The Journey to Peace: Overcoming Anxiety in Mind, Body, and Spirit

Blog by Alan Fadling

We can practice the peace of Christ to displace anxiety in us.

Sometimes anxiety rises in my thoughts, emotions, and body as an overwhelming wave. I’m tempted in such moments to let myself be overcome--immobilized by anxiety. Or I may allow anxiety to chase me away from what God has given me to do. I’ve even let anxiety drive me to ways of working in which I seem to be only thinly aware that God is with me as I work.

I’ve been learning over time that anxiety can become embedded in my mind, my emotions, even my body. But I’ve also been learning that the peace of Christ can displace anxiety in me. I can learn to let the peace of Christ protect me from anxious worry in the midst of my many concerns.

Anxiety has been my relentless companion for as long as I can remember. The word “companion” makes it sound like anxiety was a friend. I’ve come to think that my anxiety is what love looks like when God is quite faint in my thinking, my intentions, my awareness.

When God’s love for me, for those I care about, and for what I care about grows thin in my awareness, then my cares have a way of expanding into overwhelming worries.

I’ve always been a thinking-oriented person. Some of that is my nature. Some of it is a fruit of my development over the years. And much of it has been the fruit of my adult formation. The formation of my inner life was too often driven by anxiety rather than being rooted in peace.

If you’re familiar with the Enneagram, I’m a Five. I’ve joked that I’m a Five with two Five wings. I know that isn’t how the Enneagram works, but I identify quite strongly with the dynamics of a Five. At my healthiest, I can see things with perspective and help others understand. At my unhealthiest, I can be a detached observer disconnected from the good realities that surround me.

One of the weaknesses that I share with many other fellow Fives is that I can think about things rather than feel them. Or think about things rather than do them. Or think about people rather than love them. Thinking about something can be a great place to begin, but it usually isn’t a great place to stay.

The way that has played out in the past is that I’ve often tried to address my anxiety mostly as a thought exercise. I’ve memorized scripture passages about worry and rehearsed them. I’ve journaled my worries and responded to them thoughtfully. While this has been good in some respects, it wasn’t usually as helpful as I’d hoped.

What I’ve learned by experience is that anxiety has found a way of soaking into my physical body. I have embodied anxiety in a brain full of racing thoughts, a stomach that is prone to butterflies, and shoulders that become as tense as rocks. Thinking about the anxiety that has become embedded in my physical body hasn’t been a way into peace for me.

I’ve been learning to let peace begin to displace anxiety in my body. In addition to thinking well, it helps to practice certain disciplines that engage my body with the peace of God that is always with me.

In A Non-Anxious Life, I tell several stories about how disruptions of my travel plans when I’m away from home are among my most anxiety-producing experiences. I really dislike feeling out of control. I’m guessing you do too.

When I’m traveling and something happens to disrupt my plans, I have often felt an overwhelming anxiety that shuts down my creative thinking capacities and puts me in instinct mode. I begin feeling in my body like I am in mortal danger. I’m not actually, but apparently my body doesn’t know that.

What I came to realize is that I can lean into the peace of God that is always with me right in the middle of anxious thoughts, feelings, and sensations. I can slow and deepen my breathing, imagining that I am inhaling the peaceful presence of God and exhaling anxiety.

I’ve been learning to let the simple truth of a line of scripture—for example, “The Lord is my shepherd, I will not be in want”—speak not only to my thinking but to my physical body. I can let myself move from the idea of the Lord as my Shepherd to letting the Lord shepherd me in the midst of my anxiety. This is more than thinking about my anxiety. It is allowing the peace of Christ to displace anxiety at the center of my physical being.

I’m on a journey from intellectualizing peace to embodying it, from being overwhelmed by anxiety to being embraced by the loving presence of God. I’m being guided toward a life less anxious, more grounded, and deeply rooted in peace. It’s a journey that I hope we are on together.

For Reflection:

In what ways do you identify with my habit of thinking about something as a way of avoiding feeling or doing? Are there other ways you avoid engaging what God is inviting you into? Why not talk with God about this?