We are All a Mix of Anxiety and Faith - Bravester

I recently heard a pastor say, “When you have less faith, you will have more anxiety.”

I apologize on behalf of dumb pastors.

Anxiety and faith exist together.

We are all a mix of anxiety and faith.

Anxiety is approaching the future with fear. Anxiety is an overestimating of the problem.

What helps anxiety is not more faith. It is living a more virtuous life.

This wisdom comes from a 20-something British young woman who is on to something:

“There’s a lot of advice out there about anxiety, especially for young people. Anxious people need to do breathwork. We need to meditate more. Repeat positive affirmations. Almost none of it works.

“I think this is because we now use the word anxiety to describe two different things. There’s the anxiety that makes young people scared to answer the phone or order in restaurants. But there’s also a deeper, ambient anxiety I see so many of us wracked with—a sort of neurotic paralysis. Not knowing which path to take in life. Not knowing what decisions to make. Not knowing who we are. It’s this constant second-guessing, examining every decision to death, agonising over the right thing to do. When young people talk about how unbearable their anxiety is, the relentlessness of it, I think this is more what they mean.

“For this anxiety, mainstream mental health advice doesn’t cut it. Maybe it helps in the moment, but the anxiety always comes back. I think that’s because it isn’t about how we feel, or what we want. It’s about how we act. The answer to this anxiety, I’ve come to believe, is living by strong moral values.

“Which is not something we hear often. If we feel anxious today we are advised to analyse our past and problems and relationships, rarely our own character. We are asked what would make us happy, never what would make us honourable. We are told to love ourselves, with little care for how we conduct ourselves. We are reminded to find self-respect and self-esteem, forgetting that these things are earned. Self-development is more about ice baths and breathwork than becoming a better person. Living authentically is more about buying products. So much talk about mental health and so little about morality—how we orient our lives, our private code of conduct, whether we even have an overarching sense of good guiding us.” –Freya India https://www.freyaindia.co.uk/p/we-need-moral-direction

What makes us honorable? How are we conducting ourselves? Do we have an overarching sense of good guiding us?

Does your soul want a moral code?

What is your soul saying?

This matches up with the latest American Bible Society research. Out of a range of 0-20 for anxiety, the Bible-disengaged Gen Zers scored 7.1. Those who are Bible-engaged scored 3.4. That is half. That is remarkable. —American Bible Society, p. 114

Perhaps engaging with the Bible which gives us a moral code (the Bible is waaaaaayyy more than a rule book, by the way) does actually help decrease anxiety.

Virtue is what happens when wise and courageous choices become second nature. You develop a virtue by taking action toward a thing that’s objectively good. The virtue crops up as a byproduct. Virtue is a byproduct of your decisions. Virtues change the way we make decisions. You have the God-given authority to lead your brain.

Virtues are living your life out of worthiness because you are enough so you make honorable decisions.

A virtuous life carries less shame and less regret and less fear of the future. Anxiety is approaching the future with fear.

This is not love yourself so have another salt bath. This is conduct yourself better. Make those 1,000 small honorable decisions.

This will lessen your anxiety.

Have you ever thought about that before? Do you see it as a true possibility? Is your soul feeling this?