S4 Episode 2: Anxiety Pt. 1
brenda_payne (00:03.33)
Well, hi, Alex. Good to be on with you today. I'm excited about our series on a common life struggles. And today in our series for the wisdom that we need for life's common struggles, we're gonna talk about the most common struggle people face. And that is anxiety. In fact, anxiety has been dubbed as the number one mental health disorder. And it's not a surprise to us at all when we look around
alex_kocher (00:07.058)
Hey, Brenda.
alex_kocher (00:30.918)
Thank you. Thank you.
brenda_payne (00:33.25)
consider all the potential threats to our being and to those we love and all the unknowns. But the good news is that God knows our struggles, our anxieties and our fears. And he talks about these through the pages of scripture. I always think if I was writing the Bible, I would have taken out all the bad stuff and just put all the good stuff in. But I love that God didn't do that because he knew that we needed to hear all the stories, understand all the real life struggles.
alex_kocher (00:33.562)
No.
alex_kocher (00:55.582)
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
brenda_payne (01:04.03)
And then he speaks repeatedly in a way to invite us to trust him. I love what my friend Marty Solomon says. He's always talking about trusting the story. And I think when we think about anxiety, we really begin to realize how much God is inviting us, desiring for us to trust the arc story of the scriptures and how our story fits into it. So as I was thinking about this topic of anxiety, I was reminded of a movie that I saw that I really liked called Bridge of Spies.
alex_kocher (01:15.12)
Mm-hmm
brenda_payne (01:33.29)
see that movie? Oh, you got to watch it. It is a great movie. It's based on a true story through the Cold War era. And Tom Hanks, which is one of my favorite actors of all times, plays as attorney who's going to negotiate a deal between a Russian spy to exchange him for a captured US spy. And this Russian spy that's been convicted, his name is Rudolph Abel. And the whole, you know, movie is about how the deal is going back and forth and all
alex_kocher (01:36.218)
I've never seen that movie.
alex_kocher (01:47.542)
Mm-hmm
brenda_payne (02:04.01)
But eventually the deal is brokered and Abel is going to be sent back to Russia where he knows really he's going to be executed there. And then during the spy swap, Hank and the Russians are meeting on the bridge with the spies for this swap. And Tom Hanks looks at this Russian spy and says, hey, are you worried about what's going to happen when you get to the other side? And the Russian spy so calmly looks at him and just says, would it help?
alex_kocher (02:13.418)
Thank you. Thank you.
brenda_payne (02:34.49)
And that's just kind of it, like would it help? And so those three words really became a catch phrase for me. And Paul and I would joke about this a lot, but I would go to Paul and say, hey honey, I'm so worried about so and so and so. Are you worried? And Paul would say, would it help? You know, in that kind of Russian accent. And it was always just a reminder to me that no, it's not going to help anything. And in fact, it's probably gonna make, you know, matters worse. And I think Jesus says something similar in Matthew 627.
alex_kocher (02:35.998)
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
alex_kocher (02:43.undefined)
Uh huh.
alex_kocher (02:50.418)
hahaha
alex_kocher (02:57.564)
Uh huh.
Hmm.
brenda_payne (03:03.27)
when he says, can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? And I think Jesus is just highlighting, just like this Russian spy, the absolute futility of worry.
alex_kocher (03:10.722)
Yeah.
alex_kocher (03:16.898)
Yeah, I think there's a statistic out there somewhere of like, what is it? 95% of the things we worry about don't ever come true. So there really is a futility to the things that we, um, that create our anxiety. So to start off, I think it might help us to define anxiety today as we talk about it, we're going to talk about it as both sin and suffering. We're going to talk about it as ways that we, um, understand our frailty, our fine-nightness. But also as ways that we, um,
brenda_payne (03:25.061)
Yeah.
alex_kocher (03:46.938)
we definitely maybe take try to take back control from God and so we're going to talk about it in both ways but we're defining anxiety today as concern that is out of control and it's often focused on the wrong day. And so Corrie Ten Boom has this great quote she says worrying is carrying tomorrow's load with today's strength and that carrying two days at once it is moving into
does an empty tomorrow of its sorrow it empties today of its strength. I'm saying she's one of those people to do Brenda that I always say like when she says something I'm going to pay attention because she kind of has the right to speak into these places of suffering but I think it's a great point because I think someone once described to me as anxiety being us what we're doing is we're running around in our brain
brenda_payne (04:19.849)
preach, Cory. So good.
brenda_payne (04:27.91)
Yes. Yes.
brenda_payne (04:44.471)
Hmm.
alex_kocher (04:47.138)
and that we often feel exhausted and we often feel completely depleted and we feel depleted not because we've physically been running around but we have been mentally running around in our brain and so I think it's just a good image for me because it helps me again to see that like I'm not gaining strength from this, it's not helping. The only English word for worry means to strangle the mind.
brenda_payne (04:59.05)
Thank you. Thank you.
alex_kocher (05:18.245)
It isn't that what it feels like.
brenda_payne (05:18.541)
That's a very good illustration. Yeah.
alex_kocher (05:23.258)
Yeah, strangling the mind. And I think that's a really good, it's actually a really good word too, because part of what our body experiences when we experience anxiety is a feeling often people will say of tightness in their chest, short of breath, like a strangling. And so we can remember that worry is a strangling of the mind. Proverbs says anxiety weighs the heart down. And so there is definitely a sense that anxiety has both a spiritual and a body component. This is an
brenda_payne (05:35.65)
Hmm.
Mm-hmm.
brenda_payne (05:51.014)
Yeah.
alex_kocher (05:53.178)
inner and outer man and we're going to talk about that. But what we know for sure, and probably there isn't a day goes by that we personally don't wrestle with anxiety and that we don't encounter somebody who's wrestling with anxiety, it is definitely part of the human condition. So with all that we just have access to, you would almost think that it would like on the internet, information, technology, you would think that it would lower our anxiety, but actually just this morning, read an article.
in the New York Times about how social media and the internet is increasing anxiety, particularly among teenage girls. But this information age is not lowering our anxiety, it's actually raising our anxiety. And so there's some interesting implications to that. But I think what we see is that we experience anxiety the most, or at least I do, and I think most people do, when things are uncertain. And I think that's why we think that technology
brenda_payne (06:29.25)
Mm-hmm
alex_kocher (06:53.178)
to counteract the anxiety, but it doesn't because it doesn't give us a sense of certainty. And so when things are uncertainty, we, uncertain, we tend to worry more. And particularly, I think when things are uncertain in the case of like something could threaten our health or well-being or the health or well-being or safety of the people that we love.
brenda_payne (07:11.99)
Yeah. No, those are all such great points. I was thinking of one of the things you said about, we worry 95% of the time about things that don't happen. And so often I walked through my life and I was like, gosh, I spent so much time worrying about that. I should have been worrying about this. Because this actually came to be and I didn't even know to worry about it, you know? And then I think, you know, there's this sense in which this technology age is so wonderful but we weren't meant to be omniscient. I'm even thinking about
alex_kocher (07:22.379)
Mm-hmm
alex_kocher (07:29.118)
Yeah, because this is what really happened. Yes.
brenda_payne (07:41.99)
the tools and resources parents have or we have to track our family members where they go, what they're doing, all of that kind of things that kind of put us in that realm of trying to be omniscient. I just know everything, but it is interesting. Even though I may know a lot, I can't control most of it. And so therein lies the problem and yeah, the good things can sometimes turn into not so good things. Well, the other thing about anxiety, it's a suffering issue. But it also can be...
alex_kocher (07:42.879)
Mm-hmm
alex_kocher (07:49.9)
Yeah.
alex_kocher (08:02.201)
Right.
brenda_payne (08:12.59)
a way that God exposes what's in our heart. A desire for control a lot of times is, you know, at that heart of when we get anxious, we wanna control because we a lot of times wanna control for good outcomes or to mitigate bad outcomes or harm to ourselves or those we love, but God really wants us to turn our worry into worship. And worship, Alex, as we know, is just an opportunity to love, trust and obey him. And to live out of that sense, I was listening to Kurt Thompson recently
alex_kocher (08:17.418)
Hmm.
alex_kocher (08:28.939)
Yeah.
alex_kocher (08:35.493)
Hmm
brenda_payne (08:41.85)
about this desire we have to know. And again, we wanna know things and we wanna know things because we want certainty and we want ease, but he was saying the most important thing is not what we know, but that we're known. And that's really at the heart of worship is trusting God. Like when we trust him, then we're going to love him and obey him. And so it's more important to be known than to know stuff. I was thinking also, just as we're thinking about
alex_kocher (08:46.418)
Mm-hmm
alex_kocher (08:51.481)
Yeah.
alex_kocher (08:57.29)
Hmm
alex_kocher (09:01.926)
Mm-hmm
alex_kocher (09:10.002)
Mm-hmm
brenda_payne (09:12.61)
anxiety being one of those struggles where we can see the suffering and sinning component. My daughter just had her first baby five weeks ago and he's precious and I'm getting a lot of time with him. It's funny because I just, you know, go knock on her door about every day cause I just quote unquote happened to be in the neighborhood but the reality is we know that I live in the neighborhood. So I'm loving all of this time. We had our first little spend the night party this weekend too. But any rate
alex_kocher (09:20.504)
Mm-hmm
Hmm. Oh. Yes.
alex_kocher (09:34.018)
Ha ha ha
brenda_payne (09:41.85)
My mama, she is wrestling with a lot of anxieties. And I mean, oh, so much, and Alex, I just forgot. I forgot how hard it was to have an infant, particularly for the first time. Oh my word. But I can see both her frailty and her fallenness, right, both as she's struggling. First of all, she's completely sleep deprived, bless her heart. I think she's had no more than three, but about two hours of sleep, 24 seven, for the last five weeks.
alex_kocher (09:47.65)
Oh, so much.
alex_kocher (09:52.243)
Yeah.
Yeah.
alex_kocher (10:00.923)
Mm-hmm
alex_kocher (10:07.543)
Yeah.
brenda_payne (10:12.273)
Sleep deprivation will make you cray-cray.
alex_kocher (10:12.62)
Yeah, yeah.
brenda_payne (10:16.61)
and so will raging hormones. Which she's awesome. Oh, yes. And could not be happier for my, you know, early hysterectomy. Let me just say that. Just zap some of those emotions and those hormones right out. But, you know, she's really in just this hijacked emotional state. And so as I'm looking on, I'm just realizing like she's dealing with all the physical stuff and then just the normal insecurities and vulnerabilities
alex_kocher (10:17.219)
Yes. Yes.
Yes. Yeah, we're on the other end of that. We can testify to the other end of that.
alex_kocher (10:31.766)
Hahaha!
alex_kocher (10:35.138)
Ha ha ha.
alex_kocher (10:41.103)
Uh huh.
brenda_payne (10:46.59)
a new parent. But what I'm also seeing is that it's revealing something about her heart, right? It's revealing that she cannot be 100% in control of her newborn infant. She can't be awake 24 seven to make sure he's breathing. You know, there's there's no guarantee that she can provide him ultimate safety. And she's also learning to diet or herself in in new
alex_kocher (10:48.518)
Thank you. Bye.
alex_kocher (10:55.818)
Hmm
alex_kocher (11:03.219)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
alex_kocher (11:11.5)
Yes.
alex_kocher (11:15.318)
Hmm.
brenda_payne (11:17.65)
She's very social. She's a lot like her mom. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree and we are extra, extra, extra, extraverts. And so just having your life come to a complete halt where you feel so isolated and alone has been, you know, it's been really hard for her. And it's just again, exposing like this is motherhood. She even said, mom, I know this is just the path of motherhood. It's going to be a continual death to self. But, you know, I was thinking about our conversation today and just how
alex_kocher (11:19.903)
Mm-hmm
alex_kocher (11:30.322)
Yeah.
alex_kocher (11:36.522)
Mm-hmm
brenda_payne (11:46.79)
how God is looking at KK in the anxiety and the worry. She's not, you know, this isn't some sort of high-handed sin where she's putting her fist in God's face. This is just hard. And so I know the Lord is speaking so gently to her, inviting her into trust, inviting her trust me KK. And I love the verse in Isaiah 41. I just clung to this verse when I had little ones. It says, God tends his flock like a shepherd. He gathers the lambs in his arms
alex_kocher (11:51.684)
Mm-hmm
alex_kocher (12:01.889)
Mm-hmm
brenda_payne (12:16.61)
them close to his heart. He gently leads those that have young. And so yes, KK doesn't has going to have to grow through her worry and anxiety to trust God, but God is coming to her, I believe, and dealing with her like a gentle father and a good shepherd.
alex_kocher (12:23.738)
Yeah, I love that.
alex_kocher (12:35.538)
And not just her with young. I mean, I think there's some, some particularity about that promise for new moms that I do love. But I also think that we take all the fear not commands in the scripture and we hear them from a tone that I'm not really sure is the tone that God has towards us. So Ed Welch has written an article. I think it's called fear is not sin. And he, he really challenged me
brenda_payne (12:53.55)
Hmm.
alex_kocher (13:05.858)
that when I hear the fear not commands, and I think somebody said there like 365 of them, one for every day of the year, which I love that idea, but I hear them as these very direct shaking your finger in my face commands of like, don't be afraid, you know, like stern. And he has just written a beautiful article to challenge us that,
brenda_payne (13:08.89)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
brenda_payne (13:26.194)
Mm-hmm.
alex_kocher (13:35.518)
what God's tone towards us there is more in line with Luke 12, 31, where he says, fear not little flock. The only place he's used this little phrase, little flock, and that little flock is like really a nod to our frailty, a nod to our weakness. And so that this, this fear not in the scripture that's repeated 365 times is more of an entreaty. Like, don't be afraid. Like,
brenda_payne (14:01.91)
Yeah. Yes.
alex_kocher (14:05.758)
I'm with you. You don't have to be afraid." And so when I think about K.K. with a newborn, I would say to her, don't be afraid. I wouldn't shake my finger in her face, right? So why would I think that God is, right? And so I just love if we could hear that in treaty differently, if we could hear that this is a God who's sympathetic with us, who understands who someone or three he remembers our frame.
brenda_payne (14:13.21)
Yes. Yes.
brenda_payne (14:34.471)
Yeah.
alex_kocher (14:35.438)
we're dust. I just I love that. Like he knows how frail we are and he's very gently reminding us you don't have to be afraid because I'm with you.
brenda_payne (14:38.692)
Yes.
brenda_payne (14:43.85)
Yeah. I love that. And I do think it's a whole different way we tend to think about the commands to not be anxious and fearful. Maybe we could even post that article in our show notes for people to have easy access to it. It's a good challenge and a good way to think when we know the heart of God for His children. And we know the heart of God for our children. Just like you said, that's not how I'm approaching KK in this season. I'm coming in to be with her and to serve her and to love her and to encourage her. So,
alex_kocher (14:58.921)
Mm-hmm
alex_kocher (15:10.099)
Right, yeah.
brenda_payne (15:13.85)
Thank you.
alex_kocher (15:14.938)
Yeah, and I love when you say Brenda, like why do I think I'm a better parent than God? You know, why do I think I'm a more gentle, kind, loving parent than God? Like I think about that a lot because it does challenge me to remember what my posture is towards my children and his posture towards me is so much more gentle, more kind, more loving.
brenda_payne (15:17.99)
Right. Right, right.
brenda_payne (15:32.67)
Yes, absolutely. Well, we also wanna recognize that anxiety is a whole person response that impacts all of us, our thinking, our feelings, our body and behaviors. And this is one thing I love about having the Bible as our guide and the wisdom of God is it's just a much more robust approach than a lot of the counseling methods, honestly, that are out there that make he into one of these, just looking at the body, just looking at the feelings, just looking at your thinking, just looking, you know,
but we want to have a holistic view, really when we talk about all of the issues in this session, it's one of the things we want to do. But one of the ways that our, that anxiety does impact us is through our thinking. Because when we sense a threat or a danger, our mind goes into overdrive. And that's part of that fight, fight, freeze, part of our brain that kind of automatically kicks in. And so all of the what ifs, I mean, if you want to know if you're a warrior, then track how many times,
alex_kocher (16:20.959)
Mm-hmm
alex_kocher (16:28.1)
Mm-hmm
brenda_payne (16:32.69)
you say, what if, what if, what if, what if, what if. And it's like the what ifs beget, beget, beget, beget, beget the next what if, you know, you kind of get on a roll and they kind of rush in like a flood. And I think for many of us by nature, we, we catastrophize or imagine worst case scenarios pretty quickly. And our capacity to do this is pretty impressive because the rate at which we talk to ourselves is, I can't even remember the numbers, Alex
alex_kocher (16:37.88)
Right.
alex_kocher (16:43.018)
Thank you.
alex_kocher (16:52.206)
Hmm
alex_kocher (16:55.66)
Yeah.
alex_kocher (17:01.84)
Yes.
brenda_payne (17:02.61)
but it's a lot and I talk fast and I talk a lot. So I know it's for me, myself talk must just sound really like on, you know, when you turn up your vault of the speed on your YouTube videos or a video you're watching, give me normal 1.2 point. I'm pretty sure that I'm talking to myself at time and a half. So. Yeah, I want to say like, yeah, like 30,000 words in a minute or something. It's really crazy. Yeah. And so what happens
alex_kocher (17:06.601)
Yeah.
alex_kocher (17:15.219)
Yeah.
alex_kocher (17:22.538)
Yeah, it's like thousands and thousands of words per second that we can, yeah. Mm-hmm.
brenda_payne (17:32.63)
is I'm no longer even concerned about my concern. Now I'm concerned about all the things that might happen as a result of my concern. You know, it just has this wave of mushrooming and growing. And I was thinking about this example, which I'm a little embarrassed to share, but I think it brings home the point. I came home one day from work expecting my husband to already be home. But after some time went by, he didn't show up and I began to worry because it was just really unusual that he hadn't reached out to me. And my thoughts at first began reasonably. I was like, oh, he probably.
alex_kocher (17:40.799)
Yes.
brenda_payne (18:02.55)
We just got tied up out the office and he's working. He'll be home soon. But then I tried calling him, you know, it went longer and I tried calling him and he didn't answer and I called again and then my mind started racing to all the possibilities. What if he was in a car accident on the way home? Now, Alex, he lives a mile from our house. I could probably hear the accident or the sirens. What if he was carjacked? Somebody put a gun to his head because I had read an article about a week ago of that happening in, you know, some other state.
alex_kocher (18:11.68)
Hmm
alex_kocher (18:20.399)
Mm-hmm
Yeah.
alex_kocher (18:28.644)
Yeah.
brenda_payne (18:32.55)
if he had a heart attack in his office and no one's around. I mean, he'd just been to the doctor and realized that he's having these, you know, like sugar processing issues. And, you know, then my next thought was, what am I gonna do without him? How am I gonna live? And now all of a sudden I'm feeling sad and I'm getting tears in my eyes. Well, then, you know, about an hour later, he walks through the door and I'm like, where have you been? I've been worried to death about you. And he's just like, look at me going, honey, I just was at the exercise class, right?
alex_kocher (18:49.159)
Mm-hmm.
alex_kocher (18:58.418)
Yeah.
brenda_payne (19:02.59)
right down the road. And you know, the thing is, is that that's where he was. There was nothing to worry about. He had failed to tell me and that was fine. But anyway, it was just such an example of something so simple and daily in my life, but how quickly just my thinking went to the worst possible scenario. And then again, how it just led me to even more worry. And then eventually just, you know, I'm seeing him gone and what my life is gonna be like as a widow. Terrible. Just so sad.
alex_kocher (19:04.759)
Uh huh.
alex_kocher (19:14.643)
Yeah.
alex_kocher (19:31.078)
Yeah. And I love the example because it's such an everyday, common example of how your entire day can get hijacked by one thought, and I call it cascading, they just cascade, they just come faster and faster. And not only was your thinking hijacked, your feelings were hijacked, your upset, your in despair, then you move into anger,
brenda_payne (19:47.192)
Yep.
brenda_payne (19:59.112)
That's right.
alex_kocher (20:01.798)
to, you know, like so many feelings get activated with anxiety, but the other thing that gets activated is our body. So we have this impact of just thoughts, feelings, and body, and it's all happening pretty simultaneously. So it's hard to pull apart what's actually happening, but we have all these physical sensations, like our heart rate speeds up, our breathing speeds up, our muscles tense, we, you know, we may feel sick on our stomach, but all these different things happen
brenda_payne (20:08.05)
Thank you.
alex_kocher (20:31.038)
And then what can happen is as we have these physical sensations, we actually begin to feel anxious about the physical sensations themselves. And so now we see even more of a cascading effect of like, why does my chest feel tight? Oh my gosh, am I having a heart attack? Maybe he had a heart attack and I'm having a heart attack too. Like, so there's, there's this cascading effect of the way that we respond to anxiety. The other thing I want to say about the body is how often we're describing
brenda_payne (20:37.691)
Yes.
brenda_payne (20:42.85)
Thank you. Thank you.
brenda_payne (20:48.75)
Thank you.
alex_kocher (21:01.198)
thoughts kind of activated this whole cascade, but there are times, and this is part of the way that suffering is, I mean the anxiety is suffering, there are times when our body's activated before our thoughts can even catch up. And so an example of that may be if you've ever been in a car accident and you find yourself approaching the intersection where it happened, and you may not even be thinking about that car accident, but your body is aware and what's called
is informing you of what happened and you may begin that bodily sensation. This happens with any kind of trauma. I find it happens with my chronic pain. If very specific twinges or spasms happen in my body, before I even have time to think about what's happening, I almost have like a little bit of a shock response. Like I start to shake, I start to have very very shallow breathing, because my body's already anticipating the worst type of pain
brenda_payne (21:59.419)
Hmm.
alex_kocher (22:01.378)
and it could just have been a little tweak. And so these are places where trauma actually starts to enter into our anxiety responses and where our body kind of can take over and respond to what it perceives as danger, even if our thoughts haven't already taken us there. So what we know more than anything is that over time, anxiety is going to have a detrimental effect on our body. It's going to begin to
brenda_payne (22:26.95)
Thank you. Thank you.
alex_kocher (22:31.138)
the body and we are going to have health problems. We're going to maybe have chronic pain, we're going to have heart issues, we're going to have high blood pressure, all these different things where our body, where chronic anxiety and chronic stress is going to begin to have a wear and tear on the body.
brenda_payne (22:45.95)
As you were talking, we don't have time to get into this on this podcast. Maybe we could do another one, but I was thinking about panic attacks and sort of that idea where your body is hijacked before you even really know what it is that you're anxious about. Um, and that's a very, very uncomfortable feeling when you have those, um, somatic kind of effects and you feel like your body is taken over. Um, yeah, the anxiety of the anxiety becomes a real thing.
alex_kocher (22:54.643)
Mm-hmm
Mm-hmm
alex_kocher (23:01.059)
Yes.
brenda_payne (23:14.85)
Well, of course, our anxiety is going to be manifested in our behavior. And you know, our reaction to worry can either be to try to control the situation. So if you're a control person, you might evaluate how much anxiety is in your life and playing a role or we try to minimize our discomfort and we find ways to comfort ourselves in the midst of the distress. So you know, I know when I worry, a lot of times that worry leads me to how, you know,
alex_kocher (23:16.058)
Yes.
alex_kocher (23:37.439)
Hmm.
brenda_payne (23:45.15)
or circumstances, can I try to change, control, whatever, but we know that that's not usually very successful. We're not changing people and it's even hard for us to change circumstances except for the part that we have any responsibility and control over. And then, you know, immersing ourselves in some sort of pleasure for distraction. I mean, this is why people oftentimes go to things like food. You know, somebody who's a comfort
alex_kocher (24:14.925)
Mm-hmm
brenda_payne (24:15.81)
Somebody who is engaged with pornography might go there if they're feeling anxious because they're looking for a distraction They're looking for a way to comfort themselves You know even even good things like exercising somebody might over exercise I mean there's all kinds of things shopping, you know get my credit card out and that's a shopping therapy like whatever I'm anxious about but what typically happens with those kind of Efforts is that they just increase our anxiety because now we have
alex_kocher (24:32.792)
Mm-hmm
alex_kocher (24:36.523)
Mm-hmm
brenda_payne (24:44.89)
things to be anxious about. You know, now I'm concerned about my weight or my health, or I'm concerned about being caught that I did this thing. And just the self harm that can be produced as a result of anxiety can be really bad. And so, you know, as we look at our behaviors, we begin to realize that anxiety a lot of times produces behaviors that are self focused and not God focused. And rather than producing trusting God and love for my neighbor, anxiety tempts me to turn
alex_kocher (24:45.918)
Hmm.
alex_kocher (24:52.523)
Mm-hmm.
alex_kocher (25:01.818)
Thank you. Thank you.
alex_kocher (25:10.838)
Mm-hmm
brenda_payne (25:14.91)
or to self-reliance, either to change things, control things, or to provide myself with comfort. But Alex, God actually intends for us to use, or for him to use, our anxiety in good ways, and there's actually some good that can come from anxiety. And you've got a tool that will help us do that. Yeah.
alex_kocher (25:22.239)
Hmm.
Thank you. Thank you.
alex_kocher (25:32.878)
Yeah, and so, yeah, so what we wanna do in the series of podcasts is not just talk about the topic itself, but we wanna give a tool, something practical to help. The tool I'm gonna give today really could be used for a lot of different struggles, but I find it particularly helpful with anxiety. I don't know what to call it except visual theology. That's what I've named it. And I seriously probably...
give this to everyone I talk to. It's just been something really powerful for me and I've seen it be really powerful for other people. It's really based on the idea that all throughout scripture really from beginning to end we see God using pictures that I think it was Ed Welch again who said that we have a visual theology. God gives pictures like the shield, the tower, the fortress to remind us of his protection. He speaks in metaphor a lot. The good
the husband who's going to protect and care for us. And then we see Jesus bringing this in to the New Testament as he taught using everyday imagery in the Sermon on the Mount. He's talking about the birds, he's talking about the flowers as he's reminding people not to worry and to trust him. So throughout this scripture we see visual imagery to communicate deep spiritual truth and that's really what we're going to talk about.
brenda_payne (26:55.69)
Yeah, one of the things that I learned in Israel that I loved was exactly what you're talking about. And I love so often when you and I come together because the Lord has shown us something from a different, like, I've been to Israel, you took a class and we come together and we're like, oh, this is so cool that, you know, God's showing us the same thing in different ways. But one of the things that Marty Solomon talks about in his podcast on Beema is the difference between Western and Eastern thinking. And Marty is who I went to Israel with. And it was one of the first teachings
alex_kocher (27:08.478)
Mm-hmm
alex_kocher (27:24.262)
Mm-hmm
brenda_payne (27:25.71)
heard him give because it was at the intro of his podcast and I just loved it. And then we talked about this a lot in Israel, but he basically talks about how Western thinking, we tend to use words, ideas, and definitions, but in an Eastern mindset, they use pictures, stories, and prose. So he gives the example of you ask a Westerner to describe God. The Westerner is going to use definitions and data. We're going to say God is sovereign. God is omniscient.
alex_kocher (27:41.2)
Mm-hmm
alex_kocher (27:46.879)
Yeah.
alex_kocher (27:55.443)
Hmm.
brenda_payne (27:55.99)
God is even love like we're gonna use those definitions and descriptive kind of words But he said if you ask an Easterner to describe God, he's going to say he's a shepherd He's a fortress. He is a king and So I think you know both are needed Marty would say there's not a right or wrong way Like we need both of these as we approach life and understanding who God is and I think even when we talk about anxiety I know in our Next episode I'm gonna use a journal
alex_kocher (28:05.381)
Yeah.
alex_kocher (28:12.123)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
alex_kocher (28:18.242)
Right.
brenda_payne (28:25.65)
focus more on maybe what I would say a Western way of thinking, but I love that you're focusing in this episode more on that Eastern way of thinking.
alex_kocher (28:31.081)
Yeah.
alex_kocher (28:36.678)
Yeah, and the reason why I find this particularly helpful with anxiety is because of what happens in our brain in the midst of anxiety. So we know that when we're under great distress, our nervous system changes, right? We move out of our, and I always have to stop, we move out of our parasympathetic into our sympathetic nervous system. Sympathetic nervous system is what we know as fight, flight, freeze, and now they've added fawn. And so we move into that sympathetic nervous system.
certain reactions in our body, our breathing actually becomes more shallow. We move from what we call our top brain to our lower brain and that's because our body is preparing to protect us from danger. It's a survival mechanism that God created us for. And so what's interesting about that though is that as we move into that lower brain, what goes offline is the part of our brain that allows us to be logical. And we can see that, right?
brenda_payne (29:32.95)
Mm-hmm.
alex_kocher (29:36.658)
can't, we go to those worst case scenarios that the next day we laugh about and it's really because like our logical linear analytic thinking goes offline and we're not able to reason ourselves out of anxiety. So I find that when we ask people to memorize the Bible first, we're asking them to access part of their brain that they're really having difficulty getting to the words, the language, the reasoning.
brenda_payne (29:41.015)
Mm-hmm
brenda_payne (29:51.079)
Mm-hmm.
brenda_payne (29:59.85)
Hmm.
alex_kocher (30:06.938)
What's interesting is that where visual memory is stored in our brain is closer to our lower brain. And so it's easier for us to access a picture than it is to access words and those moments of anxiety. And again I think this is just a beautiful way that our creator remembers our frame and he knows that we're dust. He knows how he created us and so he gives us these visual pictures in scripture. I think the key to visual theology is that we
brenda_payne (30:17.7)
Hmm.
alex_kocher (30:36.618)
don't wait until we're in the anxiety moment to try to create imagery that speaks to us because we can't. Right? That part of our brain is offline. So the key to this whole exercise, so to speak, is to meditate on visual images that have meaning to us before we get in those situations so that by the time anxiety hits, we have a picture that we pull up that's already been...
brenda_payne (30:43.371)
Hmm.
alex_kocher (31:06.958)
so to speak, with so much truth that it communicates that truth without words. Does that make sense?
brenda_payne (31:08.35)
Thank you.
brenda_payne (31:13.81)
Yeah, it does. And I think it's really, like you said, God knowing our frame, it's so precious because if you think about it, we don't think in words. I'm talking to you and I'm not writing words in my, you know, there's not the spelling or words aren't flashing in my brain. We think in pictures and movies. And so even though we're, even though I'm speaking words, it is so interesting to me that there's actually pictures is what's happening or movies is what is actually going on in my mind. So I love that cooperation with the way God has made us. And I love your point.
alex_kocher (31:24.022)
Right.
brenda_payne (31:43.75)
so that if our logical brain goes offline, then we need to be able to access something in that moment. And you've got a few ways you've used this. I'd love for you to share some examples.
alex_kocher (31:56.038)
Yeah, so it can be really simple and we can use the images that scripture's already given us. We already talked about the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus is directly talking about worry and he's reminding us like, I take care of the birds and they don't worry about what they're eating. So I brought my little visual for anyone who's watching. So one of my visual theologies is just simply a sparrow, a small bird that Jesus is holding, that he is feeding, that he is caring for even in the midst of the storm.
And so I just build a theology around going on a walk one day and I see a bird swoop down into the lake and snatch a fish up and I was like, oh, Jesus, you're caring for the bird. Like you're gonna care for me. You haven't forgotten the bird. You're not gonna forget me. And so I just continue to add to that theology of the way that he cares for birds as I watch him in my yard, as I read scripture. And then,
people to do is not always just have a visual picture but even to have an object. So this is my little bird and she sits, this is just a little ceramic bird for anybody who's listening to washing. She sits right by my kitchen sink and so when I'm washing dishes and that tends to be a time I worry when I'm cleaning up and my mind can go free to get back to the bird and that'd be a reminder that God is promised to care for us and and he entreats us not to worry. So that goes to
brenda_payne (33:00.101)
Thank you. Bye.
brenda_payne (33:24.081)
Hmm.
alex_kocher (33:26.138)
specific image in scripture like we already see it. God's already given it to us that way. So that can be an easy one-to-one. But I also encourage people to think about what their particular worries are and how to connect them maybe to truths in other ways like a scripture that they love. And one of them for me is I have a lot of worry around getting it right and doing it perfectly.
And so a lot of anxiety gets created as I analyze my performance on things. And so a scripture that's always been meaningful to me is the end of Jude where it's the benediction at the end of Jude to him who is able to keep you from falling and present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy. That Jesus is presenting me to the Father without fault. And he's doing it joyfully. He is excited for his Father to meet me.
not because of my performance, right? That he's the one who keeps me from falling. He's the one who's presenting me perfect and he's doing it joyfully. And so I love that verse. And then one day I had a visual theology for it. And that happened as I'm sitting in my office meeting with my pastor and my office store is open and his daughter was about four years old at the time and she comes running in and she says,
playing on the playground and we have to go to the bathroom and there's no other person here at this point but apparently she's playing with a friend and the bathroom's right next door to my office and say they run in and so about three minutes later she runs back into my office and she says daddy guess what and he says what and she takes her hands and I do wish you could see me but if you picture the kind of the Vanna White presentation you know shaking her hands and she goes
brenda_payne (35:25.65)
Yeah.
alex_kocher (35:26.458)
Libby and Libby comes running around the corner and she's all excited and it's just the cutest little most innocent she was excited that she was playing with her friend her dad knows Libby right her dad's met Libby a hundred times but she was excited to present her friend to her dad and all of a sudden it clicked with me this joy that she came to her father with and I had a visual theology
brenda_payne (35:37.958)
Ha ha
brenda_payne (35:50.83)
Sweet.
brenda_payne (35:55.404)
Oh.
alex_kocher (35:56.198)
right? Like it was right there in front of me. And as I meditate on the verse and that experience, that picture of this little girl excited with her daddy becomes a visual theology for me of Jesus with joy before the Father.
brenda_payne (35:57.55)
Hmm.
brenda_payne (36:11.49)
Hmm. Oh, I love that. That's just precious. We have to be mindful of these things, though, Alex. I think so often, like, these are the sort of things we need to pray and ask the Holy Spirit to make us aware, to help us pay attention. We just miss so much of what God is trying to teach us in the day to day about who he is and what he's done. And it's just a great reminder for me to just look at my day as I go or look back at my day and just say, where did I see the father?
alex_kocher (36:16.32)
Mm-hmm. Yeah
alex_kocher (36:21.102)
Yeah.
alex_kocher (36:30.278)
We do.
alex_kocher (36:35.418)
Thank you.
brenda_payne (36:43.512)
Where was there an application of scripture that he made alive and real to me? Because I think we're just moving so fast that we don't even take the time to slow down to notice.
alex_kocher (36:44.342)
Mm-hmm
alex_kocher (36:57.138)
Yeah, and one thing I love about what you're saying, Brenda, is that there is some particularity to this. Like, I don't know that anybody else will have the visual theology that I have around G24. Like, it was an experience that I had that's important to me over a scripture that's very dear to me. And so, your visual theology might not be something that anybody else really understands why that resonates with you. And so, one of my examples is also just from a friend
brenda_payne (37:07.271)
Right.
alex_kocher (37:27.318)
struggled and had a lot of anxiety around did God forgive her and again having to get it right all the time and so we began to talk about was there a narrative was there a story in scripture that was precious to her that reminded her that she was forgiven and I like this example because I think narrative is powerful and it can be hard to create a visual
theology around narrative, but she found a way to do it. So her favorite story in scripture is the story where Peter has denied Jesus and Jesus has died and he is resurrected and he comes and he meets them on the beach while they're out fishing and he prepares breakfast for them. And that's such a beautiful interaction anyway with all the sensory details that are going on, all the
elements that are going on in the story. But what she particularly loved is the reminder that Peter denied Jesus and he forgave him and that he pursued him in forgiving him. Like he went after Peter to let Peter know that he was forgiven. And she said, I said, well what? What could be a visual image that would remind you of that story that would just instantly call that story to your mind? And she thought for a moment and her whole face lit up
brenda_payne (38:41.876)
Yeah.
alex_kocher (38:57.238)
up and she was like, Alex, I have baskets of seashells in my bedroom. And she said, I never thought about how much I love seashells and I love that story that takes place on the beach. She said, I'm going to put seashells all around my house to remind me. And so she immediately connected that story to something else that she loved. She made sure she had it different places to remind her. And there's probably, I don't know if there's anyone else in the
brenda_payne (39:00.57)
Hmm.
brenda_payne (39:05.332)
Hmm
Hmm.
alex_kocher (39:27.238)
that sees a seashell and thinks, God, Jesus has forgiven me, but she does and it communicates to her, right? And that's the beauty of this is that as she continues to meditate more and more on that story, that seashell is going to have greater depths of meaning to her. And that in those moments when her head is spinning or my head is spinning of did I get it right or does God forgive me, then what she can do is call up the imagery of a seashell and a beach.
brenda_payne (39:27.85)
Hehehe
alex_kocher (39:57.238)
hopefully that brings her nervous calm begins to calm her nervous system down and then she's able to move into reminding herself of the truth that that image is infused with.
brenda_payne (40:07.17)
And I think it's such a precious way to see the personal nature of God's love for us. Very specific that the Holy Spirit would show me something because He knows that it's important to me. And making those connections, I think you know you hear people call them as like God Winks or a God-Kiss or a God-Hug. But just that moment when you're like, you know, all these, you know, firings in your brain and in your heart and your heart swells. It's like, God, you know me.
alex_kocher (40:14.065)
Mm-hmm
alex_kocher (40:20.32)
Yes.
alex_kocher (40:26.159)
Yes.
brenda_payne (40:36.29)
me. You've connected these dots that nobody else in the world could have connected for me. And, um, yeah, it's so special.
alex_kocher (40:38.undefined)
Yes.
alex_kocher (40:43.558)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, we're back to Kurt Thompson's quote, aren't we? Of like, it doesn't matter what we know, it matters that we're known. And in those moments when we connect to what's particular to us, and so I just encourage people, we're gonna, we've got a handout to help walk through some of these ideas. But I encourage people to think about what images capture them and ask themselves why, what stories or Bible verses capture them. I mean, I probably have three or four
brenda_payne (40:49.213)
Yeah.
alex_kocher (41:13.598)
more visual theologies that I routinely take my mind to. And so think about maybe even it's a phrase of a hymn that you can connect back to scripture, but something if it's important to you, if it's captured you, there's probably a reason like you're saying Brenda that the Holy Spirit has caused you to be captured by that. And so think about how you can build a visual picture around
brenda_payne (41:33.807)
Yeah.
alex_kocher (41:43.438)
roots and connect it to that picture, the greater efficacy, like the more the tool will work in your life, the more that picture will mean to you. And it doesn't have to make sense to anyone else, it just has to make sense to you. And I think it can almost be just really like a fun interaction with the Holy Spirit of asking him like what's meaningful to me. And again, what anxiety is?
brenda_payne (41:50.15)
Yeah.
brenda_payne (41:56.85)
Mm-hmm.
brenda_payne (42:05.876)
Yeah.
brenda_payne (42:14.192)
Yep.
alex_kocher (42:14.219)
that rumination, right, like ruminating on the bad and this is a way to change that into ruminating, meditating in the good sense of meditating on truth and so it's a great exchange.
brenda_payne (42:22.735)
Yeah.
brenda_payne (42:26.79)
Yeah, yeah, that's great, Alex. Thank you for sharing that. Maybe on some of our future social media posts, you can pop on and share some of those other visuals that you have, cause I think the more illustrations and examples we have will help us with our own journey in applying this tool. Well, the final thing we wanna do with each one of our episodes is talk about a body tool because we wanna have a holistic approach. When we talk about, we are embodied spirits, we are an inner man and an outer man.
alex_kocher (42:36.843)
Mm-hmm
alex_kocher (42:44.723)
Mm-hmm
alex_kocher (42:55.024)
Mm-hmm
brenda_payne (42:56.83)
And so for anxiety, the body tool we want to highlight is breathing. And we're going to link one breathing guide that I think you like that you can speak more to if you want to. But there are a lot of breathing exercises online. There are apps now that you can use. But I think the point we really want to make is that breathing forces your body to relax. It lowers your blood pressure. It slows your heart rate. And so really it has a physiological impact.
alex_kocher (43:03.681)
Mm-hmm
alex_kocher (43:10.538)
Hmm.
alex_kocher (43:21.58)
Mm-hmm
brenda_payne (43:27.07)
If you learn how to do these breathing exercises, it's not, you know, sometimes we think these can be, oh, this is weird. Why are we doing this? We're biblical people, but we're biblical people who have bodies. And we know, right. And so there is a real component to this that the breathing we know helps steady and stabilize our bodies in moments of anxiety, worry and fear. And then the other thing is just as impossible to think about the future when we're focused on the present and when you are first born,
alex_kocher (43:40.158)
Yes, we are embodied.
brenda_payne (43:56.67)
particularly really anytime you're doing breathing exercises and you're having to force yourself to count your breaths to notice how your body feels, you can't focus on anything else, you have to focus right here on the present what's going on. And that that's really helpful. It actually even helps us practice what you're talking about like our attention, like what we're paying attention to and being able to pay more attention. So
alex_kocher (44:22.181)
Yeah.
alex_kocher (44:26.458)
Yeah, there's no faster way to move our nervous system from our sympathetic back into our parasympathetic, from fight, fight or freeze, back to rest and digest then breath. And it seems so, I mean, I feel people rolling their eyes sometimes when I tell them they have to practice their breathing, because it seems so elementary. But several months ago, I was in a lot of pain, I was at the physical therapist, and right before I left, she said, Alex, make sure your belly breathing.
brenda_payne (44:41.81)
All right.
alex_kocher (44:56.438)
Okay, she goes, no, I want you to do it right now. And I was in a lot of pain that day. And I could not, I could not get my breath down into my belly. My chest kept rising and falling. And I had to get out in my car completely alone. And to your point, Brenda, I had to be extremely present with my body, put my hand on my chest, put my hand on my belly and make my belly rise. Because my nervous system was so ramped up from pain. And so it does seem really elementary, but it actually, when our nervous system is over activated,
brenda_payne (45:00.871)
Hmm.
alex_kocher (45:26.478)
very hard. And so I do love these videos. They, I think they've done a good job of not becoming too like woo woo meditative. There's some calming music. They're counting for you and what I have found personally is that when our nervous system is ramped up I'm counting too fast and I need someone to count for me to slow me down. And there's a particular 478 breathing exercise that is supposed to help reset the nervous system. A longer exhale helps to
brenda_payne (45:43.634)
Yeah.
alex_kocher (45:57.018)
slow down the nervous system response. So we will link that because I do think they're helpful. And again I will say even about breathing just like visual theology or any tool that we use particularly with anxiety, we need to practice them outside of the anxious experience. And so breathing has become a literal daily practice for me because the more that I practice correct
brenda_payne (46:13.351)
Yes. Yes.
brenda_payne (46:18.471)
Hmm.
alex_kocher (46:27.021)
the more I'm able to engage it when I am anxious.
brenda_payne (46:28.23)
Yeah. Excellent. Well, I think we better wrap this episode up. I'm not even sure how long we've gone, but hopefully it's been helpful. We're going to link the video that you like to the breathing. Also, we're going to link the visual theology hand out in our show notes. And hopefully, folks can work on some of their own visual theology imagery. And I'm in our next episode of Wisdom for Life's Common Struggles. We're going to introduce another anxiety tool using Philippians 4.4.
alex_kocher (46:34.7)
Yes.
alex_kocher (46:41.7)
Mm-hmm.
brenda_payne (46:58.15)
through nine is a verse that's common probably to a lot of us, but I hope that this tool will be useful in walking through anxiety. So we want to thank everyone for listening and we do hope this episode has been helpful if you're struggling with anxiety and we also hope that it will help you with others because part of our ministry is we know we would like for you to take this information and use it in your own life, but also to be able to turn around and
sphere of influence who may also struggle with anxiety, which in turn will also help you with your anxiety, right? Well, thanks so much for listening. We are so appreciative to have all of you with us today.
alex_kocher (47:36.161)
Yes.