3 Simple Ways to Overcome Anxiety in Your Relationships
Why worry about what you can’t control?
Photo by Noah Silliman on Unsplash
Anxiety is a normal reality of life. Young people wrestle with it and so do the elderly. Women can be oppressed by vexing thoughts and so do men who might struggle to admit it.
The middle class has to battle it, the poor are berated by worry, and even the wealthy are fearful. Anxiety is not bound to particular ethnic groups or periods of world history.
Anxiety is born of the reality that we possess little power to control the world around us.
“Our anxiety does not come from thinking about the future, but from wanting to control it.” — Kahlil Gibran
We have no control over the actions of other creatures with free will. We possess little control over world affairs. Even when we develop a healthy lifestyle, we are unable to stop hereditary diseases from ravaging our bodies.
Your life does not have to be controlled by anxiety.
Anxiety can make our relationships intolerable
At its worst, anxiety can cripple our relationships to the point of making them intolerable.
My wife Gail and I recently celebrated our 24th anniversary. We were barely 20 years old when we started dating and only 21 when we married. At 45 years old, I can now look back and see the ways that anxiety popped up in very normal ways in our relationship.
When we first started dating, I did the very normal thing most guys do when they meet the one they believe is the love of their life. I became anxious about the relationship.
I was mesmerized by Gail and in awe that she wanted to be my girlfriend. The emotions were overwhelming to the point of occupying my every thought. It's a wonder that I stayed on task academically during those days in college.
We laughed together, talked incessantly, and spent hours together. At some point, devious thoughts started to creep in to my mind that hinted that the relationship might become fragile.
“She might break up with me.” “What if some other guy captures her attention?” “What would I do without her?”
Any female who has experienced a guy processing these anxious thoughts realizes that what comes next is a kind of neurosis that leads to obsessiveness, jealousy, and silly attempts to control the relationship.
Humans don’t like to be controlled. Healthy relationships are free from control.
Anxiety about losing the relationship leads to behaviors that actually could put the relationship in jeopardy. The guy who seemed charming, funny, and desirable suddenly begins acting small, nervous, and irritating. Instead of being the charmer who captured your heart, he now acts pathetic and nervous like a fisherman hanging on for dear life to that catch on the line.
I am not an overly anxious person by nature and was, therefore, able to quickly convince myself to resist the internal pressure to overthink, obsess, and control.
I could sense that anxious behaviors would make our relationship undesirable to Gail. Letting go of control meant acknowledging that it was good that Gail had a life outside of our time together. She had friends and interests and so did I. The more time we spent apart the more we both desired to be together.
Fortunately, I was able to resist those anxious impulses as I began to trust that Gail actually wanted to be with me. Her unconditional love gave me confidence that she wasn’t looking for an opportunity to run out the door.
24 years later we freely enjoy being together.
The temptation to anxiety will always be present
I was talking to a young friend recently who is at that same place I was years ago. He confessed that he was really struggling with anxiety and the fear of losing his relationship with his girlfriend. He was obsessing about her safety and wellbeing. He is smart enough to know that obsessive behavior can make his presence undesirable and even irritating.
I told my young friend that life had taught me that learning to trust God could not wait because life will inevitably throw us curve balls.
Gail has been through two significant spinal tumor surgeries. For a time, I feared she would be paralyzed or unable to walk again.
Gail’s Dad died unexpectedly in 2013 of a heart attack on a treadmill at a gym.
I am getting a bump on my head checked this week to make sure it is not skin cancer. There is no guarantee for any of us of what the future holds.
I informed my young friend that once he has children that anxiety would be a serious temptation. I have six kids and years of experience on this point.
Little babies are so helpless. I can’t tell you how many times I checked their cribs to feel their little breath whisper on my lowered cheek. Every electric socket in the house had one of those plastic safety covers on it.
Being a parent is one of the quickest ways to realize your utter helplessness and inability to control harm or sickness from touching your kids.
Just this week my eight-year-old broke both of his arms jumping off a swing set. As the doctors sent us out of the room as they put him to sleep, Gail and I tearfully prayed together in the waiting room. We are fully aware of how helpless we are to fully protect our kids.
Just as anxious control can ruin romantic relationships, it can also make parental relationships stifling to our kids. If we try too hard to control all the circumstances to ensure the safety of our little ones we will end up creating an oppressive environment for them. They will want to run away from us as soon as they get old enough to leave.
Kids are going to get bumps, bruises, and scrapes. They will get sick. Statistically, some of them will get really sick and even die.
We will always have an excuse to become anxious people.
We can’t allow fear and anxiety to control us
If we dwell on our lack of control and our inability to safeguard life from harm the only result will be a life full of anxiety, worry, and fear. Jesus said,
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?
“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you — you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. (Matthew 6:25–34, NIV)
3 simple ways to overcome anxiety in your relationships
God does not intend for your mind, heart, and relationships to be controlled by anxiety. Jesus came to give us Good News that can drive away anxiety and fear. The following are three simple ways to overcome anxiety in your life and relationships.
Preach the goodness of God to your heart
Yes, you must preach to your own soul. Do it every day. You don’t have to wait for a Sunday sermon to hear the Gospel. Learn to imitate the very best Gospel preachers and preach to your heart every day.
God is a Father that made you, loves you, and is always good to you. His eyes are always on you. Your heavenly Father has counted the number of hairs on your head.
How good is God to me? Read Romans 8 in the New Testament. God loves you so much that He was willing to give us Jesus for you. The Apostle Paul resounds,
“He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all — how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:32, NIV)
God’s ways are mysterious. I am convinced we will never know in this life the full tapestry that He is weaving, using the good and the bad for something glorious. I can now look back on some of life’s hardships and see how God has weaved them for good, but that doesn’t mean I can explain it all. This is why God calls us to trust and faith.
Your heavenly Father knows all of your needs and is watching out for you. That goodness that you have toward a lover or a child represents a tiny fraction of the love and goodness God has in His heart for you.
Preach that goodness to your heart like a wound up preacher with fire in his bones. The fear born of anxiety will start to melt away at the reminder that your Father above is watching over you.
When our hearts are aligned vertically to the heart of God, they can be at rest to align horizontally with the hearts of the people we love.
2. Count your blessings every day
God is littering our lives with good things. A fresh cup of coffee in the morning. Silly laughter at the dinner table with the family. The comfort of lying on a cozy bed at the end of a tiring day. A walk with Gail around the neighborhood. The stirring of a song that moves the heart.
Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. (James 1:17, NIV)
Gail has taught me how to appreciate little gifts. As we walk around the neighborhood she notices blossoming flowers, playful squirrels, and things I would ordinarily not stop to enjoy.
A while back I started journaling and making notes of the gifts God scatters in my life. If you take a few minutes and start writing them down, your list will become overwhelming and long.
I challenge you to do it. When your heart is full of gratitude, your mind occupied with counting blessings, you won’t have much mindspace left for anxious thoughts.
You will start to see the people in your relationships as gifts from your good Father.
We should receive all of our gifts, not with clenched fists, but with open hands. If your hands are closed with a death grip on your gifts, they can’t be open to receive what else God wants to pour into your hands.
With open hands, we remember the One who gave the relationship to us. We can resist a clenching, anxious grip that would stifle and crush the one God has given us to freely love.
3. Give yourself over to whimsical joy
God wants you to be happy. He desires your joy. God wants the same for your spouse, your kids, and your co-workers.
As you believe God is for you, working for your good, filling your life with good things, you can start to enjoy God’s gifts like a child.
Kids are full of whimsy, wonder, and hopeful expectation of more good things to come. They laugh, swing, play, dance, take a break, and do it all over again.
As adults, once we have faced a bit of hardship, we can become hardened and cynical, distrusting that God is watching out for our good. When our hearts become hardened, we become blind to the gifts God is giving us to enjoy.
You should laugh more. Stop taking yourself too seriously. Make a funny face at yourself in the mirror. Go for a bike ride or jump on a trampoline if you are able.
Whatever age you are, or whatever physical state God has you in at the moment, don’t lose the opportunity to taste whimsical joy.
Now that my 8-year old son has two casts on his harms, we are having to find new games that require feet only. We don’t want him to become disheartened by his physical condition and get bored watching TV. There is so much life his feet can enjoy while his arms are healing.
Maybe you used to be a different person to a spouse or your kids. Did you used to be more carefree and fun? Has your new job or title made you into a different, more stuffy and exhausting person to be around? Has a broken relationship deformed that once playful Mom into someone your kids don’t recognize anymore?
You might have given up believing it, but it doesn’t make it less true: God deeply desires your joy. But you have to open your hands again to receive it.
People who believe in the amazing goodness of God, who count His gifts, are whimsical, joyful people. They are not occupied with the worries of tomorrow because they are fully present to the gifts and joy of today.
“P.S. You’re not going to die. Here’s the white-hot truth: if you go bankrupt, you’ll still be okay. If you lose the gig, the lover, the house, you’ll still be okay. If you sing off-key, get beat by the competition, have your heart shattered, get fired…it’s not going to kill you. Ask anyone who’s been through it.” — Danielle LaPorte
We can’t control much in this life. We can choose to be fully present and free to enjoy the gift of the people in our lives.
You can look again to this day with a childlike expectation that God is eager to surprise you with his goodness.
“Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.” -G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy
Your heavenly Father does not want you to be anxious about anything that He already is taking care of for you. He most certainly does not want you to destroy your relationships by being overcome with anxiety about them.
With God’s help and a little faith you can overcome the anxiety that troubles your relationships.
God has you. Rest in that wonderful truth and go enjoy the people and gifts God has scattered for you in the days to come.
