anxiety is telling you to mis evaluate things to what God’s value system is.

46. 16:19

    What does he care about? How would he look at this scenario, My personal situation, That’s me going, OK, well, I clearly care about this relationship, but how would God think about this relationship? Is this a relationship that God won’t be in? Is this a relationship I should be in? So that’s Step 2 is comparing with what you know about God and kind of the truth.

47. 16:40

    Step three is kind of a an addition to Step 2. It’s kind of a second Part 2, which is think about what God has done for you in the past in relation to whatever you’re dealing with with anxiety. This is a good example of, this is like financial anxiety. If God has worked with you in the past, God has helped you through financial struggles in the past. Well, that’s something that you can rely on and think back to and go, God’s helped me through here. So if God’s helped me through here in the past, it’s likely he will in the future.

48. 17:08

    It’s likely he’ll continue helping me through. And it’s not always 100% true. But we can use our history with God as a piece of information, similar to the Bible and say that that means that God’s working with me in this way. This is a pattern of what I understand about who God is.

49. 17:24

    And then lastly, this is the hard step. We got to twist the credit card. We got to change the electric current. We choose to act in accordance with what we know about God and His values and in line with what he’s done in the past, even though you don’t feel like it. Because, like I said, emotions follow this process.

50. 17:45

    I have core belief something happens in the world, causes the emotion, and that emotion leads to anxiety. We’re having to go the opposite direction because we can’t just change our internal beliefs. That’s really hard. You can’t just do that. But the way you can work on them, the way you can work on changing your internal beliefs, is by acting as if you believe the thing you want to believe.

51. 18:07

    You act in a way as if you believe it. And eventually your electrical occurrence will literally change so that you believe it. That’s how you can quite literally transform the mind. It’s a very little processes in your brain physically changes. And it’s absolutely fascinating to me. This is how habits are formed. And you say, I want to form this habit.

52. 18:28

    You intentionally say, OK, I’m going to do this thing at 8:00 AM every morning. I’m going to make my bed. And at first, you wake up and you’re like, I really don’t want to do this, But by the end of it, you’re like, this is just normal. This is just part of life.

53. 18:39

    We make our bed at 8:00 AM and that’s because you’ve intentionally built in a new electrical current, a new habit. This is a bit deeper than that. It’s not so much just a what are you physically doing, you know, making up the bed? It’s one of the internal beliefs. So for example, for me, my internal belief that I had wrong was that whatever relationship what I was in mattered more than anything else. That was my internal belief.

54. 19:03

    I also had an internal belief that relationships could fall apart. At any moment. I had to change both of these beliefs. My relationship with a specific person doesn’t matter. More than anything else, our relationship with God does. And so that actually has to be at the priority. And on top of that, relationships typically don’t fall apart and it randomly because one thing went wrong and so I had to work on and still I’m working on internalizing those beliefs. The way I have to do that is by saying, OK, this is where I’m struggling.

55. 19:33

    This is my starting place. Have anxiety about this. The truth says and God says, and the Bible says and my history with God says these things aren’t true. These internal beliefs aren’t accurate. OK, so I’m going to live my life as if I believe the truth internally, as if I feel the truth is true, even though I don’t necessarily do it in that moment.

56. 19:54

    I There were many times in relationships, in even my relationship with Silla when we were dating, where I felt like this could break up at any moment. But I’m going to choose to lead the relationship and be A at a time boyfriend in a way, as if I don’t think that. So I’m going to have the hard conversation that I don’t want to have because it’s kind of kind of confrontational and awkward with her. Even though I’m like freaking out that this might break up the relationship because I know that’s not a true statement. It’s not actually true that I might break up the relationship and that actually I can have this conversation with her, but I didn’t want to.

57. 20:27

    My feelings weren’t there yet. My beliefs weren’t there yet. You start acting as if you believe it and eventually you internally believe it. I think Silla will tell you I internally believe that now I’m happy to have some confronting conversations if need be. And it does get easier. It starts off at a really hard spot because you’re sitting there with this internalized belief or who knows how long you’ve had it. For me, I’ve had it since I was 13, and if I’m lucky that I caught it in my, like, older teens. Some people don’t catch it for decades, and that’s a really deep divot that’s been happening in your life. Repetition over and over and over again in your brain, that’s a pattern that’s been really solidified. And to to try to change that will take a lot of time. But it’s where your agency is, it’s where your power is. You can actually work on why do I have anxiety? How do I change these anxieties?

58. 21:20

    How do I make it so these anxieties hopefully, eventually go away? Unfortunately, human nature is doing the opposite. Human nature likes those divots it’s made. Human nature likes those patterns that you formed. And so that’s why our default will be go back to the pattern, reinforce it, stay in this place of anxiety, and that’s where the battle is.

59. 21:39

    While yes, I will say some of us, many of us, I think you can truly transform your brain to a point where anxiety goes from wherever it is currently for you to a much lesser point, potentially even gone. I don’t think that’s true for everyone. It will get easier. I think it’s true that it will get easier for everyone who goes through these processes, but it won’t go away for many of us.

60. 21:59

    In similar fashion, how anger problems for some people never fully go away or lust for some people never fully goes away. And you have to battle this day in and day out to give it to a manageable level and the goals almost keep it manageable as opposed to eradicate it entirely. That’s just how the battle of human nature works.

61. 22:18

    Unfortunately that is true. But we both have a responsibility and the ability to actually do the battle. And So what we’re going to do now is we’re going to read through these Psalms. So you have it in front of you. We’re going to read through them. And I want to show how David actually applies these steps in his songs. And we’re going to, let’s see, what can we learn from these songs?

62. 22:40

    What can we take away? And also kind of how does, how does David go about it? I think the way David goes about it in these different Psalms, he’s focusing on different aspects of the of the steps. So let’s go ahead and walk through that. So the first step, again, we’re dealing with Psalm 31. The first step is to recognize what you’re feeling, how we’re currently valuing things, what hurts, what are your fears? And be honest with God.

63. 23:05

    And we see that in a few different places in the song. I’m going to read this in step order, not verse order. So I’m going to be hopping around a bit. There’s actually a point with that later that we’ll talk about, But the first time this comes up is in verse two. Incline your ear to me. So he’s saying, God, I want to talk to you, I want to have this conversation, and then hops down into verse 9. For I am in distress.

64. 23:26

    My eye is wasted from grief for my soul and my body also for my life is spent with sorrow, my years with sighing. My strength fails because of my iniquity, and my bones waste away because of all my adversaries. I have become a reproach, especially to my neighbors, and an object of dread to my acquaintances.

65. 23:43

    Those who see me in the street flee from me. I’ve been forgotten like one who was dead. I’ve become like a broken vessel, for I hear the whispering of many, terror on every side as they scheme together against me, as they plot to take my life. Now this is emotional language. This isn’t logical statements.

66. 24:03

    Most of these things, if you look at them factually, aren’t true. David’s not. His bones aren’t wasting away. Literally, he’s feeling like they’re wasting away. He wasn’t forgotten. We talk about him now. He was never forgotten, but he feels like he is. These are feelings. This is David being really honest with God, saying this is where I’m at, this is what I’m feeling.

67. 24:27

    This is the current state I’m in. We need to do the same brothers and sisters, be able to go to God and say God, I’m not feeling good right now. I’m feeling really anxious about this thing and it’s really important to me. This is where I’m at. Sometimes these feelings or these feelings will have really, really blunt statements. And we’ll see some of those in our later songs. Step 2, step up.

68. 24:57

    Thank you. Step 2 is thinking about who? Yeah. Thank you. Thanks. Step 2 is thinking about who God is, what we know about him, what might, what we might, what he might feel or do in the scenario we’re dealing with. I mean, this comes up also in a few places. So we have in verse three and the last half, for your name’s sake, you lead and guide me. OK, so David’s established that God is a leader and a guider. He wants to follow him.

69. 25:28

    Verse 7. The last half because you have seen my affliction and you have known the stress of my soul and you have not delivered me into the hand of the enemy, you set my foot in a broad place. This is what God has done for me in the past, and this is who my God is He.

70. 25:42

    He sees me. He sees the trial I’m going through. On top of that, he hasn’t delivered me into the hand of the enemy. This hasn’t been what’s happened in verse 15. My times are in your hand. He understands that God’s in control of the situation. He’s in control of what’s going on with David, that God is in control, and verses 19 and 20, oh, how abundant in your goodness, which you have stored up for those who fear you and worked for those who take refuge in you, in the sight of the children of mankind.

71. 26:13

    In the cover of your presence. You hide them from the plots of men, you store them in your shelter from the strife of tongues. Again, he’s thinking about how does God think about people who are in distress, people who are in in a massive trial. Well, God is a God of abundant goodness and he store he has stuff.

72. 26:31

    Sorry. Yeah, goodness is stored up for those who fear and who have worked for and have take refuge in Yahweh. This is who God is. And David’s considering who is God. What does what does he think about these types of situations? He also thinks about his history with God. He does this in verses 21 and 22.

73. 26:48

    Blessed be Yahweh, for he has wonderfully shown his steadfast love to me. When I was in a besieged city, back in that time, I was in a busy city. God saved me. So he’s thinking about that and considering that in his current trial and then the last half of verse 22. But you have heard the voice of my pleas for mercy. When I cried for you and help in the past, Yahweh heard me. It means he’s hearing me now.

74. 27:10

    He’s thinking about his past relationship with God, his experience in his relationship with God, and applying that to his current anxiety, his current struggle, his current trial, and then the hard step, the step of changing our pattern. This happens kind of throughout the entire Psalm because he kind of goes back and forth a bit, but in the verse one, and you owe Yahweh, Do I take refuge? That’s a choice.

75. 27:33

    We don’t naturally take refuge in God. We naturally try to fix things ourselves and get safe ourselves. But he says I will choose to take refuge in Yahweh verse 2. Be a rock of refuge for me, a strong fortress to save me. Verse 5. Into your hand, I commit my spirit. You have remembered me. Oh Yahweh, faithful God.

76. 27:54

    These are choices David is making. These are not. This is actually not how he feels in this moment. We know that from the blue text. He does not feel these ways. But he’s choosing to act these ways. He’s choosing to live his life as if he feels the feelings that he’s or feels the the statements he’s been making about who God is.

77. 28:14

    Verse 14. I trust in Yahweh. I say you are my God and then at the end verses 23 and 22 love Yahweh. All you Saints and then verse 24. Be strong and let your heart take courage all you who wait for Yahweh. What you see from this, brothers and sisters, is a few things.

78. 28:36

    One, these steps are mixed throughout the Psalms. There are multiple, multiple Psalms that follow this pattern of someone’s dealing with a serious trial. I’ve picked out a few that are dealing with a mixture of anxiety and and actually depression. I’ve picked out a few that are dealing with those. But multiple trials are brought up in the Psalms and they follow this pattern where the psalmist will express themselves and say this is what I’m feeling. It’s blunt, it’s honest, it’s it’s really, really raw. It’s kind of a jarring in some cases, like Are you sure you’re allowed to say that And we’ll see that especially in the next song we get into, that’s the case. But then after that, they say, OK, I’ve expressed where I’m at. What does God think about the situation? Who is God?

79. 29:17

    What kind of God do I serve? Who is Yahweh? This is where we think about the Bible and the Word. We bring up all the principles that we know about God in the scenario, and we think, what would God do? What would Christ do? How do we bring that into this? What does my relationship with God say about how he’s dealt with me in the past? And then lastly, it’s the step of I choose to act faithfully. I choose to act as if I value the way God values, as if I don’t have this anxiety, even though I do. I’m not saying the emotional will change when you do that. It won’t.

80. 29:48

    Especially the first time. There’s not a situation where you’re like, well, I feel better and you can just get on with your day. That’s not how it works. But the first time you do it, you’re not going to have an emotional change at all. The 100th time you do it, you’ll start seeing a change because that’s the process of transforming the brain. It’s slow, it’s exhausting at times, but it’s intentional. That’s something we have to do day and in day out. I think also a lot of the the time it’s useful to kind of reflect on these situations.

81. 30:18

    You know, it’s definitely something you want to put in practice when we’re in the moment of anxiety. But it’s a lot more practical to put or put into practice a lot of these ideas before and after anxiety, when we’re in places of not heightened emotions we can think through. OK, I seem to be entering states in my life where I’m anxious about this. I don’t want to be anxious about that. I don’t actually think that’s something I should prioritize in my life, but I seem to feel that way in various different moments.

82. 30:44

    Why? What are the beliefs that I seem to hold that put me in that scenario? What do I feel? What’s getting me to the point where I care about it that high? And then to reflect and say, well, what does God think? How should I act in those moments? Gotcha. This is my plan moving forward. And then try.

83. 31:00

    It’ll be hard, but try to put that in practice when you’re feeling the anxiety. Now, that’s hard. Not saying it’s easy. That’s not my intention to say it’s easy, but that is the way that we go about transforming our brain. It is possible. It is where your agency is in this battle and this isn’t a one or one time and we’re done thing.

84. 31:19

    Like I said, this is something that we have to put into practice over and over and over again. It’s really the life of a life of someone in the truth. It’s like I’m going to try to change from this person of flesh and human nature, which includes anxiety, to somebody who is perfect the goal, and we don’t reach that until truly until the judgement. But that’s really the goal and part of that is to also lose temptations like anxiety, anger and lust. Doesn’t ever happen until truly until the resurrection. But we try our best along the way and again, this isn’t a once in done thing.

85. 31:52

    Let’s hop over now to Psalm 43 and we’re going to see this also happen again in this next section in Psalm 43. There’s a really interesting thing of how blunt David is. So we’ll just read through the Psalm real quick and then we’ll go through it bit by bit. Psalm 43 and I’ll start verse one and it’s free. Through our section, vindicate me, O God, and defend my case, my cause against the ungodly people from the deceitful and unjust man.

86. 32:22

    Deliver me, for you are the God whom I take refuge. Why have you rejected me? Why do I go by mourning? Because of the oppression of the enemy. Send out your light and your truth, and then lead me. Let them bring me to your holy hill and to your dwelling. Then I will go to the altar of God.

87. 32:40

    To to God, my exceedingly joy. And I will praise you with the lyre. Oh my God, my God, why are you cast down, O my soul, Why are you in turmoil within me? Hope and God. For I shall praise him again. Sorry. I shall again praise him my salvation and my God. So David’s really blunt here.

88. 33:01

    He’s like really, really blunt here in verses one and two, it says dealing with kind of being honest with God cause against I’m sorry, against the ungodly people from the deceitful and unjust man, Deliver me, why have you rejected me? Why do I go about mourning because of the oppression of the enemy. It’s, it’s almost accusatory.

89. 33:22

    Like why is this happening? Like, why have you rejected me? God, why is it why is my life happening like this? It’s pretty blunt. I don’t know if you’ve been in a situation where you’ve been properly angry with God, but that’s the the, the vision I get here from David. He’s mad because life doesn’t seem to match with what he knows about God. He’s always mad.

90. 33:42

    He’s God. Why have you rejected me here? Why have you let, why do you let life carry on this way? That’s the feeling that I see from David here. And so the question is, what does David do with it? Well, he thinks through who God is. Verse 3. So not your light and your truth. God is a God.

91. 34:02

    God is a God of light and truth. Let it bring you to your holy hill. God is a holy God. OK, And so if these things are true, how do I choose to act? I feel rejected, but I know God is the God of light and the God of truth. OK, so how will I choose to act?

92. 34:18

    Verse four and verse five, I will go to the altar of my God, To God my exceeding joy. I will praise you with the liar. And then verse 5. Hope and God fresh. I’ll praise him my salvation and my God. We don’t go from how why have you rejected me to my God, my exceeding joy just by thinking about it for 2 verses.

93. 34:41

    It’s not how that works. He’s feeling rejected. He chooses to view God as his exceeding joy. He chooses to view God as the God that he will praise. These aren’t emotions that that he’s expressing. And when he’s talking about how he’s going to go, praise God, these are deliberate statements that he’s making.

94. 35:01

    I’m going to intentionally go against my emotions and do the thing that I know is right. That’s hard, but that’s the process. How do we change our brain? How do we change these electrical occurrences patterns? And really, how do we change our internalized beliefs? We choose to act as if we don’t believe them because we know they aren’t true internally. We feel like they are, but we know they aren’t sometimes in these situations.

95. 35:28

    The last one we want to read through is Psalm 94, and the main one I want to focus here when reading through this is the relationship that David reflects on with God. He really uses his history with God, his past with God in this scenario to really understand how he’s supposed to act, types to think and feel. So we’re to read through verses 14 to 23 of Psalm 94. For Yahweh will not forsake his people. He will not abandon his heritage. Who justice will return to the righteous and all the upright and heart will follow it.

96. 36:01

    Who rises up against the wicked? Who stands up for me against evil doers? If Yahweh had not been my help, my soul would soon have lived in the land of silence When I thought my foot slips. Your steadfast love, O Yahweh, held me up. When the cares of my heart, of many your consultations cheer my soul.

97. 36:21

    Can wicked rulers be allied with you? Those who frame injustice by statute, they band together against the life of the righteous and condemned the innocent to death. But Yahweh has become my stronghold, and my God, the rock of my refuge. He will bring back. He will bring back on them their iniquity and wipe them out for their wickedness of Yahweh.

98. 36:42

    Our God will wipe them out. Verses 1719 and 22 show how much David is using his relationship with God as a strength, his past with God as a strength. Yahweh had not been my help in the past back then, my soul would have soon, soon have slipped in the sorry. My soul would have soon lived in the land of silence. His thinking if God wasn’t with me, I would have died. But God was with me.

99. 37:10

    So I’m still here. Verse 19, when the cares in my heart are many. Your consultations cheer my soul. OK, so in the past when I’ve dealt with trials and I have had many cares, your consultations were there. They cheered me. So again, he’s thinking about his past, how God’s worked through him with or worked with him through trials and then verse 22. But Yahweh has become my stronghold, my God, the rock of my refuge.

100. 37:38

     God has become. He didn’t start this way, but it’s become the rock of my refuge. My relationship with God is one for He is my rock. And so I’m going to act in this moment, David. I’m going to act in this moment as if God is my rock and I feel like he’s my rock, even though in this moment I’m struggling with that and this moment I don’t feel safe.

101. 37:58

     I feel like the evil doers are plotting against me. That’s the way that we deal with anxiety. It’s a hard way. It’s not an easy process, and it’s not a once and done, it’s a thing that you have to repeat over and over and over again. We will likely slip up, but we have to. This is the responsibility that we have to work on transforming our mind is to try our best to view our anxieties and say, what does this say about my internal beliefs? What does this say about what I think is important and how much I value it?

102. 38:25

     Should I value it that much? Does God value it that much? Where is God’s view on these things? And I’m going to choose to act as if I value things the way God values things, even if I don’t. And the first time you do that, you’re not going to have a massive shift of emotions.

103. 38:41

     You’re probably going to have anxiety through the whole process. And I’m sorry, that’s not a fun statement, but that is the reality of it here. We can’t just flip our emotions like that, but as you do it over and over again, the emotions change. Your brain quite literally changes and the patterns change on how we process anxiety and how we feel anxiety.

104. 39:02

     Now a few things that I want to cover before we close on these sections that we’ve read. There’s a few take away points that you can kind of see when looking at them all as a whole while I’ve presented this process as a nice logical step by step. You know, here’s your four part thing that you’ll do in order. That’s not how it works in practice. When you look at these songs, they’re all over the place. David starts with step four and then goes to Step 2 and then hops over step three and then goes back to Step 2. And then he’s like, oh, I’m gonna have a rant about where I’m feeling right now.

105. 39:34

     And then he hops back to step four and he’s all over the place because that’s how emotions and anxiety work. It’s not nice logical thought out, well processed. It’s. I’m panicking. And I have moments where I can think clearly and think about what God thinks about. But then I’m back to panicking. I talk to God about where I’m currently at.

106. 39:51

     And then and then I’m going to have a moment of remembering how this happened before and God, God worked with me in this way. But then you’re back to being highly anxious and you’re constantly going back and forth. It’s not something that you can sit down and go, all right, we’re going to follow the process. Now.

107. 40:05

     I’ve thought about this, and I can pause my emotions so I can go ahead and process this now. It’s going to be all over the place, and that’s OK. It was all over the place for David. We’ll see you in our our expectation tomorrow. It’s all over the place for Christ. The point isn’t to do in that ice, right clean order. It’s that we’re going through this process as a whole. Another one is that it’s not a one and done. David does this over and over.

108. 40:29

     There’s not like a point where you can say I finished transforming my mind, I am now perfect. That doesn’t happen until the resurrection is the battle that we will do for the rest of our life. And it’ll be in various stages for different people. Some people, this is a battle that they will see results very quickly. They will see results after a few months, maybe a few weeks of working through this.

109. 40:48

     For some other people, this is a battle that they might not see clear, clean results for decades. And that’s OK. We’ve experienced trials and temptations at different levels. Some people deal with anger differently. Some people deal with lots of different stages and different speeds. That’s OK. The point isn’t how quick are you moving through the battle. The point is that you’re in the battle and you’re battling. You are battling the temptations that life gives you. And #3.

110. 41:13

     This will look different for everyone in a kind of practical way. My name of that is for me, the way I worked through these steps was I had to go to therapy. I had to talk to somebody and they basically had to confront me on them and say, hey, you don’t actually believe that.

111. 41:27

     And then they go, oh, you’re right. Like, that’s how I had to go through these steps. I’d have somebody confront me. I’m a highly conflict person. If you know me, I like conflict. It’s weird. I don’t, it’s not normal, but I like it. And that worked for me. Someone coming up with me and saying you don’t believe what you’re saying right now worked for somebody else. Don’t make them shut down.

112. 41:47

     That make them go, What are you talking about? I’m trying to tell you my feelings and you’re getting mad at me. And so different people are going to work through this differently. For some people, it’s having a journal and writing it down and then later kind of reflecting on that journal and going, did I actually agree with the things that I wrote?

113. 42:01

     Do I believe the things that I that I wrote down? For some people, it’s having a conversation with a friend where they’re very empathetic. What Asking kind of prodding questions or asking questions that make you kind of evaluate where you’re at. For some people, it has to be a personal self meditation. They have to go away to a place of nature or quiet and really think through what’s going on in their life. It’s going to be different for different people and the challenge is to be figuring out, well, what works for you. How do you best able to put these steps in a practical, A practical process for you?

114. 42:30

     For me, I need someone to come tell me. I don’t believe what I’m tailing right now and it’s weird. This doesn’t work for most people, but it works for me. So I’m great friends with Jeff because he’ll tell me you don’t believe what you’re saying right now and it works great, but it’s because I have a very unique way of dealing with these kinds of things. Other people it’s going to be different. So try different things, try different ways of going about it.

115. 42:52

     Maybe try a journal for a while. Never worked for me, but I tried. It never was really useful for me but might be useful for you. I’ve definitely seen people over. It’s been wonders for try going into nature, going on walks and just thinking self meditating. Try whatever it is that you think might work, but try things. Figure how it works for you and it helps you go through this process.

116. 43:15

     And so we’re about to move to discussion groups. And when we do the discussion groups, I’ve asked a few different types of questions. Some of the questions I’ve asked are essentially, do you agree with the different statements I’ve made? Some of the statements I’ve made, understandably, can be a bit jarring. And so it’s do you agree with them?

117. 43:33

     And if you don’t, let’s have that conversation, Let’s talk about it. Maybe I said it in a way that didn’t quite mesh well with you, and other people in your group can help it mesh better. They can say it in different ways. Maybe I’m just wrong and that you’ve got some thoughts that are really useful and can can help help people with doing the things I eat in a different way.

118. 43:51

     That’s fine too. I promise you I won’t get offended if I kind of walk up to your group and I hear, man, I didn’t really like that point that he made. That’s super interesting to me. I want to know why I want to. I want to get into that. So let’s be honest about that and have some real conversations around that one.

119. 44:05

     I’ve also had some personal questions, things like what are your views on medication and anxiety? Things like what are your views on dealing with your own personal anxieties? How do you go about that? And kind of a note on that, while I highly encourage that we we do open up, I know it’s hard sometimes like we do open up and be vulnerable. I really want to make sure that we don’t go back to our home ecclesias and go, man, that person struggles with the Super silly thing.

120. 44:31

     I don’t think we would do that, but I just want to put a warning in there. What happens to the 25 plus what talked, let’s talked about in our discussion groups. Let’s send discussion groups. If you build relationships with somebody and you want to talk to them, that’s one thing. But let’s not go back to our home activations and be like man, this discussion group happened and we talked about these things and these people have these crazy problems.

121. 44:49

     That’s not a useful thing to do. So I just want to make sure put a little, put a little note there, let’s not do that. And lastly, a little note. We’re going to be talking about a lot of experiences, personal experiences. That’s is a big part of the series and that’s good. That’s kind of what I want the goal of the series to do is to take this, all this theory that we’re talking about and put into your life. In practice, however, the danger with a discussion group or we’re talking about a lot of personal experiences, is that we do a lot of well, I think this because of this one time this happened this way, or I think this because it made me feel this way instead of, well, I think this because of this principle in the Bible. And I want to make sure that when we’re dealing with our conclusions about things, we’re dealing with what we think is true, that we are using the Bible as the ultimate source, not just our personal experiences. They’re great, they’re a useful tool. And then sharing them, we can draw closer to one another. We can get help from one another, fantastic. But when it comes to the things of dealing with truth, when we’re dealing with what is our views on certain certain things? Let’s make sure we’re using scripture and principles to answer those questions, not using well. This made me feel this way that one time, and I really look forward to having this discussion groups. I really look forward to talking to people about how they’ve found the talks useful, how they

122. 46:02

     find different aspects useful, what can they do with this, this information in their life. Because one I want to, I want to help more people. I want to talk about this with more people. I love these conversations. Again, weird, but I love them. I find them fun, I find them enjoyable. And so I want to be able to do that with more people. And if there’s ways that I can find more use out of that or being more helpful with people, but I’m really looking forward to that.

123. 46:22

     So thank you for listening to me so far. And yeah, I hope that this has been useful to you somehow.