I firmly believe as I have stated in many places, that our anxiety is a great opportunity for our growth. One of the first chapters in my book is about this idea of “embracing anxiety.”
I know that anxiety can come in many forms and whatever you are experiencing, I want to acknowledge that, and let you know that I’m not minimizing that experience. I’ve experienced anxiety that made my feel a little like butterflies were in my stomach. And I’ve experienced anxiety that knocked me out and left me incapable of moving forward at certain points.
It was not until I began to embrace my anxiety that I really began to move out of the fear and shame of it — which kept me in hiding — and allowed me to share more openly with others about it. That was so freeing.
In the video below I just take a few minutes about this idea of “embracing anxiety” and a couple of exercises you could try to begin to even wrap your head around that idea (if that seems like a crazy idea to you).
“Without this anxiety we are creatures who are tempted to play life safe. When we play life safe we are tempted to become content and comfortable, and eventually stagnant. God does not want that of us. To follow after God is to be in a state of heightened alertness and sometimes ‘knocking knees.’ as C.S. Lewis put it. (The Anxious Christian, pp. 37)
