We all want to stop worrying, because constant worry becomes tiring and doesn’t get us any results. Worrying can be the beginning of anxiety and depression when it is not dealt with, so it is important to deal with worry correctly so that you can live with freedom and hope. Counselling is one way to help you stop worrying, but there is an even better and proven way to stop worry from affecting your life for good.
A few people have said to me that I always seem to be happy and smiling. They often think that means one of two things: either I don’t have any problems, or I’m putting on a facade to hide my problems. In fact, it’s neither of those things. Worrying about various situations in life has the ability to affect me the same way it has the ability to affect you. However, I have learned the key to stop worry from affecting my life and I want to bring you along with me to experience true freedom from worry.
Personal experience of worry
I experienced financial difficulty when I was informed that my work hours (from my part-time job) had to reduce quite drastically in response to some funding cuts. Just to put this all into perspective, this happened at a time when I decided to leave my main full-time job and go back into full-time study. So I went from having two jobs, to having barely one job plus tuition fees to pay and the usual bills to pay. Naturally, most of us would have freaked out, had a meltdown and maybe even begged for working hours to be reinstated.
The reason we respond that way is because we begin to worry – it’s a sense of anxiety for what is happening or is about to happen. Another way of looking at it, is worry is simply keeping your mind on all of the bad outcomes and when left unchecked, it leaves you feeling depressed.
Instinctively, I did begin to consider all the things that could go wrong now that I didn’t have much income and instead had a huge outgoing. I started to worry!
Yet, I had a choice. I could keep worrying knowing that it wouldn’t actually help the situation, or I could do something different. I opted for the latter.
Live in peace, and stop worrying
Peace is often depicted as a little bird quietly whistling in a tree, high above a sunny, green quiet countryside. That’s great of course, but if that is peace then it will be short-lived. Peace as I just described it, is external – based on what is going on around you. Conversely, the answer to getting rid of worry is living in internal peace, therefore no matter what is going on externally, we are OK.
How to stop worrying and get internal peace?
Before we can answer how we obtain internal peace, we must first realise that peace isn’t an external concept, peace is a person – Jesus.
You see, focussing on Jesus rather than focussing on the circumstance will result in you experiencing perfect peace.
You will keep him in perfect peace, Whose mind is stayed on You, Because he trusts in You. Isaiah 26:3
Taking control isn’t the answer, and neither is seeking peace. The true way to stop worrying is for you to fix your focus on the heavenly Father and it is He who then keeps you in perfect peace.
Instead of me continuing to worry about all the bad things that would happen, I actually chose to look to God instead and do you know what happened as a result? Tuition was been paid, bills were paid, I got a new car and I’m still alive.
So the smiles were not the absence of any problems, neither were they a facade. The smiles were simply me choosing not to worry, but instead constantly bringing the truth of God’s word back to mind.
I want you to stop worrying. I want you to experience God’s peace, even in the middle of your storm. Focussing on Him is the true way to be free from worry. Feel free to comment below on how this article has helped you.