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Breathing Before Going Down the Spiral

Today I was walking to the fridge at work to heat up my lunch. I started thinking about early interactions with people and how I messed them up. (Really minor but someone who extremely values interactions with people, it was hard). Then I thought that I couldn’t do anything right. I was bad a being a person. Bad at relationships. And on and on and on it went. Then something my counselor said came into my mind: Imagine a stop sign. I imagined it and stopped the downward spiral.

It is easy to let one little thing pull is down. Something that starts minor to bring us into a whirlpool of negative thoughts and emotions. Before you know it, you are depressed, upset, and not able to be yourself. As someone who suffers from anxiety, this happens a lot. Besides the stop sign in my head, knowing that God wants me to breathe and succeed help.

“The Lord gives strength to his people;
the Lord blesses his people with peace.” – Psalm 29:11

“The Lord replied, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” – Exodus 33:14

“The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still” – Exodus 14:14

Rest. Stillness. Strength. Peace. These four qualities are what I want when the spiral of negative thinking happens. When we begin to think that all the evils in the world are because of us. When nothing we say or do is right. (As we know when we look back, this isn’t the case, but in the moment it is hard). The Lord is there. He will fight the battles for us. He will give us rest, peace, and strength.

This is hard. Beating ourselves up is very easy. Taking on the weight of the world is hard. As I speak my neck is cramping from the stress of negative thinking. I, like so many of us, need to breathe. We need to feel his Presence and take his rest, that is given freely.

Are you willing to help stop the downward spiral of negative thinking? Are you able to accept God’s peace and rest?

I am willing and able (with the help of God)