The greatest reason I am so passionate about helping people to overcome in their life and journey is my own personal story. A big part of my journey has been facing the overwhelming feelings of anxiety, panic attacks, obsessive compulsive, kind of thinking, social phobias, and overall fear that just wouldn’t let go and wouldn’t stop.
I know what it feels like to be in the deep trenches, where I felt like I had nowhere to go; to feel so overwhelmed. Yet in looking around, it seems like everybody’s just going through their own motions and I’m alone in this world battling all this stuff. It seems like I’m the only one going through it.
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This problem didn’t arise overnight. I didn’t all of a sudden wake up riddled with anxiety and panic attacks. It actually happened over a period of time, were anxious moments than built into anxious days. Panic moments moved into panic ridden days and weeks.
The obsessive thinking began to build into an overall. fear-based oppression that clouded me, took out my state of mind and really infected my mood.
The Cries for Help
So I did what most people would do in their journey that are wanting help, because I wanted to be free.
I started with a church counselor, then moved to a outside counselor, to therapists, to psychologists, to psychiatry, to using medication, to then just being in a place of desperation. It seemed that no matter where I turned, no matter what I did, no matter what I look to, things just seemed to get worse.
The Prayer that Changed Everything
So I decided in my journey that I was going to pray a dangerous, yet courageous and bold prayer:
“God, if you have answers to this, I want them. If there’s things in your word that you want to say to me about the situation, even if it makes me uncomfortable, even if I have to go through a process and a journey, I’ll do it. I’ll face what I need to face. I’ll deal with what I need to deal with because I want freedom that badly.”
So it led me into a journey and there are three keys that really helped me in my life that, if you face fear-based thinking in any way, shape, or form, this is going to be the leverage that will help you move into freedom and experience the greater potential that is available for your life.
1. Teachability
I positioned my heart to use this battle ground as a place of discovery, as a place of learning. When you are teachable, you realize you don’t have all the answers. You don’t know it all.
Teachability produces a humble heart where you learn to position yourself for the learning that is needed to learn what you don’t know and what you don’t possess.
So I began to lean into the discovery. Rather than saying, just get it off of me. Pray this away from me. Somebody helped us quickly rescue me. I began to start realizing, okay, there’s stuff I’ve got to learn. There’s things that I need to be taught to help me in this process of overcoming anxiety, panic attacks, and fear based battle. So I had to be teachable.
I had to be willing to face faulty mindsets. For many of us, we have areas of thinking that are not healthy, they’re not good, but we rely on them anyway. They simply empower fear.
I had to be willing in teachability to let those areas get confronted so that I could renew those ways of thinking and open myself to the truth which Jesus said shall make you free.
This teachability also helped me to position myself in passion and hunger. Most people are not going to be teachable if they’re not going to humble themselves. If they’re not going to be willing to say, I want freedom for my life more than anyone else could want it for me and I’m hungry. I want to be free. Whatever it takes.
When you develop a “whatever it takes” mindset, you position yourself to be taught, to receive what you need to know to go to the next level and overcome.
2. Vulnerability
I positioned my heart in a way where I started to let down my guards. I started to let down the defense mechanisms, humbled myself, and I allowed my heart to share what I was going through with others for a couple of reasons.
Number one, in that vulnerability, you receive the things that you need to receive.
As I became more vulnerable, other people were saying, you know what? I go through the same things myself.
I found when I was vulnerable, shame got pushed away. So many of us in our battles live under shame, so we never get the help and breakthrough we need because we feel so small and weak in the battles that we’re facing.
I decided vulnerability was worth it, and through the vulnerability, God brought people into my path that carried things I needed to learn and things I needed to gain. So He put mentors in my path. These people were not necessarily those who stood up on platforms or famous people. There might be an occasional book I read from them here or there, but a lot of times it was the prophet in the shadows.
A lot of times it was a casual conversation, a dinner meeting or lunch meeting. The insights often came through sharing what I was going through and allowing myself to hear from others, to gain helpful perspectives. Piece by piece, I was able to learn the precepts and things I needed to “grow and go” to the next level in my life.
But I had to be willing to be vulnerable. When we’re vulnerable, we get real and stop playing all the games we play.
I also saw that in being vulnerable, other people were being encouraged. They felt relieved, thinking, “You are going through this too? So am I!” Or “My friend is going through this. My spouse is facing this. My son or daughter is going through this. What’s God shown you? What have you learned?”
Then we’re sharpening each other. Where the enemy tried to cause us all to hide from each other, God is calling us to come out and vulnerability, be ourselves and let the exchange of life help us go to the next level.
3. Processability
This word means, “the ability to be processed.” I am talking about allowing yourself to engage a process, a journey of overcoming.
Are you allowing yourself to engage a process?
So many are intensely wanting to get free, but they want to see it happen overnight.
They’re thinking, “I should’ve gotten free 10 years ago. Why am I still struggling?”
That pressure and tension makes everything harder and more difficult to get free.
God is not inviting you into a journey of added pressure. He’s not condemning you, beating you up, accusing you, guilting you or adding weight.
Actually, God is in the process of taking the weight off. What fear wants to do is add pressure: hurry up and get well, hurry up and get healed.
God is inviting us into a process; a journey.
One of the greatest gifts I gave to myself was permission to engage process, a journey. I wasn’t just focused on a destination that I had to arrive at tomorrow. I leaned into the learning that was necessary, being vulnerable, but realizing this is going to take some time. I needed to give myself permission to go through a process of transformation because that is how we get changed in relationship day by day, entering into the journey.
Those are three initial keys that helped me in my overcoming of anxiety, stress, ocd and more.
They weren’t everything, but this was the start. This was the beginning.
I invite you to take the journey with me in my latest book, “I Will Not Fear,” which will lead you step by step into what it takes to overcome the fear factor in various forms.
I pray my story will continue to encourage you to declare and affirm, “I Will Not Fear!”
Recommended Resource:
- Book: I Will Not Fear