G4 Emotions

As you reach this chapter the momentum of change has probably already fluctuated several times. Getting started was hard. It felt like an uphill battle. Fear and despair didn’t want to let go of you and you didn’t want to admit it had a hold on you. Doubting your emotions can feel like betraying a friend; breakups are never easy even when they’re good. But honesty with self, others, and God has a great way of building momentum. You began to let go of the weights of sin that clung to you so you could run free (Heb. 12:1). This second phase is almost always exciting. People sometimes feel unsettled by the sense of freedom that comes with emotional liberty. In the third phase, the one we’re starting now, life restructuring may begin to feel more like work again. “Implementation” is not an exciting word or process. Lasting change happens in incremental units and mundane moments. Change begins to impact moments that feel “less relevant” to your battle with depression-anxiety. The relief you’ve gained tem

Depression-anxiety crowds out peace and hope in our lives. Conversely, peace and hope can crowd out depression-anxiety from our lives. The more space we a lot for one set of emotions the less room we will have for the other. This inverse relationship sets up the approach we will take in this chapter.We will take a two-fold approach – advocating strategies that decrease depression-anxiety and strategies that increase peace-hope. It is recommended that you implement a “balanced diet” – relatively equal numbers of approaches of each type. This chapter is a buffet. If you consider every strategy presented to be an assignment, this chapter will overwhelm you. As you read, select those strategies that best fit your life circumstances, the dynamics of your struggle, and your personality. If you are working through this material with a friend or counselor, invite them to suggest which strategies they believe would have the largest impact. To help you select a balanced set of strategies we have divided this chapter in

It is easier to see why we need to confess sins like anger or lust to others; these are sins that are more clearly against another person. But whatever lack of faith or self-destructiveness is present in anxiety-depression seems to be much more internally corrosive than externally offensive. This is not as true as we are prone to believe – rarely can we be emotionally disrupted and loving optimally – but it is a good place to start this conversation. The pursuit of forgiveness is not the only reason we should confess our sin. However, if forgiveness is the only reason that comes to mind when you think about confession, then this chapter will likely produce a reaction of defensiveness or shame. These are the very emotions that push away from others instead of towards them. Unless we combat this misconception we’ll be fighting an uphill battle in this step. Confession is what invites other people into our lives and points out to them where they can help. Confession is how we acknowledge our weakness a

Let’s play with the double entendre (e.g., word or phrase with two meanings) “emotional repentance” for a moment. Many readers may be thinking, “My emotions are already down, why do you want me to repent? How does feeling bad about feeling bad help me feel any better?” The difficulty with this logic is that it confuses “feeling bad about something” with repentance; God does not forgive us because we are emotionally self-lacerating. That is masochism not the gospel. The image behind the Hebrew word for repent is “U-turn.” When we repent we change directions. In step three, you came to understand the motive behind your anxiety-depression. In this step, you will turn from those empty-promising idols back to the God who wants to be your refuge, hope, strength, and Savior. Until you grasp this picture of God and repentance, this step will feel like you’re being asked to fight fire with fire; depression with despair or fear with desperation. After you grasp what God is offering you will realize it is like putting d

This is the chapter where we trace the smoke back to its fire. Hopefully the steps you’ve taken to understand your experience of depression-anxiety have equipped you to begin to answer the “why” question more accurately. Too often, in the intensity of our emotion, we come to the “why” question as a form of desperation; wanting deliverance more than an answer that would make the next step in our journey clearer.  One of the benefits of slowing this journey down with steps is that it allows us to arrive at the “why” question in a different frame of mind. We can come to it intentionally and with the information necessary to make a sound assessment; instead of being drug to it as a “question of last resorts.”  In this chapter, we will explore the why question in three sections. Our Personal-Family History of Anxiety-DepressionBiology and Our Anxiety-DepressionOur Cognitive-Emotional Motives for Anxiety-Depression The first two areas of assessment reveal experiences of anxiety-depression w

Let’s be honest, acknowledging the breadth and impact of your depressive-anxious struggle is not going to make it better at first. If our only goal is relief, then this is a bad strategy. But if our goal is to overcome our depressive-anxious struggle, to whatever degree this is possible, then this type of assessment is the only strategy. Ignorance may allay our fear-despair in the moment, but compounds them in the long run. Why bring this up? Because many who struggle with anxiety-depression get into the emotional habit of trading dimes for nickels because they are larger and perceived as having more value (a cruel joke big brothers have played on little brothers since the minting of coins began). The emotional equivalent is pursuing short-term relief in a way that increases long-term distress. Until we are willing to stop making this trade we will be emotionally bankrupt no matter how hard we work to earn more dimes to trade for nickels. The hope this chapter provides is that it equips us to take e

Human beings are unique from all other creatures in our ability to experience anxiety-depression at times that do not immediately demand the response of fear or despair. Our twin abilities to anticipate and reflect, which account for the major advancements of civilization, also give these unpleasant emotions a chronic place in our lives. Human beings can not only learn from the past, we can be shamed or traumatized by our past. We can not only plan for the future, we can project many different worst-case scenarios or unrealistic expectations for our future. The same abilities that allow for the greatest human achievements also generate some our most intense internal tortures.When Satan tempted Eve, he said eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil would make them “like God” (Genesis 3:4). He was right, not because Adam and Eve become small deities, but because we gained the partial ability – at least cognitively – to simultaneously live in the past, present, and future. We began to bare the weight

It would be easy to want this study, like this season of your life, to just be over. But this study, like your life, has at least one more chapter (and several appendices) left. When you put a great deal of effort, as you undoubtedly have, into getting past something, it can be easy to forget that there is something next. The fact that God has brought you to this point should be evidence enough that He has more in store for you and more to do through you.  In this chapter you will be doing most of the writing, because it is your life that is being stewarded for the glory of God. No one else could write this chapter but you. What you will be given is nine questions that walk you through a life assessment to determine where God wants you to serve now and where He may want to prepare you to serve in the future.  As you read through and answer the next nine questions, remember God’s patience and timing. There will be some aspects of God’s design that you can engage in immediately. But there may als

New and normal are words that do not belong together. But that is precisely what step eight is all about, establishing a new normal. If we were grieving the loss of a loved one, we might resist the idea of a new normal. If we were processing a betrayal, we might prefer “things be like they were before the infidelity.” But with anxiety-depression, the tendency is often more cynicism and doubt than resistance.Depression-anxiety made “normal” feel painful for so long we wonder if “normal” can be good.Even if you are optimistic about this new normal, a new normal is scary. It is unknown. It sounds so permanent. It soon will be the part of your life that occurs whether you’re intentional about shaping it or not. But if you are intimidated by this step, do not let that convince you that you have not completed the prior steps adequately.The phrase “new normal” seems to imply more intentionality than it actually requires. You do not need a spreadsheet with seven columns and twenty-four rows to itemize and color-code.

One of the biggest challenges in identifying goals for combatting the effects of suffering is to be active without accepting false guilt. It is easy to think if there is something I “can do” to offset the impact of my suffering, then it is something I “should have been doing” all along. The embedded deception in this kind of thinking is that the new strategy would have prevented the experience of depression-anxiety from ever occurring. If this were true, then you would be facing a sin-based experience of depression-anxiety rather than a suffering-based one. The clearest example of this dynamic might be grief. Grief is clearly a form of suffering. But we are not powerlessly trapped in the experience of grief for a lifetime. There are things we can do to process the experience of grief and offset its impact. However, doing these things earlier would not have prevented our loved one from dying or our experience of grief at their death. This is how we would encourage you to consider the strategies

Chapter four may have left you without a story. You looked at the events and impact of your depression-anxiety in chapters two and three, then let go of the destructive narratives that you used to explain them in chapter four. In chapter five you learned to mourn the presence of depression-anxiety without giving in to unhealthy wallowing. To this point it is as if you found an old pocket watch on a walk through the woods. It was dirty and tarnished. You’ve disassembled its parts to clean and polish them. You appreciate its value enough to be sad for the person who lost it. Now we’re about to begin the process of putting it back together again. Chapter six is intended to give you the right story out of which to live out the practical directives you’ll find in chapters seven and eight. Just like an athlete can train hard for revenge (one story line) or to reach his full potential (a different, healthy story line), we can strive for healthy emotions with several different narratives fueling / explainin

What are we supposed to do with bad news? Step four reveals a large amount of “bad news” – narratives we place upon our experience of depression-anxiety which leave us feeling shame or like God is absent. What are we supposed to do with that kind of bad news? The tempting answer is “make it better… spin it positive… fast… if we can use the Bible, all the better; that way we’re more likely to believe what we’re telling ourselves.” Chances are you’ve tried that and have the scars which rushed emotional change produces to prove it. So let’s ask a better question, “How does God want to care for you as you come to grips with these false narratives?” Does God want to free you with truth (John 8:32)? Yes, but he also wants to free you in a way that is bearable and sustainable. God wants your change to last and to be motivated by grace instead of shame or fear. That means God wants you to grieve the presence of suffering in your life. God does not think you are whining when you acknowledge that depress

This may be the darkest step in your journey. It will be where your fears find words and they move from being a haunting echo in your emotions to overt statements that feel more true than they are. You will be asked to question what is real so that you can embrace what is true and find the freedom this brings. Imagine the child who is afraid of learning to swim. Each time she is carried near the water she clinches her parent’s neck with all her might. Her fear is real. We need not assign the motive of being a “drama queen” or that she is faking for attention. But her fear is not true. The emotion is built upon a false story of drowning. Believing this story both locks her in fear and prevents her from knowing the joy of swimming. We want you to be able to read this chapter with the tone of a compassionate parent helping this young girl overcome her fear of learning to swim. We want to honor your emotions of anxiety-depression without affirming the destructive, untrue narratives that undergird them.

After acknowledging the history and realness of your depressive-anxious experience, you need to understand the impact of these experiences on your life. Unless we understand the impact, we will be forced to “just try to feel better;” which leads us to the trapping question, “How can I change my emotions when they do not respond to my will like my hands and feet do?” Merely trying to feel better reinforces a disposition of helplessness and despair. But the other rebuttal is, “Looking at the impact will only make me feel worse.” This is partially true, and why it is highly recommended you go through this study with a friend, pastor, or counselor. But it is also largely false. Consider the parallel example of debt. Many people in debt fail to itemize and total their debt for fear it will be overwhelming. But that leaves them powerless and with a “haunting ambiguous” sense of how big it must be. In this chapter we will seek to understand the impact of your depressive-anxious experience in three key

“It’s not that big of a deal. I’ll just press through this. What is a little sadness or anxiety? I can still do my job, pass my tests, take care of my kids, etc… I don’t want people to think I’m weak, weird, needy, ‘have issues’ etc…” These are the kind of thoughts that are often used to minimize or dismiss the experience of depression-anxiety.  Some of these messages may be good and true. Assessing how well you care for your self, family, and responsibilities is important. Often we are “just sad.”  Other messages are purely stigmatizing and lead us to believe that asking for help would make us sub-human or a drain on our friends. These messages will tempt us to “be strong” until we are at “code red” and despair-panic has us firmly in its grip.  Your goals in this chapter are simple – (a) to assess how severe your struggles with depression-anxiety are, (b) to determine the different expressions of depression-anxiety you struggle with, and (c) to identify who you need to ask to come alongsi

What is the only thing more overwhelming than being asked to lift an unbearable load? Being asked to move while carrying an unbearable load. That is what many people feel is being asked of them when they begin a journey like this one. When you’re emotionally taxed beyond your max, then even the most practical and compassionate advice either feels like it comes from an enemy (someone against you) or a stranger (someone who “just doesn’t understand”).  There is no way around this obstacle, so let me begin by acknowledging the level of faith and courage represented in your willingness to read these words. To you it may feel like doubt and fear, but your willingness to engage this material is noble and virtuous. I wish, and I’m sure you do too, that we could just rename your depression-anxiety as something positive and it would go away, become a blessing, or become an indicator of some unseen virtue.  Those options do exist. Over the course of this study your depression-anxiety may… … diminish to a

It might be easy to want this study, like this season of your life, to just be over. But this study, like your life, has at least one more chapter (and several appendices) left. When you put a great deal of effort, as you undoubtedly have, into getting past something, it can be easy to forget that there is something next. The fact that God has brought you to this point should be evidence enough that He has more in store for you and more to do through you.  In this chapter you will be doing most of the writing, because it is your life that is being stewarded for the glory of God. No one else could write this chapter but you. What you will be given is nine questions that walk you through a life assessment to determine where God wants you to serve now and where He may want to prepare you to serve in the future. As you read through and answer the next nine questions, remember God’s patience and timing. There will be some aspects of God’s design that you can engage in immediately. But there may also be w

New and normal are words that do not belong together. But that is precisely what step eight is all about, establishing a new normal. In steps 2-4, you looked at the things that disrupted your old normal. In step 5, you grieved the loss of your old normal. In steps 6-7, you began to piece together a new, healthy normal. Now, in step 8, you will begin to rest in that new normal and allow it to solidify.Unfortunately, the post-traumatic responses of intrusion, constriction, hyper-arousal, shame, and fragmentation created a way of life that made it easy for us to wonder if “normal” could ever be good again. Hopefully that skepticism is beginning to fade by the time you’ve reached this point in your journey.Realize, the phrase “new normal” seems to imply more intentionality than it actually requires. You do not need a spreadsheet with seven columns and twenty-four rows to itemize and color-code. As you live wisely, a new-healthy normal will happen. This chapter will be devoted to identifying the defining marks of

One of the biggest challenges in identifying goals for combatting the effects of suffering is to be active without accepting false guilt. It is easy to think if there is something I “can do” to offset the impact of my suffering, then it is something I “should have been doing” all along.In order to help you avoid this mindset, we will arrange the strategies for combatting the impact of your suffering around the three areas of symptoms most common to the post-traumatic experience. Settling Hyper-Arousal SymptomsCountering Intrusive SymptomsLessening Constrictive SymptomsThe intent is to help you see that, because the presence or magnification of these symptoms did not begin until you experienced your trauma, that they are not things you “should have been doing all along” that would have “prevented the trauma in the first place.” Many of these approaches do have application in normal-everyday life. This is because re-engaging life and relationships is a very normal-everyday activity. Don’t allow this to become a

When you experienced your trauma, life stopped, at least parts of your life stopped, yet the rest of life has continued in a way that can be both disorienting and offensive. So far this study has been a major deconstruction project; we have broken down your experience and its fallout in many ways. The result is, while you may feel like there is hope for things to be better, you likely also feel like a person without a story. That is what this chapter begins to address. In this chapter you will begin to put the pieces you deconstructed into a new narrative; not a narrative that makes the “sad things untrue” but a narrative that allows you to understand yourself, God, your life, and the future in ways that are healthy and hopeful. This new narrative will likely not answer the nagging “why” question. Think about most suspenseful movies you’ve seen or books you’ve read. When is the “why” plot revealed? At the end. Where are you in your journey? Still in the middle. It is unlikely at this stage in the journey that