This article is the fourth in the “No Anxiety Allowed” series. I recommend reading the others, start here first.

I’ve written about why we should learn to live free of anxiety, and how that can be done. I’ve written about how I’ve tested it out myself and found that it’s not only possible, but practicable. I’ve talked about how living as a “Christian” obliges us to learn how to do this, and gives us the guarantee that as we do, we will find peace.

But, anyone who has walked this earth for more than a decade will tell me that all the theory in the world doesn’t match up to the reality: it is not that easy!

And when they tell me that, I’ll agree. Not just kind of. Wholeheartedly.

The problem with no anxiety living is that we learn the importance of being worried about this issue, or that thing. We learn to be concerned through years of bombardment from media, parents, schools and employers; and they most often mean well. They mean for us to mature into well-adjusted people with a strong grounding in reality.
Unfortunately, what should be normal concern often grows crazy. Concern becomes worry, which escalates into fear. Then, before we know it, we are caught up in the terror of failure before we even get out of bed! We find ourselves on a railroad path which seems impossible to escape; one we’ve been following for generations. Anxiety betrays itself not simply as the habit of a single tricky life, but as a learned behaviour passed from one generation to the next… “our family has always had trouble with money, it’s right for me to tread carefully…” or “in this family there have been so many divorces that I’m really scared of messing up.”
Although these may be overly simplified examples, what I’m getting at is that anxiety often seems to be a learned trait, which is instilled into its ‘champions’ through years of  reinforcement. Habits are hard to break, and world views formed in emotionally charged situations are even more difficult to get rid of. What is more, they seem to gain an even deeper hold if we don’t have a good relationship with boundaries and values (though those are chunky subjects to chew through another day).

So where am I going with this? Well, the argument for anxiety-free living is, in my view, the ideal. It is the way forward for believers of Jesus, both new and seasoned; learning to rely on the wisdom of the Creator-Saviour, rather than the worries of fallible mankind. And in very limited practice, I’ve found it to result in strong positive outcomes in my life.

The problem, as many have found in the past is that old habits die hard.

It is easy to describe the no anxiety lifestyle, and even to try it out now and again in limited circumstances. It’s like taking a holiday from reality. But…as we all know, at the end of a holiday we go home to reality, usually with some catching up to do.
If our holiday is from anxiety, when we return, we go straight back to anxiety with a vengeance.

But what is the problem? There are a few, the easiest target is a great beginning point for the conversation.

Habit.

This is where I start to walk on soft ground, because I’m still learning how to break habits and form new ones.
If you want a broader perspective on habits and forming good ones, Brett McKay and his team at Art of Manliness, wrote a great series. One article I found of particular help is here.

The key point I’m getting at here, and in all of my previous posts is this: one step. Give it to God, and back away. When I practiced this in “No Anxiety Allowed – An Outcome,” it was not a one step fix, but multiple things over and over. I would experience a worry, realise where it was going, and make a clear choice to go in the opposite direction. In handing it to God, the choice is now “do I take it back…or not?”

Of course, having been in the habit of holding onto worry for a long time, it’s a strange feeling to suddenly be free of the things which traditionally consume brain space. So what do I do? Well, human nature is to refill that gap. If that gap is usually full of worry, it is logical to find some new thing to worry about right?

That is exactly what I found myself doing. I would move on from one worry, to filling that gap with a new one. Over and over it goes, repeating the cycle; give a newly discovered worry to God as well, just like the bible says we should. And on it goes.
Sometimes, I find peace as a result. Sometimes I move straight to the next worry. Every now and then, I find that the answer to the worry was staring me in the face, but I was so panicked I hadn’t seen it.

[As a side note, the fewer what-if worries I give time to, the more I find myself imagining new solutions to challenges, or considering more light-hearted, entertaining questions; like “what if wars were fought with marshmallows instead of metal?”]

Soon, what was a frustrating habit is becoming an exciting opportunity to act on my belief system, to test and see if what I believe about a Sovereign Creator is founded on truth, or simply a human construct carefully designed to help deal with difficult lives.

The problem with “No Anxiety Allowed” is that it requires us to challenge our comfort zones, our habits, our thought patterns, our beliefs, our preconceptions about our place in the world, and how we relate to God. Just confronting one of these areas alone is enough to create a tough growth experience. To confront them all at once can be downright scary, especially for those of us who dislike being asked difficult questions. In confronting the anxieties we face, we have a choice. Do we give it away and fill the gap with life giving stuff? Or stick with the comfortable, but ultimately destructive status quo?
Our old habits die hard. Our challenge is remembering that we have a good God who trades anxiety for peace, if we’ll just let it go.

If You haven’t already figured it out, I am by no means a mental health professional. If you are having a particularly tricky time dealing with anxiety, I encourage you to reach out to your pastor, local counsellor or doctor. These things should not be dealt with in isolation.