Two Times when Anxiety may be Useful
Anxiety is uncomfortable. You’re keyed up inside. You wonder if you can trust your thinking. And your body may experience any number of miserable symptoms. But anxiety may be useful.
There are times when anxiety signifies a medical condition, or it may be a response to something in your past or your present that is beyond your ability to manage. When that happens, dealing with the physical, emotional, and spiritual factors involved can lead to real freedom.
While anxiety always feels unpleasant, it is not always only negative. Sometimes anxiety can be very useful. If you understand that, you can extract the significant value anxiety may provide on the way to a better future.
Here are two times when anxiety can be very valuable.
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Anxiety provides Necessary Emotional Fuel for Change
What you’re doing now may be killing you – literally or figuratively. You may even be miserable, exhausted, and in significant pain. But you’re actually quite comfortable. Your misery is what you know. You’re used to the food you usually eat, the thoughts you usually think, the schedule you usually keep, the things you usually say to those around you, the things you ignore and put up with. In important ways your sickness or addiction or dysfunction or pain has become normal for you.
And to make a significant and lasting change you will have to get even more uncomfortable.
Research showed that among a group of people who experienced significant and lasting change as a result of some form of therapy, fully 75 percent of those interviewed said a willingness to experience some anxiety along the way was a critically important part of their success.
Politics and faith have clashed even more strongly during this election year in the United States. People on both sides of the political spectrum are angry with the way things are, and are lashing out verbally, with their votes, and sometimes with violence. It’s easy to find Christians with specific political views denouncing other believers with different political views in the most un-Christian of terms on social media and in other formats.
Perhaps you’re like many of those I talk with. You feel powerless. Stuck. Sick and tired of being sick and tired.
The year 2015 is almost over. Has it been a good year? That all depends on your point of view. This year has brought more risks, more challenges, more growth, and more opportunity than ever. That’s how my year has been, and I trust that’s been your year as well – if you choose to look at it that way.