Practicing daily gratefulness is an important tool to fight anxiety and depression
Disclaimer: If you are struggling with deep depression and anxiety, seek medical help and get that medication if need be.
Some days I just cannot hack it. I am anxious. I am angry. I get restless and other feels I do not know even how to describe. People would say to pray and spend time with God. On those days, I am not even sure God exist… on those days, my faith is nonexistent.
I question everything.
I question myself.
I doubt.
We have a song my choir sings it is a Brooklyn tab cover "I never lost my praise"
This song is like our church anthem, the church erupt Every time we sing the song. People stand and testify how they never lost their praise and never lost their joy.
However, for me the song is like an indictment on my hypocrisy. I lose my joy every other day! I lose my praise every other hour! My faith waiver more than a flag in the high sky.
I am losing my joy singing the damn song because I know I am freaking lying!
This song is like our church anthem, the church erupt Every time we sing the song. People stand and testify how they never lost their praise and never lost their joy.
However, for me the song is like an indictment on my hypocrisy. I lose my joy every other day! I lose my praise every other hour! My faith waiver more than a flag in the high sky.
I am losing my joy singing the damn song because I know I am freaking lying!
How can I preach hope and joy when I struggle so much to keep mine?
Being grateful and cultivating joy is not mutually exclusive to being anxious and depressed.
You can be grateful and choose joy while still struggling with weird anxiety and depressions.
The key is to try and not give in to the feels entirely. You can feel one way and yet confess something entirely different. Because your feelings does not always tell the whole story. The word coming out of your mouth is more important than the feels in your head.
You can speak life in the midst of despair.
You can profess a word of affirmation over your life even when you do not really feel that way.
“As a man thinks in his heart so is he”
You can change the way you think by changing the words coming out of your mouth.
Your words doesn’t have to match how you feel
So making a choice to be grateful despite the feels and cultivate joy on purpose can keep you from losing myself down the rabbit hole.
So making a choice to be grateful despite the feels and cultivate joy on purpose can keep you from losing myself down the rabbit hole.
It is easier to plant joy than to weed out the other stuff.
I use to fight my thoughts when the anxiety creeps in, but the
more I fight the stronger they come. The secret is not to fight them but
replace them until they all choked out.
Practicing daily
gratefulness and positive affirmation is a great way to choked out the negative thoughts that terrorize
your mind.
You cannot keep the negative thought from passing through your
mind but you can keep yourself from dwelling on it.
Let the train of thought be passing train not a stationary one.
If your mind is telling you how weak you are, you can instead
confess one of the “I am statements” from this list and say instead, “I am
courageous”
This is not some gimmicky practice of lying to yourself. Whether
you refer to the bible, the law of attraction, mindfulness practice… this is a
great way to replace negative thoughts with more positive ones.
When my faith waiver, my mind wonder if there is even a God? I remind
myself of the many times God has come through for me.
Referring to past victories can help cultivating hope for the future.
Practicing
daily gratefulness can help shift your perspective. Some days are not as bad
as it appear in your mind. Sometimes all you need a shift in your perspective.
Look at things from a different direction; be grateful for the
little things.
You can start your day being grateful for a hot cup of coffee.
This tiny little act of gratefulness can deter your mind from wondering about crazy
the end of the world scenario and other terrifying things anxious minds often
wonder about.
Anxiety usually shove a lifetime of worry in a single second,
makes you feel like you’re not going to make it pass today and paralyze you
from being your awesome and authentic self.
However, a simple act of gratefulness can help you be present in
the moment, present to deal with today’s problem and not a lifetime of
potential problem.
The truth is we can handle the challenges of one day! You may not
be able to rid yourself entirely of crazy anxious thought but gratitude and
daily habit of gratefulness can help you take another step. Long roads are made
of individual steps, when joy bloom there is beauty among the weeds.
0 comments
Want to add anything? What do you think?