Adventist Radio London inspiration for the song We Welcome the Talking Point with Ray Sen,
Pedro Angela discussing the hot topics and answering your questions Saturdays five to seven
pm on Adventist Radio London. It's talking Point. It's talking Point. It's
talking Point, It's talking Point, real conversations. You need to have good
afternoon, good afternoon, good afternoon, or should I say good evening,
good night? I'm not sure. I can't see your side. Welcome to
Talking Point, the conversations we really need to have. As always, I
am joined by my trusted co hosts. That's Angela and Pedro Petrol. You
there, How are you guys doing? I say hi to the folk,
give me good evening. Welcome to Talking Point. Hi Zan, Yeah,
Hey, Pedra, Yeah, I'm okay. Actually I say that I'm exhausting.
Actually all those weeks where I mean, every week, every time someone
says to me, how am I? I say I'm tired, But the
fatigue and exhaust is really good. Oh yeah, so I'm really tired today.
But thank the Lord, it's a sabbath. When it was a sabbath,
it wasn't the most RESTful day for me, but I was glad for
it to be honest and to be at church and kind of you know,
to praise, worship, et cetera. So, yeah, it's been a
busy and it's been a busy Sabbath. It's been usual. But I'm good.
So yeah, here we are. Hopefully you can get some some rest
tomorrow. Hopefully you can. I can put your feet up. Maybe possibly.
Oh no, I can see from the expression that that might not happen.
I'm good, You're good, all right, No worries, No worries?
Uh, Pedro, how are you say? Hill? Mike check if
you will? Good afternoon. Everybody. Welcome to Talking Point. You're a
little quiet, I'm signy. Would you like me talk loud? Yeah?
There that voice? I tell you so this one. Hello everybody. You
welcome to Talking Points. How you guys doing? Just like Angela. Yeah,
it's been a crazy week, a lot of a lot of long distance
dropping this week. They're going back to that again a little bit. I
had to talk to my manager, okay, and I went to church today.
So now you know, I'm arrested after this because I worked tomorrow actually
to help out because they're shorthanded. So I'll be working six days this week.
Wow, so literally, like they say six days you shall work in
the seventh days arrest. Thank God for the sabbath me. So yeah,
I go look back to work on tomorrow. So I'm not looking forward to
but you know, it is what it is. Yeah, yeah, my
week was pretty good. The weather. The sun came out a little bit
today, which is nice. Yeah. Nice. It's the sun, the
cold sun that you like, Petro. You like the cold sun, don't
you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, because I don't like the sun.
I know from the island, but I don't like that. Very strange,
indeed, very strange. Indeed, right, have we lost Petro? Yeah,
I don't. I don't understand that. And people, I'm sure listening
are puzzled. But yeah, I hmmm, I don't like it too hot.
I have to admit it's already. It's already the thirteenth. That's that's
the more scarier part. Well, we've lost we lost you for a minute
there, Petro. I don't know if it's your your internet connections. We
lost you for a moment. Sorry, what were you saying? Scary?
That is what there's the thirteenth already. Yeah, don't blink and let's it'll
be under end of January. Every year that goes by, its seems to
go faster. It feels like we just celebrated in New Years and there's already
thirteen days in. I was like, I know, almost halfway through,
right, unbelievable. Scar, Yes, it is before we know it will
be Christmas? Dare I say it again? When I used to do work,
I used to work for a magazine where back when, so we were
always working so far ahead, so to me, these went even quicker.
So it feels like that. So sometimes I'm often thinking, often planning and
thinking about things ahead. So at this point of the year, we would
have been planning things for like March April, may you know, started doing
and I always remember it was like Christmas in July. Yeah, yeah,
so it was for thinking and now it just seems like it's just it's happening
fast, you know that? So yeah, everybody, So my week was
good New Yeah, ups and downs already. I can already feel that I'm
gonna have to hold on for the ride. There are gonna be some highs.
I know that I've had. I have some really wonderful things planned,
but there've already been some lows, so I am just holding on and trusting
God and hoping that nothing will come to derail me. But it is,
it's been already three weeks in or two weeks in, whatever it is.
You see, I've lost time. It's already been sort of full of ups
and downs and challenges. And not just for me people, I speak to
my friends, family, you know, who's not got bad reports from the
doctor, you know, loss of life, et cetera, et cetera.
And me just I'm just thinking, whoa, you know, just be ready,
be ready. It's that time that season. Sorry. Yeah, yeah,
it will take a lot of faith, a lot of prayer, and
I think that, you know, the theme that we've got for this month
really will resonate with so many people bringing down strongholds, because that's what you
know, we're facing on a day to day year or year. It's a
battle. It's a challenge. And but God, that's my final answer,
my final line. But guard full stop. Yeah yeah, definitely, definitely,
Oh God. Yeah, I mean, you know, at the same
time, even though it just feel challenging because I'm the same, but I
still want to be hopeful that it's going to be positive and you know,
I mean sometimes it's funny because Monday coming, I think is if I remember
rightly, if they coin it blue Monday, because it's like that third or
or third Monday in the month, and you know, we're looking at Heal's
in the UK. The weather has been a bit gray and dull. There's
been a few sort of bright days, which has been I'm really thankful for
because even though it's cold, I don't mind it being like that. That's
pretty good. But you know it is, yes, that time of the
year, but it is great. Not a lot of light, and you
know, people feel quite low after the highs of Christmas as well. Sorry
to cut you, but after the highs of Christmas, you're just like on
a new Year, you're like, yeah, you know, you're around people
and you're kind of going back to you've gone back to work, You've gone
back to kind of normality. Yeah. I mean, I think when it
comes to this stubb of the year, I try to wear bright clothing,
simple thing, but use color as my kind of you know, don't get
much sunshine, so I'm going to wear bright colors. I'm going to try
and brighten up on what happy so yes, yeah, that's what I think.
Nothing be so smile. You know, it goes a very long way.
I know it's a simple thing, but not beat attitude. A smile
on your face can make such a difference, not just to you, but
for those around you, you know, those you might meet random people on
the streets sometimes. I mean, I know they'll think you're crazy, but
but a smile and a helloa, good morning? How are you won't hurt
at all? Won't hurt? Alison? Do you want to jump in the
conversation here? I didn't ask you beforehand, but I know I did see
on your status that some wonderful things are happening on your side on your end.
Good evening again, Allison, and thank you for joining Talking Point.
Those of you who do not know, they must know by now you are
a author, psychotherapist, practice and a very regular In fact, I say
all the time, you are a Talking Point honoree. And you've been on
the show a number of times, no stranger to Talking Point and Adventists Radio
London. And you're back with us to do a series and we get into
that just after our break. But how was your week and how are you
doing? I'm doing good. Yeah, it's good to see everyone. My
my week was busy. My weeks are normally busy, but you know,
it's it's been. It's been a busy week, but it's been a good
week as well. I've you know, I've just literally published my latest book
during the week. So it's out on Amazon and it's it's called Relating for
Success. Congratulations, thank you, thank you. Oh yes, it's it's
it's been busy, but it's been. It's been good, thank god.
So if you want to pick up a copy of your book, then we
can go on Amazon and purchase that hard copy and it all be sent across
to us. Absolutely, the kindle version should be available within the next couple
of days. Perfect Perfect. I will talk a little bit more about that
during the course of the series, and certainly at the end we can talk
about what's next for you. But absolutely good news, and I'm looking forward
to get a copy. Remind me of the title, and it's called Relating
for Success, and it's focusing on positive relationships, especially within organizations. It's
suitable for every type of relationships, but the focus really here is on relationships
within between organizations. We spend lots of time at work, yes, and
lots of time with people at work. So yeah, that's that's the focus
for this one fabulous looking forward. Looking forward, I am going to sort
of play before we get into it, a spoken world piece and the topic
or the message in that is anxiety a fight to be okay. And that
is because today we are following on on our series bringing Down Stronghold, and
the topic or the message for today is as a man thinketh worry, fear
and an anxiety and Allison, you're going to be presenting on that and sharing
on that, and I thought this was quite a useful introduction to it.
For those of you who are listening and want to join the conversation, you
can join us on zoom. The idea is seven seven one three nine eight
six two zero nine. Again that's seven seven one three nine eight six two
zero nine. You can join us on zoom. Allison will be presenting slides
and having a discussion there that will follow through onto the radio. If you
aren't able to join us there, that's fine. If you do want to
be part of the conversation, the usual ways are available to you studio at
Adventist Radio dot London, studio at Adventist Radio Dot London, or you can
text us eight text us. You can text us eight triple to eight hope
space and then your message or what's up that's zero seven four five nine six
four two eight nine eight, and you can be part of the conversation.
You can send any questions that you may have, and I'm sure Allison would
be more than willing to answer them for you. Let's pray, Father,
we bless you. We thank you for another week, another Sabbath day of
rest, and another program, another important conversation that we want to have today
that we hope will make a difference to someone listening. Certainly we hope that
it will make a difference to all of us. Be with the technology that
it will work well. Be with Allison as she makes the presentation. And
again, Lord, we ask for your Holy Spirit to take absolute control in
Jesus' name. Amen, all right, let me share this one. It's
anxiety, a fight to be okay by k soul. Initially I didn't know
what to call it, but I remember when I first felt it. I
hated the way it made me feel, but still I couldn't let people know
that I held it. It weakened me, but I refused to let people
see the weakened me. It felt like it was eating me from the inside
out, and it made me want to tear the uneasiness from my insides out.
My heart beats suited for house music, along with the heart pace,
each thought race, no route to it, the nervousness, the worry.
It sprouts too quick, the panic becomes organic, and I guess I just
got to plow through it. So I do my best to remain The butterflies
and my stomach results in sweaty palms. Friends keep asking me why I'm so
quiet. I tell them I'm just tired and that nothing's wrong. While all
alone, I just want to go home and be alone because large crowds make
me feel small and as though I'm in danger, and I desperately try to
keep my eye on every single stranger. Meeting a bunch of new people brings
so much pressure to my chest, and I don't talk a lot. I
often watch and I let them do the rest. Sometimes I'm scared, scared
to succeed. I mean, what if I can't keep it up, Scared
of how I'm perceived by the people who show me love, and when the
news reports another senseless killing. I am soon in gorge and an intense feeling,
thinking of the worst outcomes. I'm worry about my friends and family,
constantly wondering if we're all soon seeing a tragedy. I'm asking God to protect
them and to look after me, while I'm looking over my shoulder and around
every corner to make sure no when it's after me. And I know that's
irrational. Sometimes I feel so nervous I don't even speak properly. I know
what I want to say, but the message I try to convey comes out
sloppy. See See it's the overthinking, the self consciousness, the sleepless nights,
the nauseousness, the feeling as though I can barely breathe. But I
try not to be obvious. I feel terrified and paralyzed, and yet I
force a smigle through all of it self diagnosis. I'm calling it. This
is anxiety, and it resides in me so vibrantly, but I keep it
inside of me, quietly, outwardly smigling inward emotions collide so violently, And
if I can be a person who struggles with a moderate level of anxiety,
imagine those who deal with it severely, and how every day for them is
a fight to breathe, a fight for peace, a fight to be okay.
I really liked and I hope you were able to hear that. I
really liked the ending. Well. I liked it all, but the ending
spoke to me a fight to be okay. And there's a slogan. I
don't know where it originated, but it's okay to be not okay. I
don't know, and you've have you heard that one? Because I think it
comes from the idea that we put on the facade. We put on our
cape, we put on our mask, and we don't let people see the
real art. We don't let people see that we are struggling. We don't
we're afraid to say we're struggling. We are ashamed to say we're struggling.
And I like that. He ends by saying, it's okay, it's okay,
and we are fighting to be okay, but it's all right not to
be okay. Yeah, I have heard that, and it's it's an interesting
one because you want to be okay, and we are encouraging to say it's
not to be okay. I guess what it is as well, is it's
it's okay to be not okay, but I'd like to add to that,
but you should still do something about that that, whether it's reaching out to
people and what have you. You know, I think the idea of you
know, I think we should be able to embrace our feelings or emotions and
everything that comes with that. There are going to be high as lows,
good days and bad days, but I wouldn't want you to stay in that
place. So it's okay to be. So it's okay to not be okay,
but it's okay to fight to be okay. Yeah, yes, And
I think you know you would want to. I think it's when and I
guess this is the kind of thing, you know, when things are up
and down, and I guess if things start to become a regular thing.
So if you are feeling very low, that's a continual thing. They often
say three four weeks something like that. You really should be reaching out for
some kind of help and support. And that could be from friends, family,
if you're close and got that kind of laship with people, or it
could be going right through to two a GP or a therapist. So there's
odd one. Because we're not comfortable and we're not comfortable in that place,
like he said, we don't want to kind of admit that things aren't going
great and we need help and everything else. You know, we're very used
to trying to be strong and you know, trying to do everything, get
everything done. The idea of that being the case could be seen as a
failure. So there's so many things wraps up him. Now. Yeah,
yeah, he explains, yes, And I like that he's explaining it's a
struggle. And Alison, I know in your presentation you will get to that
it's a struggle. It's it's not something that happens, you know, by
the snap of a finger or any other magical one that we might might waive.
Is a struggle. It is a fight. Sometimes it's a daily struggle.
For most of us, it is perhaps a daily struggle. But by
God's grace, with as you said, Angela, with the support that we
can have around us or we can reach out to, then it is a
fight that we can win. Absolutely God can give us the victory for so,
I'm I'm looking forward to this conversation Alson. I know you'll take us
back a little bit, cause we did start the series last week but I'm
looking forward to what we can learn about these very serious issues. I mean,
the the Spoken Word goes on to give statistics, but they are relevant
to the US, but I know and I will we will share some statistics
for the UK. But anxiety is one of the most prevalent mental health illnesses
and so many are silent or silently fighting it that it's important to have this
conversations. And I'm really really happy that Allison decided that she was willing to
do this series with us and to raise awareness for these really important topics and
issues. Alison, can I at this point then throw the conversation over to
you. Let me just remind persons who may want to join on zoom it's
seven seven one three nine eight six two zero nine. Just come on feel
free. We'll let you on there. There'll be a presentation and there'll be
opportunities to share your comments, to commentary and to ask your questions as well.
Okay, thank you so much, Xenia. Good evening everyone, it's
good to be back with you this week. Yes, we did start the
series last week. We had an overview and introduction of the series, so
if you've missed it, I will do a quick recap on some of the
key things that we looked at last week, and then we'll move on to
this week's topic. So, just by way of recap, the text that
we're using as the focus text is taken from Second Corinthians, Chapter ten,
verses three to five, and it rates for though we walk in the flesh,
we do not war against the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare
are not cannal, but mighty in God, for pulling down strongholds, casting
down arguments, and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God,
bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. So that's the
focused text for the rest of the series. So the reason why we are
doing this really is just to encourage people to live life more abundantly. Christ
said in the Gospel of John ten verse ten, I have come that they
may have life, which means us, and have it more abundantly. So
we really want to experience abundant life for ourselves and for those people around us
to experience abundant life mentally, physically, emotional, emotional, and spiritually.
We're looking after our wellbeing. So last week we talked about strongholds, understanding
strongholds, what are our strongholds? And we talked about the fact that when
Paul was writing to the people in Corinth, he used the analogy of a
stronghold, a tower with very high walls and a portress and captains inside,
you know, defending, strategizing, just making sure that people are safe.
And really, what is a stronghold. A stronghold in physical terms can be
a fortified place, a place where a particular course of belief is strongly upheld.
From a kind of mental psychological perspective, and when we're looking at it
spiritually or mentally, we're talking about walls of resistance in the mind. So
if we think about a portress, if we think about, maybe, for
example, the walls of Jericho, we were thinking about very high walls.
We're thinking about a mighty tower. We're thinking about a very strong construction.
And when we think about it in psychological terms or in mental terms, we're
talking about walls of high walls of resistance in the mind, things that are
arguments against the truth, the character and the knowledge of God. We're talking
strongholds can be kind of positive things that keep us safe from the enemy.
But in this perspective from in this series, we're talking about what the enemy
uses to keep us down, so some of the strongholds that he uses to
hold us captive. So we're talking about things like fortress of lies in the
mind, including sometimes things that physically speaking we might think are true, but
not the truth according to the world of God God. So strongholds from a
spiritual perspective in this context is anything that's an obstacle to our wholesome purpose,
growth and fulfillment in life. It does hold us captive and stops us from
living life more abundantly as Christ has really purposed for us. So we talked
about the impact on our mental and emotional wellbeing, and last week we talked
about the fact that when we have the strongholds affect in our lives, we
then develop what we call core beliefs. Core believes normally will be negative beliefs
about ourselves, about the environment, the world, about us around us,
or about other people. And these core beliefs are things like, well,
you know, I'm a failure, I'm not good enough, I'm stupid,
the world is too scary, a calm cope. Some of these negative things
that we probably keep repeating to ourselves and which have formed strong beliefs in our
minds, and the coblists will then impact on our thoughts, which will impact
on our feelings, which will then impact on our behaviors. And that keeps
it kind of vicious cycle of negative thoughts, feelings, and behavior going.
And as a result, we tend to potentially view ourselves in a very negative
way. We have negative perceptions of thoughts about ourselves that are really ingrained,
or we could have negative views about the world or about the future. So,
you know, we are looking at bringing down these strongholds, and this
week we're focusing on worry, fear, and anxiety. So what we're going
to do today is that we're going to first of all, understand what worry,
peer and anxiety is, and then we'll talk about the impact of worry,
peer and anxiety on our wellbeing physical, emotional, spiritual, mental wellbeing,
and then we'll go on to talk about how we bring down the strongholds
of worry, peer and anxiety, and then we'll conclude. So we'll sort
of break things down into four sections. And I'm just giving this overview so
you know, people can start to think about any questions that might have along
the way. So let's start with understanding worry, peer and anxiety. The
key text is Proverbs twenty three seven. As a man thinks in his heart,
so is he. As a man thinks in his heart, so is
he. When we talk about thoughts, thoughts are very important, a very
important aspect of our lives. The average person has approximately forty eight pots a
minute. It might not seem like it, We might not realize that,
you know, we have that many thoughts, but we do have that many
thoughts on average. Some people slightly less, some people slightly more, but
not on average, approximately forty eight thoughts per minute, which means approximately seventy
thousand thoughts a day and approximately for an average person twenty five million thoughts a
year. When we think about our brain, and I know that sometimes because
we don't see our brain, we don't think about our brain much, but
we do, hopefully all have brains. And the brain is very complex machine,
and it's the powerhouse of the body. And the win does have about
one hundred billion cells. And the cells in the brain, the longer living
cells that powered by something what we call neuro transmit first that develop pathways in
the brain and the thoughts that we have created a reality by going down the
same frequency in the brain over and over again. So if you think about
walking down a path, and if you keep stepping on the same section of
the path over and over again, that you form a pathway. And it's
a similar thing that happens to the brain. Our thoughts carry electrical impulses that
fire messages in our brain and form deep pathways which determine our thinking habits,
which thereby affect how we feel. So if you think about well, if
you think, oh, today was quite rubbish, you're not going to feel
happy, not that you thought today was rubbish. You will feel probably a
bitlow, a bit sad, and that's probably going to impact on behavior.
And we'll help we look at that a bit more when we talk about the
kind of visual cycle of anxiety. So the thoughts that we have repeatedly become
ingrained in our minds. And one of the things that we'll talk about later
is the fact that thoughts are just thoughts. I think we mentioned this like
last week. Thoughts are not actually necessarily reality. But the thoughts will start
to become a reality for us the more we think about them, because we'll
start to connect emotionally with them and will start to behave in ways that will
reinforce those thoughts. And that's how really we start to form strongholds in our
minds of worry, of fear, of anxiety. So let's start by looking
at worry. What actually is worry. Worry really is a set of mental
and emotional responses to something that's unknown, something that's uncertain, something that we
anticipate will happen, but not necessarily happening. So we have worry that is
based on something that's actually happening, and that's what we call real worry.
And then we have worried that's based on something that we anticipate might happen,
and that's what we call hypothetical worry. So you know, there's various degrees
of worry, and in reality, worry is something that we all experience,
and it's not necessarily always bad to worry. You know, I think that
if you're crossing a road, I think you should be a bit concerned or
a bit worried about whether there's a car coming or not. So you know,
to the extent that the degree of worry that we experience is proportionate to
the threats that that might be in the environment. That's okay. It starts
to become a problem when there's no rational reason for having a worry, so
there's no threats or the level of threats is really very small compared to the
extent to which we worry. And sometimes we worry about things that might happen
which there's no evidence that will happen, have not happened, and then that
becomes a chain reaction of hypothetical worries, so worrying about something that doesn't actually
exist, and then we have fear. So we're talking about worry, fear,
and anxiety. What is fear. Fear is usually experienced in response to
an immediate danger. So we've seen, for example, a dog that looks
a bit scary or alion and we kind of that trigger us fear. And
this is happening because we have a part of the brain called the amid dealer,
which it's like the alarm system of the body. So when when we
see something in the environment that we think it's that that poses a level of
thread, the aniic dealer, which has no kind of logical way of reasoning,
will be triggered and that will fire off messages to parts of our body
and that will produce adrenaline in excess, which will cause us to want to
escape, run or fight back to protect ourselves. So that's where the fight
or flight response comes from. So Pierre is usually experiencing response to an immediate
danger, and when when we perceive that there's a danger, we do have
biological chemical responses that are happening. And normally, if it's just peer it
dissipitates once the thread is no longer present, and then we have anxiety.
Anxiety is where we have excessive or hypothetical worry. We've just talked about worry,
and we just talked about sometimes worries can be real. So we have
an exam and we're worried about how we're going to perform in that exam.
That drives us to do something, drives us to do some revision. That's
a real worry. We can do something about it. We have to do
something about it. A hypothetical worry we think that if we go out there,
somebody might attack us. Well, there's no evidence that there's somebody out
there. It's just something that we're thinking about. It might never happen.
It hasn't happened. There's no evidence. That's a hypothetical worry, So when
that becomes excessive, then that starts to create anxiety. Anxiety is also based
on irrational and sometimes rational beliefs. So you know, if you think about
the media, there's a lot of stuff going on that all. There's conspiracy
theories out there that will rationally cause us to have a level of excess worry,
excess fear causing us to feel anxious. Anxiety could be based on past
experience, past experiences with no basis in the present time. So something's happened
in the past that we focus on and there's no basis, there's no evidence,
there's nothing to suggest that that same thing is going to happen. But
because that information from past experience is taught in our minds, we worry,
we have anxiety. Anxiety is also an attitude of a strong desire to control
the future. And I know that a lot of us want to have control.
We want to control everything. We want to control what's going to happen
tomorrow. And there's nothing wrong with planning that we can't we can't ultimately control
everything. We can plan, but we can't control everything. Anxiety often spirals
out of control and eventually becomes a disorder. A disorder is something that impacts
on our day to day living. So we'll have a look at the various
anxiety disorders in a minute. But yeah, when we have this hypothetical,
worries become a chain reaction. Sometimes people actually think, well, actually it's
a good thing to worry. Worry is good because it gets me doing things,
and then the other people who think, I must never worry now in
both situations, that just creates anxiety. Anxiety can manifest in different ways as
different types of anxiety disorders and increase, and it's increasingly common among all groups
of people. We live in a world where everyone's very busy. Everyone's trying
to achieve everyone's trying to you know, multitask can do one hundred and one
things at once. Everyone's trying to meet expectations on social media, within their
communities, within family. So people are feeling more and more pressured, and
more and more people are suffering from different types of anxiety disorders. And it's
happening across all groups of people within society. So how does the cycle of
anxiety happen So normally most of the time festival it starts with thought thoughts.
So we have thoughts like something bad's going to happen to me, I'm not
going to be able to cope, And with that we start to feel a
rush of adrenaline. That adrenaline, because it's excess chemicals in the body,
will cause us to feel tense, will make our hearts to raise bit even
faster. Sometimes our breathing becomes shallow, we become shaky, light headed,
sweaty, headaches, chet spains, all sorts of biological reactions can go on
because of anxiety. Sometimes people think, oh, I'm quite unwell, and
you go to the doctors and they say, actually, there's nothing wrong with
you physically, go and see a therapist eventually, when after they've exhausted all
the texts. Sometimes that's what anxiety does. Let's remember the brain is a
part of the body that's very complex and where chemicals are being it's triggering chemicals
to be produced in the body that will cause physiological responses. So when we
have thoughts that something that's going to happen, we have the rush of adrenaline.
We start to feel anxious. That's followed by behaviors, behaviors where we
want to either escape, run away. We want to avoid situations, we
make excuses, we want to isolate ourselves from other people. That when we
engage in these behaviors, which at that moment in time feel safe, we
call them safety behaviors. What those safety behaviors will do is that there will
reinforce the thoughts that will reinforce the anxious feelings that will then again reinforce those
behaviors, and that becomes a vicious cycle, and that's what keeps the cycle
of anxiety going. So we've talked about worry, We've talked about fear,
we've talked about anxiety. There is a difference between There are differences between the
three. Sometimes we use the word the terms interchangeably, but there are differences
anxiety versus worry. What is anxiety? Anxiety is persistent, it's unchanging with
circumstances. It is something that you feel happening, and it's constant. It
affects your daily life or physical health. Health is inescapable. You really start
to need to do things to help yourself or start to need to get seek
some help. It's overwhelming, okay, And anxiety disorders can be quite serious
psychological issues that would need the intervention of a professional. So that's anxiety.
But when we talk about worry, we're talking about something that's temporary. If
it's not hypothetical that keeps going on in excess, it's just a worry.
It's circumstantial. It does an impact on daily life. Necessarily, it can
go away once you away, when you know the outcome. So you can
worry about something. I worry about the fact that if I don't look when
I'm crossing the road, I might get hit by a car. I've looked
to the left, to the right, across the road. I don't need
to worry anymore. What's common to fear and anxiety. What's come on to
anxiety and worry is feelings of fear or concern for people and situations. Okay,
so anxiety. When we come across anxiety, what do we see in
somebody who is anxious. It's like an iceberg. So I've got on the
screen an iceberg, and when we have looked at the tip of the iceberg,
we only see about a tenth of the iceberg, and most of it
is submerged underwater. The behaviors that we see at the tip of the iceberg.
So when somebody's feeling anxious. We see anger. Sometimes that's manifesting us
anger. They can't sleep properly. We see people being avoidance, negative,
challenging, defiance, you know, all of these behaviors that are manifested.
But it's really important that we understand the emotions that drive what we see as
the tip of the iceberg. So some of the emotions could that maybe something
feels insecure in a particular environment. Maybe there's been disrespected and they don't know
what to do, the feel offended, the feel stock in a certain environmental
situation, Maybe they're grieving. Maybe that feel that feel helpless or ashamed,
or maybe the feel embarrassed or disgusted, or maybe the feel lonely or tired,
or that feel rejected. Rejection is another topic that we're going to look
at in the series. Depression is another topic that we're going to look at.
Anger, it's another topic that we're going to look at. All of
these things are the emotions that are underlying the behavior that we see as anxiety,
which can manifest as avoidance, anger, negativity, challenging, defiance behavior.
So the Bible says that be anxious for nothing, but we prayer suftly
and in thanksgiving, make your request known to God. God who knows each
one of us, will understand the feelings that sits underneath the anxiety that we
see manifested. So when we see people around us who are anxious, when
we see people around us who are perhaps displaying a level of anger that we
actually don't understand, perhaps maybe let's try to find out what other emotions are
underlying. Because if we can think of the root cause of the issue,
then we can really start to effectively address the issue. So that's looking at
anxiety, worry, and fear. I think we can just kind of take
some time now and when we come back, we'll be looking at the impact
of this on our well being. Wow, thank you so much, Alison,
Already I feel full. I really like the analogy that you've given there
of the iceberg. It just goes to show that we don't really know the
full details. It brings me to the point where you know, you don't
know how people are living you until you've walked in their shoes, and you
don't know what's going on with people just based on the tip of the icebod
that you've You've shared the anger and all that may just be what's underlying.
You know, they may be embarrassed, they may be hurting, they may
be sort of grieving and all that, but what we see is the attitude
that we don't know how to explain and may offend us or you know,
et cetera. But we start judging or pulling away without going in depth and
trying to understand what people are going through. And yeah, I really like
that analogy really did and you did anything come out at you from that first?
Yeah? I think also just kind of it was really interesting to hear
the differences between you know, worrying and how it can I guess ultimately it
feels like it's when you're worrying spirals out of control and how you and allow
yourself to get to that point because worrying, I mean as in you sort
of sitting. Then there are things that we are going to worry about,
which it seems quite normal and natural. But I also think sometimes when we
let it go too far, that's when we're gonna being problems. And it
just reminded me of a quote the Couple that are quite similar, like worrying
is like being in a rocking chair. It gives you something to do but
you go nowhere, or worrying is like Karen an umbrella just waiting for it
to rain. So are different kind of aspects of that in the sense of,
you know, with the rocking chair, yes you can worry, but
actually it's not really helping the situation. You think, oh, I'm thinking
of all these things, and you know, just in case someone have you,
And that's when we start to overthink. Our thoughts take over and starts
to spiral out of control, you know, and that kind of then feeds
into the other thoughts that continue until you know, we get too anxiety.
And that's a really simplified version of what you know, we've been talking about
cerdainly with like Karen an umbrella waiting for a rain. While I might think
I've I'm prepared and what have you, actually perhaps not, because that's where
sometimes the irrational the irrationality comes in where you're just thinking what if, what
if? What if? But actually sometimes you just have to kind of you
know, you carry on, allow things to be happening. What have you.
I'm also being prepared, but to a point where you go to the
other extreme is ever going to be helpful. So it was quite interesting to
sort of see how easily I guess at times we can let our worry fed
into the anxiety and sometimes there is a lot of irrationality with it, you
know, and you know, all to be all do it, I'm sure,
but how easy it can go from one thing to the other. So,
you know, I think that's kind of that's what was coming to mind
during that, and how sort of it's easy to me to say don't worry.
But you know, I've been there was a popular top up people though,
don't worry, be happy, And you think, I wonder how easy
that that possibly could be. Yeah, so maybe we're going to hear some
obvious heaps and tips on how we can combat that. But sometimes if we
spend a lot of time worrying and we couldn't you know, we've been talking
a little bit about, Yeah it is you know, we're also standing on
God's promises and remembering what it's going to do for us. That'd be anxious
for nothing if we really believe that would be we shouldn't be shouldn't it be
easy to be able to do that? And that's kind of a question,
is it put out there? But yeah, that's that's what my thoughts were.
I'm not sure where thank you, Angie. I'm not sure where Pedro
is. I'm not sure if he's there or he's sort of working in the
background. I know he was having internet trouble, but that brings me nicely.
We're going to take a break on the song, but just a question
to pose to our listeners and if anyone's on zoom, I'm not sure,
what are you worrying about? Oh there is, I bet you. No
worries, No worries? What about you? Did you have any quick takeaways
from from that? First? For me personally, I would the other way.
I start thinking about you know, you talk to people or people sometimes
are a certain way to watch you, and you take we take offense by
it, and you say, oh, they're just mean or they're just nasty.
But now, looking at like that Iceberg thing that Allison put up,
you don't realize what they may be going through, and they may not.
It's not that they're taking it out of you. It's just you just happen
to be in their line of sight in a sense, and so like now,
it just makes you think, like now, maybe if we were to
be more mindful, just bele just be more concerning or more like you know,
try to find out or just in a in a Suddain way, just
you know, not take have kind of thick skin and not take it personally
sometimes and just like action, you know, is everything okay? Because that's
just the different things like she said, like you see all that that you
don't realize that along with somebody being angry, it's so much stuff why they're
angry? Are they embarrassed? Are they depressed? Are they you know,
it's like it's so many different factors that you now just start thinking about,
like what's really going on with this person? So you start caring about the
person like, Okay, is this something I can help you with? Is
this something that's going on? It just got me thinking like in that sense
and just the way we deal with people on a daily basis, Yeah,
it's it's an opportunity to spring into action. Really, I think that's what
it says to me. You know what, let's let's see if we can
care for that. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, Like I'm not messing up
there and they just they're just nasty. I'm not even gonna deal with them.
But we don't really look at you know, don't get me wrong with
pet some people are nasty. Let's let's let's let's make that listen. My
wife will tell you. I give you a chance, and if you still
show it that then I am done. But yeah, you can, you
can try and care. And some people are just quick to just you know,
cut, just like I'm not, you know, but sometimes you have
to get to the underlying factor of you know, of why they are the
way that they are, you know, because like as I said, there's
so many factors that could be going on in that person's life and they're not
even mad at you. It just happen. You just happen to be there.
So it seemed like they're taking it out on you, but they're not.
They just got so much other stuff going on in their life. Absolutely,
Uh, the question I want to ask our listeners and again it's eight
trip two eight, I'm space, I'm hope space. And then your message
or zero seven four five nine six four two eight nine eight you can send
a WhatsApp or if you're further afiel, it's studio at Adventist Radio dot London
and you can still join us on zoom. Let me find the details to
share with you. It is. The idea is seven seven one three nine
eight six two zero nine. Again, that's seven seven to one three nine
eight six two zero nine. And we want to just kind of get an
idea of what you are worried about at the moment. What are some of
the things that you are worrying about. I know, and I've said it
time and time again, You're maybe tired of hearing it. I am worried.
I've got a sixteen year old black boy raising in a community that's not
all together safe. Again. I put my butt guardline there because really that's
all I can do is trust him. But I worry. I mean,
these streets are unsafe at best, terrifying at worst, and I worry about
him. And that's me as a parent. Don't don't ask me what I'm
worrying about as a daughter, Don't ask me what I'm worrying about as an
employee manager. This goes on and on and on, and what what are
some of the things that you're worrying about? And do you think do you
think that as Christians it shows that we have a lack of faith if we
do worry. That's a question I want to know. Does that make me
an immature Christian or a weak Christian. If i am worried about my son,
or I'm worried about how I'm going to make ends meet, I'm worried
about my health or my family's health. What do you think about that?
Again? Looking forward to hearing. It's better when it's interactive. Get on
board and let us hear what your thoughts are. Our song comes from Bethel
Music. I love this one. No longer slaves you all around me with
a reality. You surround me with song of deliver from my head Ony Lorma.
I'm no longer sly. I'm a child God, I'm no longer slave.
I am a child good for my mother's woe. You have chosen me
love half calm. I've been born again to a family. Your blood flow
through my f I'm no longer miss sleep saved Fee. I am but joy
God. I'm no long misletaved Fee. I am but joy God. I'm
no saved fee. I am cho go. I'm not saved feel a joy.
It's God you play the sae must be is at tun. You excuse
me said, let's try jo you spread the seeth, you your last face.
You excuse me said, SA, are you struggling to cope with life?
Conflict, bereavement, fear, relationship, anger, depression, negative thoughts,
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to listen. Well. Welcome to Talking Point with Ray Send you poo Joe
Angeler discussing the hot topics and answering your questions Saturday's five to seven pm on
Adventist Radio. Linding this talking Point. It's talking Point, it's talking Point,
It's talking Point, real conversations you need to have. Welcome back to
Talking Point and we're in the middle of our series bringing Down Strongholds, led
by Alison A. Wuku, And this afternoon's topic is as a man thinketh
worry, fear and anxiety just before we went on break, I was asking
the question, what are you worried about? We're still looking forward to your
answers that we will impact later. What are you worried about? And do
you think that worrying anxiety shows a lack of faith? Alison, I'm going
to throw it right back over to you so that you can pick it up
from there. Okay, thanks An. So, just before we went on
the break, we looked at actually really understanding what worry, fear, and
anxiety are. And now we're just going to look at the impact on our
wellbeing because, like we said, we want to look at the how these
things are impacting our wellbeing, how strongholds are being formed and impact in our
wellbeing. So let's start by looking at the impact physical symptoms of anxiety.
I think we've touched on some of them, so increased muscular tension, we
have discomfort, headaches. We talked about having the excess adrenaline, and that's
what really is causing chemical reactions in the body, causing muscular tension, rapid
breathing, we feel sometimes light headed, shaky, We might feel pins and
needles, rising blood pressure, pounding, heart changes in the blood supply to
a digestive system, which can cause nausea, sickness, also urgency in needing
to use the toilet, butterflies in our stomachs, and more. There could
be more chest pains and all sorts of you know, you can just imagine
if you have a lot of anxiety, how you feel. It's different for
different people, but definitely some people most people won't feel some of these physical
symptoms. In terms of anxiety disorders, now we're going really going into the
mental health aspect. So we have what we call common anxiety disorders. These
are the anxiety disorders that we see quite frequently within society. We have what
we call generalized anxiety disorder GOD and generalized anxiety disorder is basically when we just
worry about most things, including the fact that we're worried, you know.
So it's that just general tendency to worry. And when we talk about generalized
anxiety disorder, we start to look at, you know, what a person's
believes are. Remember at the start I talked about core beliefs, and beliefs
are very important what we choose to believe. If we choose to believe that
it's necessary for us to worry all the time, then we're going to adopt
a mindset of worry, and we're going to be constantly worrying, or sometimes
we might think we mustn't worry about anything whatsoever, And so the least worry
or consent we have just generates even more worry because we're worried about the fact
that we're worried, and then our lives become this ball of worry, and
it can be quite debilitating actually, because it can stop us from just experiencing
normal day to day life because we have then all this production of adrenaline in
the body, causing all of physical symptoms as well. It keeps us in
a form of hyper activity, which means that our brains, the part of
our brains that would normally be able to make decisions and think and problem solve
when we're come, it's not able to function properly, and that includes us
spiritual well being. So the Holy Spirit communicates with us through the mind and
through the front whal low. We need to be able to have a clear
mind in order to interact with God effectively. So it's really important when God
says, don't be anxious, don't worry, he understands just to answer your
question partially, Zenya. He understands that we will worry as humans, and
that's why he says, don't worry. So that's generalized. Anxiety is just
worrying. There's no definite, specific thing that we're worried about. It could
be about why, it could be about home, it could be it's everything
and anything. And then we have social anxiety disorder, and social anxiety is
where we are preoccupied with the fact that other people are judging us negatively.
Other people are scrutinizing and negatively evaluating us. So what we do is we
develop a sense of focusing so much on ourselves, how we don't look right,
how something doesn't look right on us, how everyone else in the room
is looking at us and criticizing us and judging us negatively. Or it could
be when we're performing. It could be when we're doing public speaking. We
think, you know, people are not even listening to what we're saying,
but they're just criticizing us. Social anxiety causes us to focus on things that
we perceive are wrong with ourselves, and that makes us even more anxious.
In actual fact, it's likely that everyone's going about their business not really thinking
about you, not not to not flatter people, but nobody's spending all day
every day just looking at you to criticize you. And that's that's the cause
of the social anxiety. I just want to say that, you know,
sometimes where we're from collective cultures where people kind of have a say on what
other people are doing, Individuals within those types of cultures can very quickly develop
social anxiety, and then we've got what we call specific phobias. So that's
when somebody has something specific that they have a fear. They have a fear
for heights, for example, they have a fear for spiders, for example,
they have a fear of needles, of cotton, it's something specific.
Terribly afraid of animals, terribly afraid of dust, or something that's a phobia.
That's a fear that's irrational, and that can really take over somebody's ability
to just experience life normally, god with friends, you know, have a
nice social experience because they have a specific phobia. It can stop people from
getting the types of treatment that might be necessary if they have a phobia for
needles, for example. So it's an irrational fear for something specific, and
that becomes a disorder. It gets when that fear gets in the way of
our day to day normal life, and then we've got what we call panic
disorder and agrophobia, and panic is where is This type of anxiety disorder is
quite different from the other types of anxiety disorder in the sense that with panic,
you start to feel the physiological effects of the anxiety before you notice the
cognitive effects the thinking what's going on in the mind. So when we go
through maybe a certain experience or something happens in our lives, our body will
register the impact. So if it's a heart speating very fast, and you
know, a breathing is shallow and normally we get kind of chest pains and
we feel like we're going to die, we can't. It's actually quite scary
because you are not in control of what's happening in your body. But that's
a panic attack. And for a lot of people, once they've had a
panic attack once, they're likely to have it again because they panic about the
fact that they're going to have another panic attack. So with panic attacks,
it's more the physiological symptoms of anxiety happening before the cognitive symptoms of anxiety.
And then agrophobia is where people feel kind of the fear of being trapped in
a particular space and they have developed an anxiety. Because of that, we
have what we call obsessive compulsive disorder OCD. Now OCD is quite serious anxiety
disorder. I think a lot of people down played. I hear a lot
of people say, oh, it's my OCD, it's my OCD. OCD
can really negatively affect every aspect of a person's life. This is where a
person has an obsession in their thoughts, in their way of thinking. So
they think something and because what they're thinking is it's so intrusive, what they
do is they develop behaviors that they think and hope will neutralize the thoughts,
the intrusive thoughts that they're having. So the obsessive is the intrusive thoughts,
and the compulsive is the behaviors that they're engaging to try and neutralize the thoughts.
Now, those behaviors will only reinforce the intrusive thoughts. So if you
think, well, if I don't check my door five times before I go
to bed, something terrible is going to happen. Or there are people people
who will switch their lights on and off about ten times, or check things,
you know, or they have to wash their hands so many times.
All of these compulsive behaviors will reinforce the intrusive obsessive thoughts and that keeps a
cycle going. And at it's where OCD will impact on relationships, will impact
on a person's day to day life. That people who have not been able
to travel, people who have not been able to have people in their houses,
people who clean their houses five times a day, hoover their houses ten
times a day because they have to keep doing these things, and it's quite
serious. OCD is quite serious. We have also health anxiety, which is
where something is scard that they're going to have a particular illness. So and
we can all be kind of worried and concerned that, you know, if
we don't leave a healthy lifestyle, you know, our blood pressure is going
to go up, or you know, sugar level is going to go up,
or we're going to kind of have a cold or have a flu.
But in this case, this worry consumes the individual, so the point that
they spend all of their time checking the internet doing search about this illness that
they're concerns are going to have and all of the activities that they do to
kind of research this illness. All that does is reinforce the fear of the
illness, because at the end of the day, you will find if you're
looking for negativity, you'll find negativity. So if you're looking for negative stuff
about, you know, particular illnesses, you go on the internet, you're
going to find that information and that's going to make you more anxious. And
you know, people with health anxiety will scan their bodies and if there's any
little pain or anything, will connect it to that thing that the thing that
illness are the thing that they're going to get. Now, if we think
there's something wrong with us, what do we do. We go to the
doctor, We go and get examined, It gets investigated. But people with
health anxiety, that's not even enough. Even when the doctors are saying we've
checked you out and there's nothing wrong with you, they are still convinced that
they're going to get this illness, you know. So that's another one that
can be quite tricky to treat. And then we've got post traumatic stress disorder,
which is where we've had a major traumatic event like maybe a road traffic
accident or sexual abuse or really bad physical abuse or death, we've lost something
very close to us, and that we experience trauma, what we call trauma
with the capital T. And this is one big major event that really keeps
playing back in our minds. So with PTSD, what we experience is all
of the effects of that event playing back on us over and over again,
and not effects just mentally, but also physically. We literally experience the way
we felt maybe when we had a or traffic accident, the kind of tension,
the hihyper vigilance, the smell, the sounds, anything that triggers any
memory takes us back to you know, that place and what there's a lot
of avoidance of any triggers of that event. So that's PTSD is also quite
a serious anxiety disorder. Can we have people who have more than one.
Absolutely, If we've got somebody who was, for example, let's just say
sexually abused as a child, it's very likely that they suffered PTSD. They
keep getting that, they keep re experiencing that event over and over riggain.
They could probably possibly have health anxiety. They might think, oh, you
know, because of this, I'm going to It's possible that have contracted an
illness or a disease. A lot of the time, you know, people
who have been a bit used will feel maybe dirty, will have an obsession
with or intrusive thoughts about, you know, that same thing happening or the
fact that that dirty. You find people cleaning themselves over and over again.
I've seen come across people who actually use bleach and detergent to clean themselves,
clean their hands, and you know, when you delve deeper, you find
some really horrendous stories about what they've been through. People who have panic attacks
as a direct result, could have panic attacks as a direct result of that.
Could have if something has been kind of sexually abused by the opposite sex,
could have a specific bubia for anybody of that opposite sex. Might might
just have totally avoid them, would have a fear, an irrational fear that
if they're around anybody like that that are going to kind of be abused again.
They could experience social anxiety because they could think, well, everybody knows
what's happened, everybody thinks that it's my fault, and would stay away from
people. And the more you stay away from people, the more that social
anxiety is reinforced. And of course they would worry about everything and anything,
so could have generalized anxiety disorders. So a lot of these disorders are called
mobid. They are existing alongside each other. It's really really interesting. It's
really really important that you know, we understand that anxiety can be quite a
serious mental, psychological emotional illness, and that we help people we understand potentially,
you know, what might have triggered that anxiety, and understand that,
you know, sometimes it's not their fault. You know, sometimes we can
be quick to say, oh, don't worry, don't worry, it's fine,
you know, and yeah, maybe it will be fine. But like
we had a look at the eyesbreak, imagine somebody's gone through kind of very
difficult early life experiences, maybe neglect, maybe physical abuse, maybe verbal abuse,
maybe emotional abuse or sexual abuse, that sort of thing. You know,
the embarrassment, the rejection, the helplessness, all of those emotions that
we looked at in the anxiety iceberg could come into play. And you know,
we might not really understand because we don't expect everyone to go around telling
us what's happened to them. But I guess the point is we can be
a bit more compassionate and for some of us. Some of these things have
happened to us, and yes, we can be compassionate to ourselves as well.
So those are the kind of common mental, emotional, psychological impacts of
anxiety, right, I think I'm just going to pause there. Yes,
because it feels like I've talked a lot about people might have questions. Yeah,
perfect, And I like how you have shared you use the analogy of
the person who may have been sexually abused and saying how all of this can
compound and they can Did you say coexist or comobid? Is that the term
that you've used. So you could be OCD, you could be traumatized,
you could have panic attacks or as a result of something that happened several years
ago, something that happened once, or very major effent that happened so long
ago, but it still sort of impacts how you live your life today,
and that we can't minimize, you know, the impact of these things on
people. We can't minimize how difficult life can be for some people or for
all of us in some degree. And it's important I think for me from
having these conversations, from seeing I'm being part of these presentations, is understanding
that we are all here for each other. We need to be compassionate hearing,
and as you rightly said in your very last sentence, we also need
to be compassionate and caring with ourselves. And did you yeah, no,
as you said that, I mean again, that was a really thorough run
down of some yeah, sort of the different disorders, which there are many,
and I guess, I guess my question would be, it was interesting
actually looking at some of those. They're obviously from what I'm looking at,
those diagnosed diagnosed conditions, but I think sometimes there is there are some times
a tendency of people to kind of use some of those terms, just kind
of use them, which I don't know where that kind of minimizes what's actually
going on for them, or minimizes the kind of the terminology, And it's
kind of that necessary recognizing the true impact of some of these disorders. You
know, So when you were talking about OCD, that's a really that's a
really serious condition, but actually sometimes that's kind of used quite Dare I say
it flippantly, as in, you know, somebody who's very neat entirely,
for instance, might sort of talk about OCD and really minimizing it minimizing that
should impact and the effects of it, which sometimes then may people may not
necessarily take those things very seriously and recognize just quite how serious it is.
You know, I may have an anxiety disorder, but you know, okay,
somebody could think, oh, you're anxious about something. You just worrying
it again, minimizing what it could be and what have you. So that's
what I was kind of as I was as you were talking, as thinking,
it's some of those terms monology, and I guess that's because I think
it's great, you know, we're having this conversation, so we're having an
understanding what these things are, but actually to recognize the depth of some of
these things, you know, and whether that's kind of to recognize there could
be you could be displaying signs and symptoms of some of these things and not
actually going out to get help. So hopefully this is raising awareness in that
respect, but also not to kind of minimize what you might have gone through
and the impact it may have later on in life or have. You know,
if other stuff's going on for you and you're kind of wondering what's going
on, maybe it is time to actually, you know, go out and
try and get some help and talk to somebody about it, see what's happening,
because there's always reason that everything that happens sometimes, so you know,
it's about and it's about raising awareness because some of these you know, the
terminology or terms that we use, you can either kinds of awareness maximize that
or sometimes we use it without necessarily recognizing, you know, and how we
then treat others can be very key as well, because we when not take
other people serious, y, not be kind enough to people, or empathetics.
So yeah, there's a lot, there's a lot there. I'm not
I'm not asking anyone to be a therapist, but not at all. I'm
trying to create awareness and I think by some time having terminology around things,
having language around things will help people identify and maybe you know, prompts people
to encourage others to get help or get help themselves. So it's not asking
you know, the Christian population to suddenly diagnose people, and you know,
it's just the awareness. Like you said, yeah, that's what I was
actually gonna that's just as about to mention, when you think of anxiety,
you just think of like OCD or the PTSD. That's like the most the
two common ones, but you brought up so many different ones that we probably
don't even realize exist but are there, and it's just given, like you
said, awareness of what's gonna Well, what specific phobia for me will be
more being a phlebotomis. I hear it ninety five of patients when I go
to draw their blood, Like I don't like needles, and I see some
philbitomis just say it's just a needle, give me an domination, stick them,
and they don't realize how much they just injured that person's mental capacity at
that moment. Personally, I don't. I'm a philibotomist over twenty years.
I don't like needles, so I actually do have a fear of them,
so I understand. So I'm more calm with them in that aspect. I'll
talk to them more. But we just don't understand that because like you,
like you said, you know, you just just say, oh, it's
not it's just a needle. You should be afraid, or like you said,
like you know, you say you got OCD, but you really don't
have OCD. But that's just the term we used to be to be funny.
It's just I think in life, we have to learn certain things.
We just need to stop saying certain things because it does minimize the real effect
that it has on people, and we're kind of like, you know,
just pushing them to the side, and then it makes them feel even less
likely to express themselves or say that, hey, I got this problem,
because I think if I say, they're just gonna think it's a joke.
The more you know, they they take a lot more punishment than they need
to take because we're not being aware of they actually could be going through some
you know, going through something that's not only point. That's what I got
from it, but I didn't realize that so many different anxieties. I'm like,
my goodness, gracious, my head is about toplode. I'm sorry.
It's good way it's not. It's like, I'm like, wow, I
need to look up all this stuff and kind of like get a general you
know, because in all honesty and working in healthcare, a lot of people
have these issues. And if we can better understand the different types, I
could be a better healthcare worker because now I can I can kind of recognize
it. I'm not, like you said, I'm not trying to be a
professional but just allow me to recognize, you know that, hey, maybe
this person's got you know, suffering a little bit from that. So it's
good to know, you know, knowledge, is it's good to know?
Yes, absolutely, Alison. I will take a music break now, but
just to ask you before we go, Uh, Pedro said that OCD maybe
and some of the others are more common. Is that is that the case
in your practice and in your experience. Are some are more prevalent than the
others? Yeah? And I'm just going to say, because there are some
that I have heard of and some I haven't, just as Pedrol is saying,
but is it the case that we're not aware or is it that there
are really some that are more prevalent than others? I think generalized anxiety disorder
we see a lot of. So some of some of the disorders are core
morbid. And we're saying more and more PTSD and whether that's because people have
become I think it's because people are becoming more aware. So people are talking
a lot more about some of the past traumas that they've had. And you
know, for a lot of people who have had PTSD, a lot of
the time it comes with panic attacks, as well, So we see a
lot of these disorders coming together with something else. With COVID. Health anxiety
went COVID and OCD. Health anxiety and OCD went off the roof because,
as you can imagine, if you already had OCD and you were told to
wash your hands with COVID, you were doing that even more. You were
cleaning, tidying your house even more. And then the health anxiety, we
saw a lot of that a lot more because people worried that they were going
to get COVID, they were going to get other health conditions as well,
one of them being with long COVID. A lot of people have chronic for
take syndrome as well, So you know, there's all sorts of things happening,
you know. At the same time, I just want to say,
you know, we are Health is a whole, it's about the whole person,
and anything that's affecting us physically is also impacting on us mentally, emotionally,
and spiritually. So when we talk about wellbeing, let's think about holistic
health, not just physical wellbeing. Yeah, well said all right, I
will take I think Andrew, this was one of your choices. It's Kirk
Franklin all things. Can I talk to you? I know you guys were
questions. What's the hardest thing you're going through? To talk about? Talk?
Life will change? Talking about things I can do well, talking about
nights, time goes away and my dreams, telling me e race, talking
about all things. I said, I can do all things. I understand
it. Bast always be so withstards and no one ever planned you talking about
all things, all the biggins of small things. I'm so sure I can
do all things, talking about town stand my mind. I'm out of funds
and out of time. I need a blessing. I need you to do
all things. See I understand that at all. Interested in case, I'm
so with goods and no one ever planned you tell talking about all things things,
get a souls. I can do all days things. Let's go I
can do. Just because he's silent time doesn't mean that he's still. He's
not only preparing it for you, He's preparing you. Put it. Let's
go things. Lessing begins as he sees you. Yes, let's sing.
See the blessings coming. We had to get your reddit for it. Are
we talking about? Are we talking about? Come on again? Love?
People? Say, I think it's a possible you can't about you shut rap
by. He's a good guy. He's a good guy. Come on,
he's a good god. He's a good Come on all things by. Kirk
Franklin may have a chance a little later to play Hello Fair. It's another
very good song, applicable song from Coke Franklin's collection. You're listening to Talking
Point and we are having a powerful conversation led by alisoner Wilkou on worry,
fear and anxiety as part of our series bringing Down Strongholds. You can still
be a part of the conversation. It's eight triple to eight Space Hope and
then your message or studio at Adventist Radio Dot London. And of course you
can watch up us now on zero seven four five nine six four two eight
nine eight. If you still want to come, there's about half an hour
ago to go. If you don't want to come, onto the zoom it's
seven seven one three nine eight six to zero nine. And the questions we
posed were what are you worried about? What are you anxious about at the
moment? And I know we all are. Does that reflect lack of faith?
You think that worrying reflects lack of faith. Let me know your thoughts
on that. Alison, back over to you. Thank you so much.
So just to quickly recap, we've had a look at understanding worry, fear
and anxiety. We've had look at the impact of worr if, fear,
anxiety on our wellbeing, and now we're going to talk about, actually,
how do we bring down the strongholds of worry, fear, and anxiety.
Remember we talked about strongholds being things that hold hold us captive, which are
based on a particular belief or like worlds of resistance in the mind that stopped
us from living the purposeful life that God has promised. So how do we
bring down these strongholds of worry, fear, anxiety. From the last week
session, we talked about the stronghold having the walls of lies. So the
wolds of lies you think about a mighty fortress, you think about high,
big walls, and we need to bring down the walls that of lies that
the enemy plants in our minds. It's a lot of the time we worry
about things that the enemy makes us feel we should worry about. We think,
well, this thing happened in the past is going to happen again.
So we become hypervigilance. We worry excessively or hypothetically, and then it becomes
anxiety and we can't do anything. We've heard about the various anxiety disorder us
that really stop us from living day to day life as God has purposed for
us. John eight thirty two. Christ said, then you will know the
truth, and the truth will set you free, bringing down the walls of
lies. Need us to know the truth. What truth is? Are we
talking about the word of God? The word of God will say at us
free. If we go to look at the Gospel of Matthew chapter twelve,
verse twenty nine, it says that there is a strong man behind the stronghold,
a dominant negative force that keeps a person captive. And in the case
of worry and anxiety, that force is fear. Fear is what keeps us
captive. It makes us feel anxious. We need to understand the force behind
the wall. The wall. We have a wall. We want to bring
down that wall. How do we bring down the world and Matthew twelve twenty
nine or else, how can one enter into a strong man's house and spoil
his goods, except he first bind a strong man. If you don't know
how to deal with the fear, how are you going to bring down that
strong So we need to understand what is it that is causing us to be
afraid, What is it that's causing us to worry excessively? And we need
to have an objective perspective in our thinking. If we are afraid, if
we are worried excessively, we need to understand where that's coming from. Is
it from something from the past. Is it worrying about something about the future
that we have no control over. If we don't understand what that forces that's
keeping us captive, we're not going to be able to bring down the wall
of lives. The wall of lives will remain built very highly in our minds
and we will not be able to bring them down. Also, we need
to bring down the towers. Remember we talked about the fortress having towers,
and we liken the towers to our imagination, towers of unhelpful imagination. How
do we do that. We understand fear, what we're afraid of, and
we understand how it impacts us. Fear makes us exaggerate our challenges in our
minds. Okay, so we start to imagine things and kind of magnify things
in our minds, and when we do that, we're building towers by making
the problem bigger, we're kind of magnifying the problems in our minds. That
builds towers of unhelpful imagination. So instead of paying attention to our problems and
making them bigger in our minds, we can exalt God and trust in his
power and his promises. Last week we talked a lot about God's promises.
God's promises are very powerful. So rather than feed the fear and feed the
unhelpful imagination, why don't we look at God's promises. They that wait upon
the Lord shall renew their strength. Call upon me in the day of trouble,
and I will leave you. The Angel of the Lord and comes around
those who fear him. So let's look at the promises of God. Let's
look at what God is saying, and let's be patient and not give up.
It gets easier and better we practice and consistency. So you know,
our imaginations are things that are conditioned in our minds over the time. To
bring down the towers of unhelpful imaginations, we have to keep looking at the
promises, keep reading the Word of God, keep praying, keep being consistent.
And that's not gonna you know, the towers of unhealthful imagination will not
just disappear overnight. We need practice. We need to make that lifestyle,
the word of God, prayer, relying on the promises of God man.
And then we have to bring every thought thought into captivity. So we talked
about the fortress, the strongholds having captains inside who would strategize. And these
are like captive, the thoughts in our minds that hold us keep us captive.
How do we bring every thought into captivity? Again, Let's remember that
we're either captive of our thoughts or thoughts control us. So we can have
our thoughts captive, or we can allow our thoughts to control us. But
let's you know, we are not our thoughts. We said this last week.
Let's remember we are not our thoughts. We need to make our thoughts
captive, but first we need to be aware of them. We can use
scripture to bring down the thoughts into to bring our thoughts into captivity and lead
them where God wants us to know what God where God wants us to go.
Rather and again, let's be patient, let's not give up. From
a practical level, we can manage our worried thoughts. I have what I
call what we call a tree, the worry tree, and it's just a
way of processing our thoughts. So on the screen, it's a tree,
and it's like a plow chart on the tree. So you're going through a
process where you're noticing, first of all, that you're worried. Remember we
have about forty eight thoughts a minute, all right, so we're thinking thousands
of thoughts every day. And when we have a thought that causes us to
worry, let's trans zooming on that thoughts and think about, Okay, what
is it that I'm actually worried about? Because sometimes we don't actually know what
we're worried about. We know we're worried about stuff, and there's a lot
of stuff going on in our minds that we can't actually put a finger on
actually where that worry started. What was the thoughts that started to worry,
because perhaps it's become a chain reaction and we don't even know where the warr
is started. So notice the worry. What am I Ask yourself what am
I worrying about? And then The next question on the worry trade is that
can I do something about this? And if the answer is no, then
let the worry go and change your focus of attention. If you can't do
anything about it, how is worrying going to help you? Apart from cause
you to have migraines, cause you to have maybe chest pains, high blood
pressure, how is it going to help you? If you can do something
about it, then you need to make a plan. What are you going
to do about it? When are you going to do it, and how
are you going to go about it? What resources the unique? Make a
plan and are you going to do it? Something about it now. If
you're going to do something about it now, then go and do it,
because once you've done it, you've done what you can and then you can
focus on something else, like what you're having for dinner this evening, or
what you're buying from the shop tomorrow, or change your focus of attention.
If you're going to do something about it later, then make a plan when
are you going to do it? And once you've planned when you're going to
do it, it's in the diary. Change the focus of attention. Think
about something else. You've done all you can now the worry Tree for people
who are listening. There's an app on I think Apple Play you can get
if you look up worry Tree. It actually takes you through this process and
you can actually put things in your calendar and then let the worry go.
I think it's quite a good app. I think there are various versions of
the app, and you can get the basic version for free. But look
it up and see if you can get itself on the app. That's going
to help you practically on managing your worry. Okay, so bringing down strong
holds of fear, worry, and anxiety on a spiritual level, I've got
something. Here's an acronym from Warren. He's an evangelist for those who don't
know him, and I like what how he uses think and the T is
for test every thought. The age is helmets of salvation. The I is
imagining book thoughts from the Word of God and the promises of God. The
end is for nourish your mind daily by connecting with God and the right people.
And K is for keep on learning about things that edify and build you
up. Think all right, So on a spiritual level, just think,
test every thought, put on the helmets of salvation. Imagine book thoughts from
the word of God and the promises of God. Nourish your mind daily by
connecting with God and the right people, and keep on learning about things that
will edify and build you up. I don't know how many people listening have
heard the prayer of serenity. It's a very simple prayer. And if people
really look at Philippians four six to seven that says, do not be anxious
for anything. With prayer and supplication, make a requests known to God.
I think it's kind of like this prayer, some sort of that scripture,
and the prayer says God grants me the serenity to accept the things I cannot
change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to
know the difference. So, in conclusion, when the strongholds of anxiety,
fear, and worry are brought down, you will notice that your mind is
a powerful thing, and when you feel it with positive thoughts, your life
will to change. You can correct your mind. If you can correct your
mind, the rest of your life will fall into place. These are quotes
God, and there's a prayer from an unknown authought. God grants me a
mind free of worry, a heart free of sadness, and a body free
of sickness. And Jesus Christ himself said, I have come that you may
have life, and have it to the full. So let's remember Philippians four
six to seven. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation,
by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your request to God.
And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding. Will God your hearts
and minds in Christ Philippians four eight. Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever
is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure,
whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy,
think about such things. And Matthew, one of my favorites, six twenty
five to twenty seven. Therefore, I tell you versus Christ saying, do
not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, or about
your body what you will wear. Its life. It's not life more than
food, and the body more than clothes. Look at the beds of the
air. They do not reap, store away or store away in bands.
You get your heavenly father, really teach them, And are you not much
more valuable? Than there than they can any one of you by worrying at
a single hour to your life. And John first John for eighteen says there
is no fear in love. Perfect love casts out all fear. And Romans
talk to says, and be not conformed to this world, but be y
transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is good
and acceptable and the perfect will of God. And finally, Philippians two five
says, let this mind be in you, which is in Christ. For
God second Timothy one seven has not given us a spirit of fear, but
of power, of love and of a sound mind. So thank you so
much everyone for listening. It's been good to go through this with you.
And I will hand back over to Xenia for discussions, comments, questions.
Thank you, perfect, Thank you so much. Alison Well said, well
presented. I think we were talking offline and Pedro went wow, and I'm
wowing online. And it's the impression I got when I first heard the series.
It's just so full. Pedro, what's what's your takeaway from that from
that last second from the whole program, Yes, I can hear you now.
I thought the whole program of information just wanted to say that last memory
verse that you gave Alison, My wife uses that memory verse all the time.
She loves that mem verse. So I know that when you said that
one, I knew right off the back. She's alwayss caoding that one.
But it's a it's a lot to unpack, but it's worth unpacking for me.
I just think it just opened up my mind to just think about the
different aspects of mental health and anxiety and just to be more what's the word,
I can't think of the word, but just to be more mindful of
the fact that these things do exist, that we need to be more diligent
and understanding them and not so just to like push them to the side and
act like they don't exist, because they do exist. And I appreciate,
like Zenga said, I do appreciate the whole aspect because it's it's definitely opened
up my brain too to start thinking more and want to investigate more and read
more to get a better understanding for future, you know, and about to
be fifty. So the fact that it took me fifty years to even thing
start thinking about some of the stuff, like man, like wow, I
didn't even think you know, I guess you no matter how you get,
you're always learning something. Definitely, I definitely read a lot today, so
thank you, and she yeah. Likewise, I mean, there's there's there's
a there was a lot there and it's kind of a lot to unpack,
and I guess I'm going to go away. But what I loved actually was
the kind of tools that we can utilize because as much as you know,
sometimes we worry about things because we sometimes think, oh, maybe you can't
do anything about it, or there's no solutions. Actually there's a way to
deal with the worry in itself, and then maybe it's about using that opportunity
as ways to kind of find solutions for things. So I love the idea
of you've got the worry tree in a bit of a flow chart to really
kind of get you to think about it in a logical, rational kind of
way. You know, you're going through asking questions about is it you know,
can you do something about it? And if you can, yes,
let's go ahead and see. If you can't, sometimes just let it go
because that's literally what we need to do. I love them. I love
the acronym of think and again it's we're talking about how these strongholds sometimes they
start from those thoughts that start to overtake us. There's negative impact, there's
negative thoughts that we have and allow them to take hold of us. So
the idea that we're putting on the helmet of salvation and utilizing those to kind
of influence our mind in a really positive way, in a God connected way,
to nourish, to learn to uphold. And you know, just there
are so many we talked about this last week, so many texts and you've
quoted some great ones at the end there about God's promises how we can change
our minds as it were, and focus our minds more effectively, more positively.
So I loved all of that. So again, you know, we're
talking about how things impact our mind and we have to be mindful that these
the enemies is, you know, is powerful. I think sometimes really underestimate,
you know, how powerful he is and how much of an influence we
are. How we are influenced and bombarded with messages of disaster, no hope,
all of those things, and actually, you know, we've got to
sometimes work really hard to try and counterap that. But you know, I'm
glad to know that we're not on our own doing this. You know,
God is more and more powerful and it is connecting with him. So there
were some yeah again some gems there, and you know we talked about,
you know, connecting the word, recognize that God's word is truth, and
that we want to we want to connect more and learn more. So give
me. Had a bit of a challenge last week to trying to find a
texted day because there are there are hundreds promises, so you're then to fix
on there. So you know, Alison, you shared about six or seven
throughout, so you know, if there's at least one for every day next
week? So yeah, that was coold. Do you have do you have
one that isn't listed there that you've sort of is your go to? And
that's my question for anyone listening, actually, what what is your go to
text? I think we all need one or you know, one for each
day of the week really to be fair. So what's your go to text
in these situations or trouble? I think actually, and I think as you
might have been mentioned as a forty first saty one, there's that wait on
the Lord or man up with wings and I think sometimes we're like I feel
really tired right now and really quite You've had quite a stressful week, and
I sometimes think of that, thinking, you know, if I'm trusting in
him, he will give me the strength and even if it's not today,
at some point I will get through it and I'll be able to run and
not just walk orpe be able to pick me up when I've fallen there.
So that's always I mean, for me, it hasn't memories. So it's
one of the first sort of text I member when I kind of got reback
ties that I actually remembered. I'm saying, I don't recall it now,
but it meant so much for him because you know, at the end of
the day, sometimes I can't just do it on my own. And that's
really what a lot of this to do is to do with. You know,
it's not We're trying to work and we're finding out ways in which we
can you know, make a change, bring those bring our strong holds down.
But it's not about me doing it alone. I may have to draw
on ultimately God's help, but other people's help as well, and programs like
this. While we're talking about it, even that's a great starting point because
it's raising our awareness, showing us that I might be going through things or
other people will be going through things things, and how we can work together
and work with other people to kind of do that ultimately be kind, you
know, came to ourselves and to other people. Recognizing that people are going
through we can offer support, to encourage people to get support or to help
ourselves. Then that can only be a good thing. So that's that's probably
one of my ones that I have other ones, noted all of those to
add to my list. So I'm going I just want to tell you real
QUI sorry you were one. That's what the tour you were one going go
on. But sometimes you do separate. Tell me what's yours to that I
grew up? That won't be the best one for me that I can think
of. Want about it being a performed as well. Okay, I think
God doesn't want us to be like the world. He wants us to be
ourselves but also have Him in us. And if God is in us,
then everything else will work out and he will lead us down the path we're
supposed to go and people will notice a difference in you. And I think
that's if we can do that in life, if we can go through life
where people see a difference in you. It actually makes people change themselves sometimes
because they realize, no matter what they do, or no matter what they
say, you're still going to be you do. That brings me nicely to
our question. I did pose it to our listeners, but I haven't had
a response, and so I'm posing it to you, Alison. I've put
you in the hot seat, and it draws really from what Petro's just saying.
Can I conclude is it wrong to conclude then that if we are men
and women of faith that we shouldn't struggle or is it that we shouldn't struggle
as much as what's the answer to that? Well, how does our faith
impact our fear and our struggle with fear? I'll just start by saying that
should and shouldn't. It's already a problem for me because that you know,
should shouldn't These are rules that we make and that actually cause anxiety. We
can say that ideally it would be better if we kind of took us struggles
to God, and then the God of peace that passes all understanding will help
us. Now, if we don't have worries, we'll never be able to
appreciate peace. So I don't know if that kind of have to answer your
question. But you know, if we think about Christ in the Garden of
gethse Many, I think it was for of anxiety he had lo and you
know, he asked for the cop to be taken away from him if he
wasn't anxious and worried about what was going to happen to him. So,
you know, I think there's an understanding. God understands. God created us,
and he knows us inside out, and he understands all of the challenging
emotions that we experience. You know, we're not just there to kind of
present ourselves as happy all the time. But he understands that in our trials
and tribulations we will feel the anxiety, and therefore he encourages us to come
to him and pray to him with supplication and thanksgiving. Make our request onto
him. He says, cast all your cares upon me, because I care
about you. If he knew that we were never going to have any cares,
he wouldn't ask us to custom on him. So let's be real,
as Chris, and let's be real. The only way that we're gonna connect
with the world and represent Christ and help others to come to know Christ is
if we're real. And I think it's not authentic or congruence. If anybody
who is listening or any one of us turned around and said, I don't
worry anymore because it's not Christian to worry, I think that would be a
lie. So God understands when we worry, but it's what we do with
the emotions, with the challenging emotions that we feel that's important. He says,
go to him. You can go to him with anger, with depression,
with anything, and that's okay. So and He will make us to
experience the peace. I mean personally, early last year, I had health
scare. All right, I had a healthcare and I was worried. I
was very anxious, and I prayed efficiency for six to seven and I felt
so much peace. That's what took me through that period. And I trusted
God. I believed in God. I said to him, I know that
you'll take me through this and I'll be okay. But I was still worried,
and we kind of really reflecting on that prayer, he helped me to
appreciate his peace, which passes all human understanding. So it's okay for us
to worry as Christians, but like Angela said earlier, Ron, it's okay
not to be okay, but then do something about it. Go to God,
read your Bible, lean on the promises of God, pray and sick
sick sick professional help if you need to. Absolutely, we thank you very
much, Alison. We're out of time, and if we we when we
not, if we when we come back next week, that's a good place
to pick up perhaps, is that when when do we know and this is
a question to ask and put on on the banner next week, when do
we know that it is time to go and seek professional help? Because yes,
as you've said, we ask Christians, we need to keep it real
and these are struggles that we will have and we know where to go.
We know God is our help and our health and our strength, but we
also equally need to know that there may be times that we need other support
and He is still in charge of that. He sends this other support,
he puts these structures in place, He gives people wisdom and understanding, so
it doesn't show weakness or lack of faith to use these resources. So thank
you very much for that, and We'll touch on that a little bit next
week, because we are back next week with another leg, another episode,
another part to the series bringing down Stronghold, and really looking forward to that.
What are we talking about next week? Very quickly, Alison, what
is the topic that we've got for next week? We're dealing with depression?
Depression week lovely, I'm not lovely, but okay for me, I think
I want to just close it with three minutes over the over the hour,
Pedro, if you can pray for us, but for me, what I
want to take away from from this program is, or what I want to
end with, is your serenity prayer. It's a lovely prayer. It's one
I've heard said over and over again, and it's a good reminder today and
I think I may even post it. God grant me the serenity to accept
the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference. Thank you so much for that reminder,
Pedro. Sorry, I'm going to get the bishop coming in saying it's
time. But if you could close yourself, I could have. Indeed I
could have could have, but I did ask you so I know you're,
you're, you're already we go through this new week. As we start this
week, we want to ask Lord that you will give us the knowledge and
standing and and the spirit in our soul to if we are dealing with something
that is just not right with our spirit, our soul, that you will
have us to come to your brayer, to go to somebody for help,
to try to have the problem rectify yourself, have an a follow with your
help. We thank you that you have brought us this far and this long,
and react that you will continue to be with for us and watch over
us and everything we do, and say that we may be ready for when
you come to pick us to take us back for eternity what our brain Holy
name. Amen, thank you, thank you for staying with us, thank
you for joining in. And as we said, we'll be back next week.
We'll share the details again so that you can be part of the conversation.
Thank you, Allison. It's good night from me Zanya. Good night
for Angela and Pedro, and good night God, bless you and I have
a wonderful week. Blessing Adventist Radio London. Inspiration for the song