We begin with the foundation of Christianity, as noted in Matthew 22: 37-40.
Jesus declared, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. Upon these two commandments hang the whole Law and the Prophets.”
As Christians, everything that we do is oriented towards these two commandments. Every ritual, every act, every intention, is ultimately geared towards loving God and our neighbors fully.
From a secular perspective, most communities are founded on three basic ideals: harmony, health, and the pursuit of happiness. While life is the foundation of these three areas of focus, communities that desire to create opportunities for thriving must focus on these three entities.
Barriers to the Christian and community focus are many, but the focus of this treatise is to illustrate that for all of the internal barriers that exist, chronic, excessive anxiety is the most destructive force of all.
If the Christian experience is founded on love of God and neighbors, let us first examine the primary deterrent of that love. It is reported that upwards of 365 times in the Bible, God implores His people to “be not afraid” (in some form). As is stated in John 4:18, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.” It is well understood that fear, not hatred (which we will discuss later), is the opposite of love.
There are two reasons why any particular command is repeated more than any other. The first is that it involves a frequent experience; the second is that it involves an extremely important experience. While it is impossible for us to fully understand God’s intentions, it is reasonable to assume that when God stressed the importance of not fearing more than any other particular human experience (e.g., greed, envy, lust, etc.), it was because the act of being anxious was both a frequent and critical challenge, likely more than any other we might incur.
From a community perspective, anxiety (and anxiety conditions) is the most frequent psychological complaint for youth and adults. More than anything else, human beings struggle with managing anxiety effectively. It is likely one of the reasons that there are so many words that involve fear, and why one of the most common human tendencies is to seek reassurance and support for even the most trivial of decisions.
It is important to note that not all anxiety/fear is unhealthy. In fact, someone who doesn’t experience any anxiety (which is extraordinarily rare, and impossible to some degree) is at much greater risk for many negative outcomes than those who experience chronic anxiety.
Anxiety serves a primary function to preserve an individual’s physical, psychological, social, and spiritual health. Without some degree of fear, it is almost certain that human beings would lead short, estranged lives and struggle to appropriately navigate the environment for which they exist.
Infants are born with instinctive fears that manifest in specific ways during the first couple of years of life. Among natural fears, this includes anxiety regarding separation, loud movements, and fear of falling. As part of separation anxiety, almost all infants have a strong desire to feel a sense of connection and belonging.
As we get older, our fears generally fall in one of three categories: fear of not belonging (being loved), incompetence (failing), and health and safety. This is why when it comes to situations that might involve being hit by a car, abused by another person, or failing at a job or desired task, concerns like this are considered to be common fears for most human beings. Not having any concerns about important considerations such as these can carry a significant price.
Anxiety is generally one of the precursors of prudence, which is considered to be the most important cardinal virtue. However, as individuals grow in their prudent discernment and decision-making, the intensity, duration, and frequency of anxiety become less important as a guiding force.
As a simple example, when youth are younger, parents often evoke strong emotion to emphasize to their kids that running out in the street is a dangerous endeavor. While maybe not explicitly designed to increase the overall experience of anxiety a child feels, the ultimate purpose is create a healthy sense of fear regarding the gravity of being near the roadway. As children grow older, they hopefully do not lose their awareness of the dangers that exist on the roadway, but for most, and in the healthiest of situations, prudent decision-making regarding road crossings need not be shrouded in anxiety to be just as, or hopefully more effective, than when they were younger.
Hence, when God implores us to be not afraid, given that He created us in his image and likeness, it is understood that it’s not that he wants us to be callous and without caution, but rather, not fear in ways that reduce our ability to pursue the two most important commandments. In what is probably one of the most truncated (and thus misrepresented) quotes of all time, Franklin Delano Roosevelt once stated that “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself…” What is so often forgotten is that his very next line goes on to say “—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”
Just as we assume that God is not asking us to carelessly walk across a busy highway or callously hang off massive cliffs, so FDR was not saying that fear itself was abnormal or unhealthy, but rather that which is unreasonable, unjustified, and difficult to name—all of which are key features of chronic anxiety. It is when fear becomes less about a threatening situation or circumstance and more about a perception of fear itself when we should be most concerned that anxiety is losing its purpose and taking on a detrimental life of its own.
As we said at the beginning, the spiritual cost of this type of fear is a decreased ability to pursue the two primary goals of our lives: to love God and others fully. This we will talk about more completely in sections to come. But the price of chronic anxiety goes well beyond this, and as we are children of God designed by Him, we should assume that other costs are just as divinely orchestrated as the reduced ability to pursue our two ultimate goals.
Those who struggle with chronic anxiety are at risk for many symptoms beyond even just the constant feeling of being on edge and worrying about bad things happening. Physical symptoms, such as muscle tension, headaches, heart palpitations, shortness of breath, often accompany named and unnamed circumstances on a regular basis. Feelings of nausea and stomachaches, along with trouble concentrating and falling asleep, also are common symptoms. Over time, chronic anxiety is a primary cause of serious health conditions, such as cardiac dysfunction, increased likelihood of substance abuse, and a heightened rate of depression/suicide among other negative outcomes.
Yet for all of the negative spiritual, physical, and psychological outcomes of chronic anxiety, it likely has just as much impact on social outcomes, and we are going to take some time to consider just how this occurs from a spiritual and secular perspective.
First, it is well known that chronic anxiety often leads to increased social isolation, conflict, and destruction of relationships. But why is this the case, as it is unlike other social vices, such as greed or envy, where an individual desires to have (or take) what others possess? At first, anxiety may seem to just affect the individual but not the others around them.
To understand this more fully, we again go back to those two supreme commandments. It is well understood that while a feeling often accompanies our experience of love, in its purest form, love is a willful act. Love is willing the good of another, even when situations (rich or poor, sickness and health, etc.) might make this difficult to do. It is why when Jesus said that we should love our enemies, I doubt he expected that a warm, fuzzy feeling would originate inside of us, but rather that the way that we intentionally orient and act toward them should be geared for their good even though they may not desire the same for us.
Let’s use a simple, imperfect analogy to illustrate these first key points. When I get ready to enter a room, I may feel excited about what is on the other side of the door, but until I push my way through the doorway, I haven’t actually experienced what is in fact there. Until I do, I can’t be sure if my experience will live up to the feeling that I had prior, and if in fact I will continue to feel the same going forward. We all love when something makes us feel warm and full of love, but for anyone who has ever raised kids that are doing exactly the opposite of what you desire (and/or is good), you understand that your love of them can’t be predicated on feeling love at all times.
Knowing this, some might argue that if love is a willful act for the good of the other, then what does a feeling, like anxiety, have anything to do with this process. To begin to understand this, we have to come back to the basic analogy I introduced above…
Beyond not knowing what our feelings will be when we walk through the door (of our initial desire), we also understand that as much as I might want to walk through a particular door, if this door is locked or otherwise obstructed, all of my will (unless I possess more strength than most) can be rendered null by other forces, such as a lock or other physical barrier. Sometimes anxiety functions as this.
When St. John said that perfect love casts out fear, and fear has to do with punishment, it is this idea that he is speaking of, and of which we are going to spend more time exploring.
Again, let’s continue with the door analogy, but this time we are going to expand this to a beautiful mansion with a large estate. Let’s say that you are the owner of a huge estate, something like the Rockefellers might have owned at the turn of the century. And let’s say that you profess to love the entire place, as much as is possible.
But in saying this, let’s imagine that for various reasons of fear and anxiety, you haven’t actually entered many of the rooms, and truth be told, although miles of scenic trails exist on the property, you haven’t really seen most of the grounds because barriers of all kind (namely internal ones) have largely kept you confined indoors. Yet the love you profess of this entire estate is endless, and no doubt your intentions and proclamations are sincere.
The problem is that when St. Johns speaks of “punishments”, specifically as it relates to what we know scientifically, he isn’t just talking about spiritual outcomes that keep us confined. The punishment of anxiety is quite real in our everyday lives, and confines and limits us, especially in our relationships.
To begin to understand why, we must first understand that all types of anxiety lead to two primary responses: avoidance and control. When we are afraid of something, we either seek to avoid it (like snakes or bugs) or seek to control situations (like social encounters or particular circumstances) so that ultimately, we are less likely to have to face our fears, both predictable and unpredictable.
These are such common human experiences that we not only joke about it regularly, but have particular terms (e.g., control freak) that are well understood by almost anyone who has entered their teenage years. But the reality is that while these experiences are extremely commonplace, they also can evoke a great deal of shame and dissonance, and thus it is also common that we rationalize that a decision we make is done in prudence even when the reality is that it is done in fear (of the nameless, unreasonable, immobilizing kind).
Going back to the estate analogy, as it is analogous to our attempt to willfully love another person, what we find is that knowingly or unknowingly, chronic, unreasonable anxiety punishes us because it not only makes it more difficult for us to love others fully, but also makes it more difficult to receive love fully, too.
Like the beautiful estate, we think that we are both giving and receiving as much as possible because our intentions and desires are good. But like the resident who only experiences 10% of the beautiful place, what we don’t realize is that invisible walls, or locked doors, to love exist all over the place. Despite our willful intentions, these walls create real barriers to a fullness that we all desire, and may not even realize exists.
The challenging thing about these barriers of anxiety is that sometimes they are explicitly represented, like a fear of having a conversation with my partner because I don’t know how he or she will react. But sometimes, the anxiety is created implicitly, like occurs through our brains that are bathed in a highly processed (and unhealthy) diet.
But whatever the source of anxiety, when it increasingly prevents us from giving and receiving a fullness that God intends, it creates a situation by which we can only feel (and more importantly, act) in loving ways when a person behaves in a particular manner, and is present in particular circumstances. Otherwise, they don’t fit a mold that feels lovable because our love has less to do with a willful act and more to do with how we feel about a particular person(s) in a particular place.
In moving away from the estate analogy, let’s use another basic, imperfect analogy. Let’s say that a couple is out on a date, and both are looking forward to time spent away from the busyness of kids and life in general.
As part of this date, they travel to multiple locations to eat and spend time together. During the date, the man feels uneasy about being in a particular place, wondering what others might be thinking about them. Similarly, when the food arrives, he summarily decides that it isn’t nearly what he thought it would be, and is worried that it might upset his stomach. Meanwhile, he is repeatedly checking with the kids back home to make sure that all is good and as the skies start to darken on the horizon, he is concerned that storms are approaching and decides to abort plans to walk with his wife on a nearby trail.
In considering this analogy, there is no sense that this particular man doesn’t love his wife, and doesn’t desire to spend time with her. But the reality is that despite his good intentions, he has a difficult time giving of himself and receiving of his wife due to multiple factors that preoccupy his attention. In this occurring, it is clear that the desired fullness of his willful intentions was marred by factors outside of this.
While some reading this might believe that certain or all of his decisions were prudent (and that is a discussion for another time), the point of the basic example is to illustrate how basic factors can significantly impact deeper intentions, all of which play out in present moments.
In our daily lives, there will always be important responsibilities, demands, and distractions that take away from giving and receiving of selves in love. This is simply part of the human existence. But the more that chronic, unreasonable worries magnify this basic reality, the more that the process, and opportunity, of love in its fullness, is thwarted.
What happens is that our willful expression of love becomes altered by our “anxious qualifications.” Again, in our hearts we profess (and desire) to fully love those whom are closest to us (and hopefully all, including our enemies, to some degree). But the reality is that implicitly, we increasingly give of this love only in certain pretenses. Over time, instead of being interested and curious to know and love a person in all the rooms of their (internal and external) home, we start to carve out particular conditions by which we are willing to give of our love.
When this occurs, another part of the “punishment” begins to take hold. Just as we start to create qualifications for our love, so we also find ourselves enabling qualifications of when and how we can be loved, too. As people have often said in various forms, it’s as if we can often feel a particular part of our heart (or selves) closing itself off, sometimes even permanently. While situations involving trauma can certainly be a cause of this, this often occurs even in circumstances where anxiety remains pervasive even without the presence of trauma (although this subjective term is defined in the eye of the traumatized).
A critical point to note, though, is that this process doesn’t just occur with regard to factors related to a specific person, but oftentimes factors that relate more generally to us. In failing to address these types of fears, not only do we repeatedly experience punishment directly from the anxiety itself, but also because of the way in which it creates barriers in experiencing others as fully as we could.
Let’s take the example of someone who struggles with social anxiety. Let’s say that repeatedly, siblings of this individual, who love her fully, want to involve her in various activities outside the home. But due to her intense anxiety of being in public, she repeatedly turns down these opportunities, and in the process, limits the ability to share in experiences with her brothers and sisters.
In hearing this example, especially if you struggle with social anxiety, you might instantly leap (out of frustration) to challenge where I am going. Again, my point is not to suggest that in the heart of each individual involved, they don’t both want and desire to be connected and love each other fully. But the reality is that anxiety can erode away at love just as water can erode away at the hardest of substances.
While we might conceive of love as a fixed, yes or no entity, the reality is that love (hence the Greeks use many words for it) is as nuanced and dynamic as they come. While some may profess an undying love for others, it is a clear fallacy to say that even these professions can’t wax and wane, or even go into remission or end altogether, for various reasons. Just as infatuation and love aren’t the same thing, so aren’t sacrament and love the same thing either. We might always be married to someone (unless annulled) when “two become one flesh” (or are born of one flesh, as with biological family members), but when it comes to human beings, love is never assured as it is with God. Neither is love a fixed entity.
The harsh reality of anxiety is that it also knows no boundaries, and no permanence―it always has the potential to infiltrate and fluctuate. Excessive, unreasonable fears in my life not only can have an impact on my relationships when they have nothing to do with it (e.g., fear of driving), but each fear is not without a connection to another.
Another simple example is worth bearing. Imagine that someone has significant anxiety about authentic communication, especially about important matters. Over time, imagine that instead of doing the hard, soulful work to improve in this area, they opt to utilize a combination of avoiding and controlling interactions with others. In doing so, it is easy to see how this could have a negative impact on their relationships with others.
But what is not easy to see is how their increasing difficulties in communicating effectively and confidently can actually, although not always, impact other aspects of their lives. Over time, they become less confident in speaking in front of other people, or ordering at restaurants or handling situations at retail outlets when there is confusion about purchases. Because of this, their struggles with effective communication might slowly cause them to be more reclusive.
Still, even outside of social situations, one particular area of unreasonable anxiety left unaddressed can, even somewhat mysteriously, lead to other areas of greater anxiety, such as decreased confidence with driving, being in unfamiliar places, managing darkness, and being in the presence of those who feel different than them.
While it might seem unfair, and doesn’t occur in every situation, anxiety often begets anxiety, including in circumstances that are known and unknown alike.
Which brings us to the next consideration of how unrequited anxiety can not only prevent the kind of love that God desires us to have, but also cause challenges that pertain to those three community ideals that I mentioned at the beginning: health, harmony, and the pursuit of happiness.
While we have already spoken to some degree about how anxiety relates to health and the pursuit of happiness, and also harmony within relationships of our loved ones, we haven’t spoken about how it pertains to our broader communities and the world around us. And this is where the understanding of why anxiety, not hatred, is the opposite of love becomes most clear.
In returning to our discussion of infancy, it is first critical to note again that children are born with a few basic instincts, including as they relate to emotions. As we noted, almost all human beings (including those diagnosed on the autism spectrum, despite stereotypes noted otherwise) are born with a desire for connection and belonging, and ultimately as they get old enough to know and express it, a sense of being loved. Infants are also born with natural fears, but also with a desire for pleasure, whether it comes from very visceral sources (like nursing or rocking) or social interaction as they get older.
What children are not born with is the instinct to hate, and although certain children may manifest more oppositional, antagonistic temperaments (which rarely, especially in healthy environments, lead to serious issues later), very young children naturally embody a benevolent view of their world until proven otherwise.
The reality is that hatred is an emotion (or state of being, if you would prefer) that develops later for multiple reasons, most especially related to personal experiences, repeated modeling/teaching, and ignorance. But deep within all of these propagators of hate is almost always one particular emotion: fear.
Whether a child learns to hate what they don’t know, what has been associated with negative experiences, and/or that which they have been taught to hate, the precursor for all of this is almost always some type of fear. This might be fear of personal injury to self, fear of a loss of prized commodities (including land, sacred practices, and resources) or fear of loss of status or power. But over and over, it is clear that hatred is almost never a primary instinctive experience but rather a residual state of being from the fear and wariness that comes from perceived undesired outcomes.
Consider when a person describes a hatred of snakes. The reality is that typically this hatred is spawned by a sense that maybe a) snakes are evil b) snakes, especially poisonous ones, are dangerous, and c) snakes evoke feelings of general uneasiness and unpredictability. In all these potential causes of a hatred of snakes, the precursor is a fear about what they represent, and what harm they could cause.
It’s not that hatred isn’t real, and isn’t destructive. It’s just that fear is the opposite, and antithesis, of love instead of hatred because while fear and love are both primary, instinctive experiences, hatred is not.
Over time, when we continue to be afraid of others in our community, and in our world, even when it doesn’t lead to obvious hatred, it threatens to reduce the sense of community that we might feel with those who aren’t like us, and embrace different styles and ways of living, even when it doesn’t obviously contradict deeply held values and ideas.
Certainly hatred and fear have distinct differences, but it isn’t just that fear is most often a precursor to hatred. It’s also that they share a common component, and that component is distrust. When we experience anxiety, it is that we distrust a particular entity, whether it is a circumstance, animal, person, or anything else that we perceive might cause us physical, psychological, social, or spiritual harm. Yet the distinct difference is that while fear turns this distrust inward, hatred turns it outward, and seeks to appease this uncomfortable emotion through means that serve to degrade, dehumanize, or even destroy that which feels threatening.
Fortunately, much of our fear never progresses fully from an inward reaction to an outward projection. But it is critical for all to recognize that there is no dichotomy between fear and hatred, but rather a complex continuum in which our sense of distrust is mitigated through various psychological means.
But as our focus here is on the role of anxiety in our lives, we return to the subject of fear. Beyond all that has been stated, one of the reasons that the subject of fear is so rarely, and so insufficiently approached, especially in a religious context, is because of one question that seems entirely unimportant and entirely of a critical nature.
How could this paradox be? For starters, let’s consider the subject of sin, and God’s foremost directive around what is clearly sinful in our lives: violation of the Ten Commandments. While the first two commandments involve our approach to God and His holy name, the rest of the commandments involve what we should do or not do to our fellow human beings. While people may argue that there are certain loopholes to the commandments (e.g., Are white lies sinful?), the reality is that the commandments largely spell out behaviors that are clear in nature, and by which it is reasonable to assume what is good and what is not. If I am stealing, lying, intentionally coveting other things/people, and killing others, few ethical stances will consider this a positive approach to life.
Moving from the commandments to the seven deadly sins, it becomes somewhat more difficult to operationalize exactly what is greedy, slothful, lustful, prideful, and such, but at least in each of these scenarios, it is understood that a vice clearly violates a healthy state of being as it pertains to the individual, and often who they seek to exploit.
But then we get to anxiety and fear, and it is as if we enter a complex maze by which we straddle the line for what can be a healthy response versus a reasonable threat, or being an unhealthy response to no threat at all. We find ourselves wandering through a series of hallways that in one situation might be considered sinful and in another situation might be the furthest thing from it. It is reasonable to consider that one of the reasons that God didn’t include a reference to anxiety in the Ten Commandments, and that St. Paul didn’t consider anxiety in his list of vices, is that in order to really understand what is sinful and what is not, it would have involved an algorithm with various calculations and considerations too complicated for us to understand. The other conundrum is that while lying, murdering, and using the Lord’s name in vain may satisfy the absolutist view of sin, as it is a transgression for almost all of us in almost all situations, anxiety is a relativist’s dream.
Because of this, the question of a pernicious nature of anxiety is best left to the discernment of each person, and each circumstance, and their relationship with God, others, and the world around them. Let’s come back to the previous example of fear related to authentic communication, which leads to systematic avoidance. For someone who repeatedly avoids any communication that is even slightly uncomfortable, and goes to any means to sidestep important conversations, a reasonable case could be made that this is of sinful origin (although immediately, this idea would likely result in a contentious response by many because we don’t like to think of anxiety this way). But what if I told you that this same person grew up in a physically, psychologically abusive environment, and that from an early age they were taught that assertive, honest communication about many matters was met with a barrage of reactivity on the most punitive scale. Would this change your position about the nature of this person’s anxious response?
The reality is that the moment the topic of “sin” enters the conversation about anxiety is the moment that people of all dispositions become quite uncomfortable with this conversation. To even suggest that anxiety might be associated with wrath, or lust, or greed, or the root of all vices (pride) is to almost immediately undermine the foundation that most of us were raised─both of a religious and secular nature. That is, while I accept that what I do against others in an exploitative or intentionally harmful way could be considered a sin (or the secular equivalent of the word), I cannot fathom how my worries—-some of the most personal, vulnerable experiences I have—- could ever be considered of a pernicious sort.
It is at this juncture that it is important to assert that this is why the question of anxiety as sin could reasonably be considered entirely unimportant at best, and absolutely detrimental at worst. If the two most important commandments are to love God and others fully, then focusing on anxiety as potentially having a sinful nature has the distinct possibility of not only distracting, but even more so immobilizing others from what is really important: love, health, harmony, and pursuit of happiness─ not the elimination of anxiety, especially when it serves a clear function in so many areas. Said another way, focusing on operationalizing the sinful nature of anxiety might be synonymous with demonizing the process of eating just because food, which at its core is both necessary and good, can be misused in many ways. Sin evokes shame, and shame carries a price, even when it leads to positive growth.
Yet just as the argument seems settled, and the idea of equating forms of anxiety with sin seems both counterproductive and even preposterous, a counterargument quickly forms. The substance of this argument has nothing to do with the content of anxiety, but rather the relevance. As we examine this issue further, we find that while labeling certain fears as sinful undoubtedly carries pitfalls, the opposite does, too. The primary reason this is the case is because the moment we remove sin from consideration, it is the moment that our discussion immediately enters a different forum. While we can still talk about the various unhealthy effects that come from unwarranted anxiety, the reality is that health alone does not command as much relevance as health and virtue together, even for those who don’t consider themselves as religious or spiritual. Like it or not, this combo elevates our consideration of just how important our consideration of anxiety is not just for our lives, but even for our eternal salvation.
In some ways, this is just the product of a summative effect. The more components of a critical nature that involve a particular area of focus, the more we are likely to pay attention, and even act, on that which is being highlighted. But to indicate that this is simply summative, and not interactive, or even potentially synergistic, seems to limit the impact of our discernment. What if we actually saw our anxiety as a relevant variable in need of constant focus when it came to health, happiness, harmony/love of others, and our love of God?
So what do we do with the topic of anxiety? It seems that whether we consider its potentially sinful nature, or we altogether ignore the question, each pathway is fraught with particular misgivings that only leave us partially attuned to this most important consideration.
Just as we seem stuck in a philosophical or theological quandary, with real-life implications, a third consideration emerges. What if instead of considering first and foremost whether anxiety is both sinful and unhealthy, we regard it first in a singular way─as a variable. In speaking of a variable, we see it as a real entity impacting real outcomes, but with a decidedly, well, variant course depending on a specific factors at play. These factors, although in some way infinite in number, all decidedly lead to one quite unlikely and contradictory maxim. With anxiety, maybe the end(s) does justify the means?
Upon saying this, I, like so many others, instantly cringe at the notion put forth. The reason is obvious. We have so long been taught that the ends never justify the means. Stealing from others so that the poor get assistance and lying so that ultimately the guy woos the girl seems no more virtuous than an expletive-laced tirade just to motivate someone for good (although many a football coach has rationalized this course).
But for all of our instantaneous disgust with the idea that in this situation, the end(s) might actually justify the means, we have to understand that anxiety might be the ultimate internal variable of our lives. Thus, it may play by its own rules just as light─which knows no aging, no compartmentalization, and no speedier opposition─plays by its own rules, too.
If then, we are willing to suspend our disgust with the idea, what we begin to find is that in fact, the end(s)─important to note the plural)─do justify the means, but only if justified by a whole perspective. To evaluate this, let’s go back to an earlier example as it pertains to anxiety associated with crossing a busy road. As I said before, initially this discernment, or directive, regarding a young child often involves a parent invoking anxiety within the child regarding the gravity that the roadway holds. And so, in this first outcome (end), we might all agree that if anxiety prevents serious injury or death, then the end does in fact justify the means (i.e., invoking significant anxiety, even when unpleasant).
But if we stop there, we will only see an incomplete picture that does not fully understand both the means and the ends. If a parent initially invokes anxiety in the child, but over time helps the child develop a sense of prudent decision-making (around crossing the road) and anxiety is only elicited during emergency situations (e.g., a car is swerving toward the sidewalk), then we again can safely say that the ends do justify the means. Both the parent and child are healthier in this scenario through the use of anxiety.
But, on the contrary, if a parent repeatedly invokes anxiety in the child whenever they approach a roadway, so much so that walking down the sidewalk and crossing roads to school becomes a scary endeavor, and meanwhile the parents themselves repeatedly feel anxiety when they know a child is near a roadway, especially when no negative outcomes have occurred, then we begin to see more clearly the end(s) are struggling to justify the means.
Yes, the child might remain physically safe, although clear scientific evidence indicates that too much anxiety negatively impacts decision-making and thus the child may actually be less physically safe in this scenario. But let’s assume this is not the case, and the child’s physical safety remains preserved. The reality─and I say this as a parent that dearly wants to keep my children alive and uninjured─is there is not just an “end” to consider here. There are multiple.
We must first consider the worry, even terror, by which this child, God-willing will become a teen and adult one day, has about the roadways and how this might impact not only their walk to school, but their overall appraisal as a pedestrian and driver for the rest of their life. For most of us as parents, it is easy to see recklessness as relevant when it comes to our children’s approach to roadways (for the rest of their lives). But we should also consider the opposite possibility─what if our children harness timidity, or even abject terror when it comes to thoroughfares all over. Many adults, and an increasing number of teens, have a significant fear of driving or being on roads at all, hence one primary reason that teens are delaying getting their licenses more than ever before. So while we all would like our youth to grow up as defensive drivers, we certainly do not want them growing up as defenseless drivers. The reality of the latter is that it carries many negative potential consequences.
Without driving this example into the pavement (pun intended), we must also consider the “end” as it pertains to the mother, or the family as a whole. A mother who repeatedly feels fear with her children near roadways, who may ultimately elect to control the situation by just driving her kids to school and all other events not only suffers in ways that anxiety is known to cause, but she will also be confronted one day with the reality that her kid(s) has grown up, and is now driving─on their own. Once a seemingly “controllable” variable has now become even more uncontrollable than ever before. Her children, now emerging adults, are now not only the potential victim, but also the potential perpetrator as it pertains to traffic accidents and even fatalities. One day as a parent themselves, this example can (and does) carry on through generations.
Stepping back from this one particular illustration, a broader reality becomes clear. The best judge of our anxiety and whether it is productive, healthy, and even loving, is whether the means by what anxiety compels are justified by the end(s). But in considering the end(s), it is paramount that we take a wide lens view, and consider all the primary dimensions of our being─physical, psychological, social, and spiritual─as a whole. Failure to at least strive toward this, even as fallible, limited beings, may bring about a false sense of security that our anxiety was justified when it was not. There are no guarantees in this world that the decisions we make will turn out as we desire. One of the greatest traps of anxiety is when reasonable decisions don’t turn out well, and thus we feel pressed to take a more anxious course going further.
The reality is that what we really must consider when bad things happen is whether or not we can take a smarter, more informed course in the future, even though it likely will not change the past. But rarely is retreating in constant fear the best solution, as so many victims of unfortunate situations have discovered. Again, this is why it is critical to examine all the known possible end(s) to determine if the means were justified. A child dying in a pedestrian accident while walking to school is most certainly a horrible tragedy that should be evaluated to determine if there are ways to prevent this from happening to others. But the solution shouldn’t be to pull all the children from the roadway, and assume that no consequences of a serious nature will come from it.
God created a world that is inherently dangerous, even in the safest of situations. While we might never understand fully why this is the case, it is clear that while life is quite sacred, it is not the only thing of a sacred value, otherwise we would not have been granted the free will that allows us to do so much harm. Unrestrained anxiety has a habit of putting an absolute premium on life (and the image of our life), and a constant minimization of factors that fall below this premium standard. Yet a life guided through constant fear under the guise that it is the safest route, often propagated through generations, is neither a standard that God endorses nor one our communities should either.
Where do we go from here?
The only thing as important as understanding our anxiety is the approach we take towards it. This is where we will be traveling next as we work to translate a fuller understanding of this incredibly powerful force into an approach that allows us and our communities to pursue the core callings of our life.
To do this, we must first build a framework from which we can develop a process that guides us throughout our lives. For starters, we must be reminded that human beings are endowed with an anxious predisposition (not speaking in a personality sense, but from an instinctive sense) for clear reasons that should not be ignored. Any approach that seeks to eliminate all anxiety, in an ultra-stoic stance, is ignoring the manner by which we as human beings were placed in community with others, and our world. Said another way, anxiety and fear should be regarded as a normal human process that is as important to our existence as physical attributes that we might consider indispensable.
The second aspect of this framework is that while anxiety should be given respect, it also should be regarded with caution and discernment, not immediately accepted as the gold standard by which our perceptions are created, and our actions are orchestrated. Just as we describe metacognition as “thinking about thinking”, so we should consider just how we “feel about feeling,” specifically in this case about fear. Except in absolute situations of emergency, where time to discern might cost us (or others) life and limb, it is critical that we take a discerning approach towards our anxiety, and not simply avoid or control when it compels us to do so. While this might seem exhausting to do this for those who have never approached anxiety in this systematic way, the reality is that once we employ this approach as an overarching perspective, this process can gradually occur in a reflexive manner that is no more taxing than any other type of discernment we might undertake.
The third key aspect of the framework is that we must understand that anxiety, just like guilt, anger, sadness, envy, or other similar emotions, was never intended to be long-term, chronic state of being. We know this as it not only relates to clear religious edicts, but also from all the negative health and relational outcomes (discussed earlier) when these emotions become chronic. In contrast, when it comes to emotions (or maybe better classified as states of being) such as love, peace, admiration, joy, and such, long-term experiencing of these states is associated with many positive outcomes, and is desirable for us as human beings over the long-term.
Understanding this component of the framework leads to a logical next step, which is that all short-term emotions, especially anxiety, are intended to be either a messenger and/or an informant. When we experience anxiety, whether productively or not, we are receiving a message that is vital to understand. Failure to recognize this, especially on a repeated basis, means we are constantly missing opportunities to take a more peaceful, effective course. Similarly, when others act anxiously towards us, they are sending us a message, whether we realize this or not. Again, failure to recognize this, which undoubtedly impacts our response (or lack of), means that we have missed an opportunity to empathetically engage with the person, and circumstances, in front of us.
While all of the framework components might seem intuitive, the reality is that all of us, some more than others, fail to heed these components in our lives. We so often seek to eliminate, ignore, disrespect, and even just tolerate anxiety and thus, we repeatedly miss opportunities to harness its message. To be fair, life is quite full of demands, and even the most discerning of individuals could never fully understand all that our fears are trying to tell us. That is why it is important to clarify that this framework is not meant to convey a prescriptive, inflexible approach, but a reflective, flexible one.
Once we harness this tripartite framework, we are then free to approach the next, more active steps, of managing anxiety. We begin here by recognizing that while we must respect anxiety, we shouldn’t fear it; this is not a passive step, though, but rather often involves our inner, prayerful voice (even for those who aren’t religious) in taking an active stance towards what we feel. Described another way, the best way to approach anxiety according to God’s design is to seek to understand when it is promulgating a message of prudence (or caution, if you would prefer) and when it is putting forth a message of resistance. When it is the latter, we must learn to reframe the internal message we are hearing. For example, if we are feeling anxious about altering our diet in a more whole, natural way, it is important to recognize and then reframe an initial message that might sound like “there is no way I can keep this going and be happy” to something like “I know this isn’t going to be easy, but taking one meal at a time, I believe it is possible to find sustainability and joy in a different way of eating.” All reframing must be focused on two key variables: what is realistic and what is positive.
To understand the basics of reframing, find the nearest framed picture hanging in your home. Imagine that you took the picture out of its frame, and replaced it with a new frame that was different in color, size, and design, and hung it back up on the wall. While the picture would remain the same, we could readily agree that the overall presentation (with the new frame) looks somewhat different.
In our lives, the “picture(s)” are the events and circumstances of our days—many seem rather trivial, some seem important, and a few seem downright life-changing. But all of them make up our day, and thus for even the most mundane of events, it is common that we have automatic thoughts that pop into our head, which in turn often drive the emotions and behavioral reactions that come. The “frame” is our perspective or attitude toward these events, and while automatic thoughts and emotions can be hard to control directly, perspectives and attitudes are always controllable, and ultimately can alter our emotional state (and actions to follow) in a positive or negative way. It is why there was never more a true statement than uttered by Holocaust survivor Dr. Victor Frankl when he said, “The last of the human freedoms is to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.” Spoken from a man who lost almost his entire family and all of his possessions in the concentration camps, it reminds us that all of us can “frame” our experiences in whatever way we choose. It’s no doubt part of God’s design when he implored us to “be not afraid.” And when our automatic thoughts are driving unhealthy, unproductive anxiety, it is critical that we actively challenge the despairing messages we are hearing, and reframe them into messages of reason, hope, and love. Otherwise, we might be choosing misery in the only choices that we have.
It is these negative, automatic thoughts that drive so much of the resistance that we feel in our daily lives. All anxiety exists on the continuum of resistance versus threat. Imagine that on the far end (you choose which one) exists an absolute threat, such as standing in front of a firing squad or leaning over a massive cliff. On the other end of the continuum is absolute resistance, like we might experience when we are trying to get up and move in the morning or order at a restaurant. And then there is everything in between, which might include elements of both threat and resistance.
The problem with anxiety is that very often, we overestimate the threat and underestimate the resistance. We find ways to rationalize that the anxiety we are feeling is a true threat, in whatever way we choose to define it. And it is here that an active response must occur; otherwise we will repeatedly cede to the perception of a threat. By active response, we must not only work to assess the degree at which a threat really occurs, but we also must learn how to identify a rationalization (or excuse, or distortion) when it occurs. In some ways, we are all familiar with certain common excuses (e.g., “I didn’t have the time”, “It was too cold”, “I just wasn’t comfortable”, “It wasn’t worth it”, “It wouldn’t have worked anyway”). So when we hear ourselves utilizing one of these in a clear manner to get out of what we know we should be engaging in, it is important that we “speak back” (reframe) to the excuse with a statement that is both more honest and productive. Years ago, I was so impressed when I heard a friend say that he had not prioritized an annual outing (that he had yet to attend) instead of saying he just didn’t have the time, or something similar. The reality he was illustrating was that other priorities, not actually time itself, was the real culprit for his absence.
Beyond aspects of clarity, the reason why it is important to assert an honest appraisal of our anxiety, to the best of our abilities, is that when we fail to recognize what is really driving our resistance, it is really difficult to move through it. Resistance and punishment, as indicated by St. John, are bedfellows. They are complicit in not only preventing growth and community, but they are complicit in preventing a greater love. And part of the reason that they work so effectively is that they create a smokescreen that hides our true weakness, and in the process, makes it really difficult to see a pathway by which we can pursue our ultimate calls.
In reading this, you might think I am overblowing a process that is not nearly this consequential. But if we take a closer look at all of our insecurities, you will see that it is not just that we repeatedly downgrade our capacity in the way we speak to ourselves, but that we are also not honest about both our weaknesses and our strengths. In our anxiety, in our moments of resistance, we struggle to identify a reality that exists inside of us, one that is made possible in our creation, in the words of Fr. Pierre Chardin, as divine beings having a human experience. Or who as St. Paul said is a “temple of His spirit.” And so, repeated over the course of countless situations, through years and decades, a pathway to a different reality closes when it doesn’t have to if we had been more honest with ourselves about how we are struggling to embrace our divine existence.
If honesty about anxiety is necessary to open a pathway, then humility, not to be confused with false modesty or indifference, is the valve to reduce the pressure that we feel. For starters, it is critical to define humility in regard to what it is, and what it is not. First and foremost, humility is an honest appraisal about what is true and what is false; it is not an attempt to hide attention or demote accomplishments, but rather to give credit where credit is due. Unfortunately, confusion of humility with false modesty has led countless people to a place of reduced confidence about what is possible and probable as a co-partner with God. Unfortunately, this has created a situation by which any progress or accomplishments must be repeatedly minimized by a person’s public proclamation that nothing important or notable has occurred (e.g., it’s no big deal).
When it comes to the framework of humility, it’s important to start (and end) with the obvious. We neither devised nor created anything that has to do with human beings or this world; we only have worked, by the grace of God, to improve and enhance it. Ask yourself a simple question – just what did you have to do with the inner (and outer) workings of your brain, heart, muscles, bones, nerves, and every single system and structure of your body? The answer of course is nothing, and the same thing applies to every natural working of our world, such as the stupendously refined reality of gravity (and countless other physical properties) that allows life to exist in this world in the first place. So, when it comes to being humble, we must start here, and always come back to this.
The second level of humility relates to our attempts at progress at any time. God gives, and supremely encourages, our use of free will in every endeavor on earth, thus when we say “yes” to a particular call, or engage in actions for any reason of goodness, it is natural, appropriate, and formative that we might feel good (proud) about these positive steps. In fact, it appears that God’s design creates this as a key internal motivator, which can be available to us regardless of any other factor (e.g., degree of support from others, resources available, hardships incurred). I would argue that this natural, internal mechanism is often undermined by fears of judgment from others and/or false humility (i.e., “you shouldn’t feel proud about any accomplishments because that is a sign of pride [hubris] associated with vanity”), which in turn serves to neutralize one of the most important psychological mechanisms that God has created to encourage constant growth towards Him and His design for us. Being boastful and finding goodness/pleasure in our efforts is not synonymous; the former seeks to prove to the world that we are the best; the latter seeks to demonstrate our excitement about what God has done through us.
That being said, there is a trap here again that creates greater pressure for us, thus increasing potential for anxiety, and lessening the kind of humility that we need. Again, it’s rather simple to understand, and I will use an example to illustrate the first two levels of humility we are discussing here. Let’s take a new runner who is striving towards his first half-marathon finish, and anxiously pursues this goal and shares it with others. The first level of humility reminds the runner that all bodily systems and structure required for running are not of his doing: mind, heart, legs, nerves, all the way down to the remarkable structure of the foot that allows running at all were completely gifted to him by God. If it were not for these gifts freely given, the experience of running would not be possible.
The second level of humility reminds the runner that in repeatedly saying “yes” to the rigors of training (e.g., early morning runs, stretching/strength training, refining diet, improving sleep habits), he has nothing to do with the systems and structures that allow progress (i.e., increased miles per run, all the way to the race itself) to occur. The runner must consider that intricate process by which different types of training actually expand muscle and cardiac capacity, and different types of food actually create more endurance and improve healing, is beyond “his pay grade” (and all of ours). He isn’t the master builder, just the worker. Just as I might enjoy all the features that a brand new car provides for me doesn’t mean I had any of the expertise to make these features possible (or even the earning potential it took to buy it). It’s the same way with the runner. It’s not that he isn’t doing a lot of work, and can and should feel positive (proud) that he is doing it. It’s just that he can’t claim ownership and expertise on making growth possible. That’s God’s domain, and one of the most important antidotes to anxiety is constant gratitude to God for all the incredible gifts and opportunities that he provides for us, which often pose as mundane or self-created.
The final level of humility is an awareness that everything good we do in life is a co-partnership with God. Even when we feel like we are doing things alone, the reality is that it simply isn’t true. A basic review of physics reminds us that all of us are atomic beings held together by mysterious, ultra-powerful forces (nuclear, to be exact) that even the most advanced of science is still trying to understand. Devoid of these forces, we are little more than vacuous space that would slip unknowingly into the universe with everything else. Beyond this most elemental level, the reality is that every daily function relies on forces beyond our control, and which we simply take for granted. In going back to the example of the runner, even repeated healing of soreness and injuries (although it may not always occur as we desire) often mysteriously operates to keep our running possible. And so we are never alone, and the final level of humility reminds us that life is not a solitary venture, but rather a divine partnership.
Once we find ourselves clearly pursuing these three echelons of humility (as there is no finality or demarcation to this process), then it is remarkable to see just how much our anxiety can be tempered and progress can become possible in whatever way we are called. What it gives us is an acute freedom to accept failures as they may come for what they may be, not what we are worried they reflect or say about who we are (or aren’t). Sometimes failure might be our own, as we simply didn’t act in ways that were most advantageous, and thus it’s important to acknowledge (internally and/or externally) that better steps can be taken next time. Sometimes, though, failure is the result of forces beyond our control. No one understands this better than runners. Sometimes failure might result from over or undertraining, or not fully committing oneself to changes that are needed to support a healthy training protocol. But other times, factors involving weather, road imperfections, or mysterious injuries can derail us at no fault of our own.
Years ago, I set out on a marathon after having undoubtedly having my best training leading up to the race of this distance. I was poised to at least set a personal best, and hopefully qualify for the Boston Marathon as my training times suggested was a reasonable possibility. But on the day of the race, two things happened that derailed this pursuit (although I still got my PR, but not near what I was pursuing). The first was beyond my control, in that after training in mild temps through the winter and spring, this particular day it reached a high of 80 degrees, far warmer than I had experienced to that point. As all runners know, heat is the great neutralizer, and standing at the starting line, I should have taken a more cautious (pacing) approach. But even so, I had done a number of endurance events prior, including an Ironman, in significant heat, so it wasn’t as if I didn’t have the tools to use. But at around mile 3, I let a flippant comment from a pacer (i.e., “If you are taking in water at this point, something is wrong with your training”) derail the approach that I knew was needed that day from a hydration/sodium standpoint, and it cost me dearly later in the race. Finishing the second half of the race over thirty minutes slower than the first half, I was just glad to make it to the finish line at all. Reflecting on this race days and weeks later, I recognized that both controllable and uncontrollable factors contributed to the ultimate outcome, which has allowed me to further refine my approach for future races and humbly accept what I couldn’t control.
Once we pursue the tripartite framework to anxiety, and the three levels of humility, it is amazing to see how much we can grow in our management and utilization of the anxiety that we feel. It’s not that anxiety won’t remain to a certain degree (although for most, anxiety reduction occurs increasingly) but it’s that our capabilities around this show tremendous growth, and we look at anxiety in an altogether different way. Instead of becoming something we seek to control or avoid, we instead look at it as a mechanism to learn and grow.
From here, we then can approach the two most important questions when it comes to anxious circumstances that will inevitably arise. The first is “How often has my fear come to fruition?” and “If the worst happens, what would I do (or have done prior) to manage it most effectively?” The first question is what we call the “base rates question” and the second question is the “what if question.”
In regard to the first question, bad things do happen, even when we are doing our best to make the right choices. But a closer analysis of all the anxiety we feel uncovers a striking reality – an overwhelming percentage of our fears never come to fruition, or if they do, what occurs is far less severe than what we are worried about. While this might seem somewhat intuitive, the reality is that all of us to a certain degree do not reflect this in the way that we approach situations, at least from an emotional side. Repeatedly we find ourselves way more anxious than is necessary or good even though countless experiences (should) teach us that the chances things will go wrong are usually quite slim.
Take for instance the fear of storms, which is a common occurrence for many youth and adults alike. A common worry is that when a significant storm is approaching, people often fear the worst (e.g., a tornado will destroy the home). While this of course tragically does happen to some individuals, an amazing amount of people, who have experienced hundreds into thousands of storms in their lifetime, have never incurred significant home destruction, injury, or loss of life. Yet even when this is the case, our experience of anxiety sends the message that these outcomes are quite likely, even when they aren’t.
Years ago, I got to know a person I will call Sam. Sam had lived in the same home for many decades, and throughout this time, lived on a fixed income. Every time I saw Sam, one of the major areas of focus was fear about not being able to pay for expenses related to utilities, enough so that Sam could tell me the exact amount due each month for each utility bill. The anxiety was always palpable. After working with Sam for a while, I finally had a moment where I felt compelled to ask a question I should have framed long before, “Over all these decades, how many bills have you not been able to pay?” The moment I asked this question, Sam looked at me in a curious, almost annoyed manner, and replied in an obvious way: “Well, none.” To which I replied reflexively, in what was probably not well received, “Isn’t it amazing how we worry the most about things that happen the least?”
Decades later, I have never forgotten this interactive moment, and I am not sure if this reflection or what ensued from it was even helpful. But I do know that probably for the first time in my own life, I had an awareness which now is abundantly clear, and seems to have little to do with education, intelligence, or even experiences we have. It’s as if our emotional brain is regularly divorced from our logical one, and in the process, we keep coming back to the same anxieties over and over, almost as if they are time-honored treasures that we refuse to release. Because if we did, the message would be strikingly clear. It’s not that it is wrong to worry, but it is wrong to worry like the worry is the only message (or reality) that we should heed. Upon teaching this first question to both young kids and their parents alike, it is amazing how many aha moments seem to follow, and how embracing this idea alone can lead us to a more tempered, reasonable view of our fears. It empowers us to take a much more multi-faceted, productive approach to these same old fears.
Still, bad things can and do happen, even to the point that loss of life and limb do occur. Which is why even when the base rates are tremendously low, we always have to pair this question with the “what if” question. What if a tornado hits our home? What if I get in an accident? What if I fail a test? Just what would we do to be prepared for the worst, and react in the most productive, positive way? Again, there is something about this question itself that provides a curious freedom that doesn’t come when we only approach it from an emotional way. The question isn’t intended to ignore the emotion, but rather frame it in a way that recognizes that utilizing other aspects of our psychological selves (e.g., problem-solving, perspective, reflection) is a much more advantageous course.
Let’s go back to the storm scenario, as this is a common fear that I work with kids on. When I ask the “what if” question, youth are almost universally engaged on the different kinds of things that they have done, and can do, to best handle if a tornado ever hits their home. Does this guarantee that serious outcomes won’t occur? Of course not, but what I find is that having a narrative in advance about how we will handle the worst (including death and other realities of life) is much more empowering than just embracing the worries that come with it.
In fact, science has discovered this very phenomenon as it pertains to expressive writing around difficult circumstances. While still somewhat mysterious in origin, numerous studies have found that when we write about these situations, and ultimately create a narrative that makes sense of that which may seem to not emotionally make sense at all, many psychological outcomes, including anxiety, very often improve. Remarkably, too, it isn’t just the psychological outcomes that improve, but even physical outcomes such as improved lung functioning and immunity against illnesses. While the mechanisms are still being understood, it is as if understanding things more clearly, even circumstances that are quite tragic or traumatic, creates a sense of hope within us.