Navigating Anxiety with Faith and Action

A friend of mine was overwhelmed with anxiety as his company announced a major restructuring. He feared losing his job and constantly worried about his future. His nights were sleepless and his days were filled with stress. One evening, my friend attended a community support group at his local church where he shared his concerns. A fellow member, Mark, listened and shared his experience of facing a similar situation. He encouraged my friend to trust a higher plan and focus on what he could control, rather on what he couldn't. Inspired by Mark's faith and positive outlook, my friend decided to change his approach. He began to pray, meditate, and focus on his strengths. He updated his resume, networked, and explored new opportunities. Within a few weeks, my friend received an unexpected job offer and a from a company he admired. The new position was a perfect fit and provided better prospects than his previous job. By choosing faith and hope over anxiety, my friend found a better outcome and a renewed sense of peace. Let's explore the feelings of anxiety and some strategies to overcome then. I'm Curtis. My faithful pal over there is Joe, and we are dudes in progress. Hey, Joe.

Hello, Kirk. Good morning, my calm, cool, and collected pal.

That is the goal. I feel.

Absolutely.

It's one of my reasons. I do my morning routine. I've been pretty faithful to my morning routine ever since the Christmas break. I'm really enjoying it. My company sends out some interesting learning material and I'm probably going to pick from some of that stuff to bring to the podcast. They had a really good TED Talk talking about positive psychology yesterday. I really enjoyed that. And he really talked about everything he had in there that is really important to our happiness. Happiness psychology is more of what he's talked about. A lot of it was that morning routine stuff.

Yeah, I like TED Talks, Kurt. I like, I like the format. I like the quick, succinct nature of a TED Talk. Gets down to the point. For a while there when I was watching TED Talks, it felt like every TED Talk had had the same kind of tempo and look to it. But yeah, I, I like TED Talks and you can find a wealth of value.

I'll share this with with you. Probably like it might be one of my episodes. And it was very entertaining. He had a sense of humor that was fantastic.

Yeah.

And it took a while for him to get to the serious part of it. It was really good. It was fairly short, you know, 10, 12 minutes, something like that.

Yeah, I think that the, the TED Talk format is like, it's supposed to be like 14 minutes or 12 minutes or something like that. That's the idea behind it, that's not.

What we're doing today. We are going to be talking about anxiety. I reread a book from Max Lucado, something that has been on my mind and I've been thinking of and had some, a little bit of my own issues with anxiety recently. It's called Anxious for Nothing. I'm wondering, Joe, do you recognize my friend in my intro?

Is that possible you, Kurt?

Yes. I disguised him as my friend, as we sometimes do.

Sure. Asking for a friend can tell me. Can somebody tell me how to lose 100 pounds? Asking for a friend.

I added some drama to it a little bit. I'm going to use that example of that time and I've said to you many times, probably the things that give me the most anxiety is my ability to provide for my family, especially when they were young. And now as I'm reaching that golden age, that fourth quarter, as we said, I'm starting to feel that same bit of stress I felt and anxiety back in the day when I was anxious about losing my job. This time period was a downturn in economy. This particular incident happened about 2003 when I did lose my job. I did have a sense from my faith that, hey, who's in charge here? Is it this company? We'll pursue that a little bit. Have you ever suffered from some anxiety, Joe?

I have. I can tell a story about one time I was. It was late at night, about 3:00 in the morning and I had gotten up and I've been thinking about. I've been worrying about some stuff going on in my life. Some, some things that. Some of it was job related, some of it was health related, some of it was relationship related. And there was a, there's just a lot going on as I'm sitting there. The. I was up, I got up in the middle of the night, sat down and as I'm sitting there thinking about stuff, it's as if the whole world started to close in on me. And even my vision came. I started to get real jittery and my vision came into tunnel vision. Kurt?

Yeah.

And I got worried. I thought, what is going on with me? And that built on itself, that built on its own anxiety.

Yes.

And I walked in, I managed to walk into Karen and woke her up and I said, I don't know what's going on, but I think I need to go to the hospital. And I just, I slumped over and on onto the bed and they couldn't find, they couldn't find what was wrong. They couldn't find a problem at the hospital. And so the doctor started talking to me about, hey, what's going on in your life and what's happening here? And I never got an official diagnosis, but what the doctor said, he said, you probably had an anxiety attack, man, and here's how you can control it. Here's what, here's some recommendations I would make and so forth. And he gave me some good resources. And yeah, that's about as bad as I've had it now.

We.

I. I have an underlying anxiety many times throughout the day, throughout my life, just worrying about stuff. Right. Worrying about similar stuff that. That you talked about. Okay, we're coming into retirement age. How am I going to navigate that? Things from work. There's a whole. I have. I have many anxious moments.

You're so awesome, Joe. Let me just say that I really appreciate you. You really just intro this the way I wanted to intro this, in that I do have people I care about who have talked about anxiety attacks, and not just once, but too many times. And that's not what I'm going to be talking about today. If you do have that, do what Joe did. If you go to the emergency room or you see your doctor, see some medical help, because they can help you. Just take my word for it. There's definitely things that your medical professions can help you with. So that's not. I'm not going to go to that level.

I do want to say something about that, though, about anxiety attacks, if I could. I know that this episode isn't about anxiety attacks, but speaking to my experience previous to that, I was always one of suck it up, buttercup. I didn't understand anxiety and anxiety attacks, dude, they're real. If this indeed was an anxiety attack, I'm telling you, I had zero control over it in the moment.

Yes.

Now I can look back and look at some indicators and say, okay, I think something funky is about to come on here and. And do something about it. But in the moment, I had zero control over it.

Yeah, that's a great way to describe, as others have described it to me. I've not had, I don't think an anxiety attack like that. It's very physical and you do not have control over it. And that's not what I'm going to be talking about. I'm talking about just this constant fear that just is on too long.

Yeah. An underlying worry in your life. Yeah, correct.

I've experienced it primarily, Joe. I've noticed on Sunday nights, and I think that's really important for Me to say that out loud to the night before going to work. Whatever. I think it's because I'm not doing any action. I've been relaxing all day Sunday and I've let my mind. Or even as this is going to be more of a faith based episode, it is going to be a faith based. It's the devil attacking me. I truly believe that he's found a vulnerable moment in my week to. And he loves that tool against us.

Yeah, he does. If you're a person of faith and believe that there is real good out there and real evil out there, this is the evil part of that unknown spirituality attacking us. I do believe that there is, there is the devil out there or whatever we want to call this thing.

Yeah.

And there are, there's a. There's an experience that we're not experiencing out there and we can go into the whole spiritual realm at some point if we want. It's not terribly practical and actionable, but yeah, when you say the devil, I know exactly what you mean, dude.

Keep that in mind. Yeah, I know. Joe, you love studies and I want to do a little definition of anxiety. I think I'm being Mr. Obvious here. We've got a real pandemic of anxiety in our country. I think we're more so than any other country. The US suffers from anxiety, especially in our youth. Anxiety and fear are cousins, but they're not twins. Fear sees a threat. Anxiety imagines one. Fear screams, get out. Anxiety ponders, what if it's this constant fight or flight feeling and you alluded to that already. Let me give you a couple surveys. The World Mental Health Survey According to the 2002 World Mental Health Survey, Americans are significantly more likely to experience anxiety compared to people of other countries. About one in three Americans can expect to suffer from anxiety at some point in their lives. The Gallup World Emotions Report 2019 Gallup World Emotions Report indicated that the US leads the world in stress levels. The report showed that 55% of Americans experience stress, which is significantly higher than the global average. I don't like these reports, Jeff. I love our country, but these things worry me. The American Psychology Association Stress in America surveys constantly reveal high levels of stress and anxiety among Americans. The 2024 survey highlighted that political turmoil, economic concerns, the societal issues are major sources of stress for many Americans. The average child today exhibits the same level of anxiety as the average psychiatric patient in the 1950s. That was from Max's book. The others I pulled from research. Joe, you travel into Europe. What are your thoughts on Those studies.

I think that the more prosperous nations have higher levels of anxiety. And I have no basis to say this other than observation and reading and so forth. But what it feels like to me is we are built to have some friction in our life. It's a part of who we are. I think it's a. I think it's a healthy part of who we are. The problem is we don't have real friction in our life. We don't have real worries. Right. We're not worried about a. Some animal attacking us in our sleep in our hut. We're not worried about starvation. We're not worried about children, our children dying of dysentery. You know what I mean?

I'll give you another one, Joe. I think our resilience is not that good. And my in laws came from World War II torn Europe. My father in law fought in the war on the other side. It's a whole long story. He immigrated to America and met my mother in law. Talked about stories of starvation in Germany after the war. Stealing potatoes from the field so they could survive. That was a horrible time. The reconstruction and rebuilding of Germany and all that goes into that. I like watching a lot of YouTube videos of the greatest generation. Let me tell you, you've been through that. This, that we go through is no problem at all, right? That's the sense I got from them. They were seen to be always calm.

I think this anxiety, and I'm sure there's some research to this, but I think this anxiety that we're experiencing is natural. To worry about things, to be concerned about things. I think we, we have to have that in our life as a part of the human existence. But we are so prosperous and that we almost. Our mind finds things to be anxious about and so we, we bake this stuff up in our head that we're worried about. Gosh, when you compare even as, as recent as World War II and World War II in our. In, in history is just a blink of an eye. It was just happened yesterday in history. More. It just happened a couple hours ago. Right? We don't know anxiety, man. But here's the problem. I say that on one hand, but on the other hand the feelings that we're having are real, dude. The emotion, the physical reaction, the incessant questioning ourselves, that's all real. And I'm glad you're talking about it because we need to.

Yeah, because you can make it better. You could do better. And I'm going to give you a couple of strategies from this book that I read again, mostly faith based. And so my goal today is that you have less fret and more faith. I want you to increase your faith so you don't have to fret so much. Remember, we talked about calm? That's a prayer strategy, and it's throughout this book and it's where I found this strategy. Celebrate God's goodness, ask God for help, leave your concerns with him, and meditate on good things. So that's going to be prevalent through this. Who's in control, Joe? That's a question I already brought through my intro story. Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I say rejoice. That's Paul from Philippians. That's his prescription for anxiety. And it begins with a call to rejoice. The Bible says God is in control. And that was something that I learned probably through going to church during that time. Like I said in my story, this is something that really helped me because you feel a lack of control, and that is really something that is giving you anxiety.

This is a good point, Kirk. And regardless of where somebody falls in their faith, and I say this a lot, clearly this is. We are both people of faith. But if you look at it on the inverse, I believe that God is in control, although I don't act like it most of the time. Even if you don't have that foundation to realize that most things are out of your control, whoever has control, we'll leave that up for discussion. Right. But most things are really out of your control. So why worry about it? Why be anxious about it? And I'm not. I hope you understand what I'm saying with that, Kurt. That we worry about things that either we have no control over and we think we have control over, and we. If we think we have control over it, then we try to control it. And when we fail in controlling it, it just makes us more anxious because we think we need to do better or whatever it might be. And then we eventually give up and we think. And then depression sets in and all that other junk that that comes with it. But I, I'm glad you said that, Kurt, because most of the things that we're anxious about, we have no control over.

Yeah. And I'll give you this again, this specific example. When I knew my company was beginning to lay off people and was in a serious economic problem, without getting to a lot of details, it was quite well known. We knew, we were talking about it. It was a tough economy. They were outsourcing a lot of IT software. That's all the bad things that were creating tremendous anxiety to me. But I. Then I started thinking and maybe this. I really. I'm not really bad at authority. Bothers me. People in authority. And anyways, my. Not my manager, but my manager called me into the cafeteria and sat me down and said, they're coming for you. Just like that. Right after this. Because our headquarters were in Charlotte, North Carolina, and they were flying up to give us, give a large group of us our walk in papers. But by that time, Joe, I had already made the decision to do something about it. Again, my faith was getting me through. And when they said, they're coming for you, if you think about that, who are they?

Right?

Are they really in control? I mean, if you sit down and change the script and flip the script, I have skills. I know people. I had already started networking and doing some things, and I think taking action, I think I'd leave with you is probably the best thing you can do. But I also had this faith, you know, you're not in control. I report to someone higher than you. Someone else owns me and it's not the company.

And that's the beauty of faith, right, Kurt? That's the beauty of having faith. And I do want to leave this invitation out to as this seems like a good moment for that. If you're not necessarily a person of faith, we talk a lot about faith on this show. If you're not necessarily a person of faith, but you're curious about it, reach out to us. I'd be happy to talk to you about what this faith thing is and how really practical and logical and reasonable it is to be a person of faith. And I'm just going to leave that right there.

And even the other parts that I'm talking about that aren't faith based, don't you have skills that other companies would benefit from? Don't you think of all the world out there that you could rebound and maybe even do better than you have. You have an opportunity to rethink things so you can definitely turn the script.

I want to tell you a little funny scenario, and I'm not going to be specific, but you'll understand what I mean. Have you ever had a time where you were really anxious about something and you started planning in your head about how you're going to address a situation that might happen, how you're going to. How your life is going to change and the movements you're going to have to make and the changes you're going to have to make? And hey, if this thing does happen to you, this is how you're going to, this is how you're going to respond and this is how you're going to pivot or whatever it is. And you make up this whole scenario in your head almost like you're ready for it. Okay, I've made up this whole scenario almost like I said, you're ready for it, and then it doesn't happen. And there's a little twinge of disappointment like, oh, I had already lived this whole different life based on this thing that I was worried about.

I was starting to get used to this new path I was going down. Well, you're weird, Joe. I know. You do these weird things. That's funny, I like that one. I don't know that I've gone that.

Far, but yeah, it all happens in a matter of minutes, right? It all happens in a matter of, in your mind. You're cranking this stuff out.

I dreamed this great, you know, this.

Outcome, how you're going to respond to this disaster in your life and you're feeling now you're feeling at peace about it and that disaster doesn't happen. And now you got to give up this whole life that you've lived in the past five minutes.

Here's some strategies. Get excited for God's mercy. If you've got guilt, this is just going to turn you into a miserable, weary, angry, stressed out, fretful mess. Guilt sucks the life out of our souls, but God's grace restores it. The Apostle Paul clung to this grace. We've talked about Apostle Paul. Talk about somebody who could have some guilt, who was persecuting Christians, even killed to the point in jailing and killing them. Had a hundred percent turnaround. But to some degree he believed in God's sovereignty. He relied on God's mercy to get through all the amazing work that he did taking Christianity to the Romans in Rome. But he gave his guilt to Jesus, period. He didn't numb it. He didn't hide it, deny it, offset it, or punish it. He simply surrendered it to Jesus. Not so important that these other strategies, numbing it, hiding it, denying it, offset, those are all damaging to you. They're. They're only going to end up in, in bad places. Take my word for it. You already know that. He, he ended up writing, I am still not all I should be, but I am bringing all my energies to bear on this one thing. Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead. I strained the reach the end of the race and receive the prize for which God is calling us up to Heaven because of what Christ Jesus did for us. So could you surrender your guilt to Jesus? He's never denied anyone who asks him. Seriously? Yeah.

That can be a tough proposition. Because I think we like our control, Kurt, even if it affects us negatively, because we. It's a known entity. Right?

Yeah.

If we just decide to say, okay, Jesus, I'm giving this to you, and you completely let go, I think I'll speak for myself sometimes I'm worried, interestingly enough, about what Jesus is going to do with it.

Right.

What if he doesn't respond the way I think he wants me to respond? What if he doesn't respond the way I want him to respond? Right.

Yeah. I'm not sure I want that. I don't like that answer.

This is a funny thing about faith and giving your life to. To. To Christ and surrendering in that way. And this is a true feeling I would have, gosh, what if God wants me to sell. What if God wants me to sell everything and move to the Congo and help those people down there? And I'm like, oh, boy, I'm not sure I want to give this one up to God.

Maybe take half of his advice and sell everything.

But, yeah, I've done that. But the truth is he is genuinely in control. And whether we like it or not, when we surrender to him, we're not giving up our. We're not necessarily giving it up to Him. What we're doing is we're acknowledging that he's in control. And with that acknowledgment does come a sense of peace.

The point Max says to let's ask Jesus first. There's a great story he talks about in the Bible. I know you're familiar with it. And did any of the disciples pause long enough to think, well, Jesus healed the sick, raised the dead girl, and calmed the angry waves. I wonder, might he have a solution we have not seen? And he's talking about all the crowds that are not fed. They're stressing all about this, Right? And after all, Jesus is standing right there. Why don't we ask him instead of. Did it occur to anyone to ask Jesus for help? The stunning answer is no. They acted as if Jesus weren't even present. Rather than count on Christ, they had the audacity to tell the Creator of the world that nothing could be done because there was not enough money. And how did Jesus maintain his composure? Have you not been paying attention, guys? How did he keep from looking at the disciples and saying, have you forgotten who I am? Do you know I Guess you don't really know who I am, do you?

This is interesting too, because the physical needs and this. There's honor here, right? Think about what these guys are worried about. These guys aren't necessarily worried about their own food. They're worried about how are they going to feed all these people. So there's honor there.

Yeah.

But it's a physical need that's blinding their own sensibilities. And it's such an acute physical need that they don't take a breath and think, hey, we have the answer right here in front of us.

Yeah. So it gives me some comfort to know the disciples who lived with him during this time. Again, this is deep into the ministry, and yet still they didn't get it. They didn't get it till the very end, till they saw him resurrected, which is. We go. Are you really. Are you kidding me? It was quite obvious, wasn't it? But yet, aren't we the same? We're not any better.

Yeah. And even Thomas, when he saw him, still didn't believe it. Right. Until he had to stick his finger in the holes of his hand.

Exactly. Here's something. Be specific. A specific prayer is a serious prayer. Don't be wishy washy. Specific prayer is an opportunity for us to see God at work. It creates a lighter load. Lord, please give me the words, the energy, the confidence in my big meeting today. I bet you've done this before, Joe. You get a lot of anxious thoughts speaking in front of a crowd. I've done this. I used to have really debilitating anxiety doing a speech. I did some toastmasters, which really helped. But I did this, and this is very calming again, that morning routine and spending some time saying, hey, I've got this big thing, this big meeting today. I'm doing the speech today. I'm really nervous. Can help. Can you help me with the words? Can you just help me be calm and present this the way that I really want to. To be entertaining, maybe to be interesting, capture their attention for a little while and really feel like walk away. Like I did a good job. So be specific if you. Can you think of a specific prayer like that, Joe?

Yeah, this is a. This is timely for me because I give. I have a bit of a presentation that I have to give almost immediately after our session here for work, where I'm asking for a resource over in Europe to address some needs. And this resource isn't necessarily in the budget. And my specific prayer, really, Kurt, is for me to articulate clearly the need, because I know it in my head. And for them to. And for them to open their minds and see the need. And that's okay. Sometimes we forget that we can pray for these things, pray for these practical matters in our life. Calm the anxiety, calm the. Calm the nervousness. And God, help me, help me with the words, Help me articulate myself and open up their heart to this situation. And if it doesn't, if it doesn't go the way I want it to go, I trust that there's a meaning behind that, that there's a reason behind that. And I trust that your direction, although it's unknown, is still the best direction.

Yeah. Maybe you have to take a different approach.

Right.

May not work that first time. Focus more on what you do have and less on what you don't. Does your happiness really depend on what you drive? Where? Deposit in your bank account? Spray on if so, you have entered the rat race called materialism.

This is interesting about materialism. And you talk about cars. This was several years ago. Do you remember the giant size SUV boom where everybody was buying these big Expeditions and these giant size SUVs.

Don't they still.

They might. And I remember being in a car dealership looking at a car and overhearing a conversation between a husband and a wife where this, this woman wanted to buy one of these huge SUVs. And they're going back and forth, very expensive. And the tone of the conversation was the husband is saying, I don't think that we can afford this. And this woman was visibly anxious and visibly nervous about not getting this car because she felt that how is she going to drive around with her and her kids without all this car around her? To her, she had convinced herself that it's a safety issue, that she has to spend $80,000 for this huge SUV as a safety issue. And she had herself convinced that. Now, how did, how did we ever survive?

No seatbelts.

Yeah.

Back of the truck.

Back of the truck with no seat belts. I don't know. My, my parents. There was a car called a Duster. And I can't remember who manufactured the Dodge Duster. And they had a metal. They had a metal. I remember it had a metal dashboard. But this is an anxiety, a materialistic anxiety where this person had convinced herself that it was a safety issue. And she genuinely was visibly and physically anxious about this to the point where, to the point where she was. Her voice was elevated. She's yelling at her husband. She had to have this huge SUV as a safety concern.

Yeah, I get that example. That makes. Yeah, it's definitely. I could see that happening for sure.

And it's manufactured.

$80,000.

I'm not making a judgment issue on her because she. Her feelings were real, but it's manufactured. And we do that so much, especially with material things. We think we have to have this thing in order to survive when we need very little.

For sure.

Very little.

This chapter on peace. I love this word peace. I think I learned it in church first. Isn't that what the goal is? Peace? I feel so much. If I was gonna have my word for the year, this would be a good one. It's not too late to pick your word for the year or your theme for the year. Paul's answer to that question is profound and concise. Peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. That was said every Sunday at church as we left the church. I don't know about yours, Joe, but that was. I recognized that from the Bible immediately. That's from Philippians, chapter four. This kind of peace is not a human achievement. It is a gift from above. Peace, I leave with you. My peace I give you. I do not give you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. That is Jesus speaking in John 14. What if when I was in fear of losing my job, my attitude was that I don't work for this employer, I work for God. So you have no power over me, man. That is so empowering. I did that. I was almost like laughing at the guy saying this to me. I was so confident in this. It's more likely God has a better place for me somewhere else, which was true. I've been at the same job ever since that 2003. Let go. Matter of fact, I never really left. I got a job before I got my. Within two weeks of getting my papers to leave. What if you're in a storm of your own making? God told you that the borrower is a slave to the lender, but you took on the dangerous debt. He told you to cherish your spouse and nourish your kids, but you cherish your career and nourished your vices. He cautioned you about the wrong crowd and the strong drink and the long hours, but you did not listen. That was some tough medicine to hear, but there's a lot of truth in that. You gotta understand. He corrects the ones that he loves, and he loves you. So stand corrected. Confess your sin and resolve to do better. Be wiser next time.

To me, this is the worst Kind of anxiety. The worst kind of anxiety when I'm in a situation that. Where I've made a boneheaded move, I made a boneheaded decision, I've. Or I've hurt somebody that I love or disappointed somebody that I love by my own actions. This is the worst kind of anxiety because you start to live in your past decisions and you replay those and you ruminate over those. You, meaning me, over those. And it brings on its own level of anxiety for things that now you're anxious about things you did that you have literally have zero control over because they're already done. And when you clearly knew, you probably clearly knew the right path, and for some reason, you just didn't go down that path. And this is the worst kind of anxiety for me. When you live in the past and you ruminate on the things that could have been that you genuinely could have done something about in the moment, and you didn't.

Yeah. The good news is you can confess and resolve to do better. He is gracious and he will. And I love this part of this chapter where he said, heaven has helpers to help you. I don't think about this a lot, but on some of the television shows, I like Saint. I like the stories about angels are spirits who serve God and are sent to help those who will receive salvation. That's from Hebrews, talks about angels. When you give your life to Jesus, he's. He took responsibility for you. He guarantees your safe arrival into his port. You are his sheep and he is your shepherd. Yeah, I like the idea of angels, too.

Yeah. That again, this is a subject that we could go down on. What are angels? And so forth. But to lean back a little bit on. On confession. Right. I think there are two things that if you learn to master these things, your life would be so much better. Your relationships would be better. Your focus would be better. The things that you're doing would be more important. You'd be doing those important things. The first thing is to learn to say no. Learn to say no to the things that aren't. That aren't important to your life right now. We've talked a lot about that in this show. I think we did a whole episode on saying no. To have. Figure out creative ways to say no. But this next one, figure out creative ways to say, I'm sorry, to apologize for those people that. To those people that you've hurt, to those people that you miss their expectations that you've. If you can be. Get beyond your own ego, get beyond your own pride. And learn to say I'm sorry. Now, there's many ways to say I'm sorry. And, dude, I've come up with some really creative ways to eat some humble pie. But if you can figure out a way to say I'm sorry to those people that you hurt, even to God. All right.

Yeah.

That's what confession is about. Acknowledging that you screwed up and you are genuinely remorseful for any harm that you may have done.

Do not be anxious about anything. But in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your request to God. Hey, I can give you some great news, Joe. You can pick what you ponder. You can choose what you think about. So your challenge is the way you think about your challenge. Your problem is not your problem. It's the way you look at it. Again, my scenario I talked about losing a job is one of the most anxious things that can happen in your life. But you can switch that script. You have that ability. And we talked about the Devil. The Devil is to hope what termites are to an oak. He'll chew you up from the inside. He will lead you to a sunless place and leave you there. He seeks to convince you this world has no window, no possibility of light. Exaggerated, overstated, inflated, irrational thoughts are the devil's specialty. So think about what you think about. Can you switch it around? Can you turn it around in the opposite direction? I bet you can.

I bet you can, too, Kurt. And to be clear, so people don't start beating themselves up, you can't necessarily do anything to the thought that comes into your head. But you can do something about what you do with it. You can decide what you do with it. You can decide whether you're going to let yourself ponder on it and dwell on it, obsess over it. You can decide what you do with that thought. We have. Thoughts come through our head all the time. Good thoughts, bad thoughts, weird thoughts we can't necessarily control. However that thought got there, right, it's there. We can control what we do with it. We can say, nope, that's not who I am. That's not who God made me to be. God, this is. I'm gonna. I'm just giving this one to you because that's screwed up.

I'm gonna leave you this, Joe. This came from my morning devotion this morning. Let's not limit our prayers to the things of this world. Instead, let's reach out with open hearts and open hands to ask for true treasures. A freedom from worry and fear, a greater trust in him, and a peace that far exceeds our understanding. Let's dare to ask and to believe he will answer. That's my prayer for you today, Joe. And some strategies on beating anxiety.

Awesome. This was good. Kurt. Anxiety is something that we need to talk about more. If you can't talk about it publicly, talk about it with your loved ones. If you're feeling anxiety. This is a really good if in your personal faith. Max Lucado's book is a really good book to start, and it's a pretty simple, easy read. So I'd invite you to. To pick up this book and at very minimum, talk to somebody about it. Talk to somebody about it. This was a good. This was a good show, man. I appreciate you bringing this up, dude.

Thanks, pal. And, you know, I think you should use another strategy. Think about your wins for the week. Did you have a win for the week, Joe?

Oh, that's a great transition, man. Perfect segue. I did have a win for the week. I updated our website, dudesinprogress.com to a very simplified version. That's that cross my fingers, I hope is much easier to manage. We have all of our episodes updated. You can listen there right from the website if you want to. But now you. There are. There are show notes there, the stuff that's always been there. Where is the stuff on how you can listen to the show and so forth. And there's one contact page that we have to work on. But if you. If you want to listen to today's episode or any previous episode, you can just go to dudesinprogress.com and within those episodes are all. Are all the show notes that we. That we have. So there we go.

First time hearing of it. I'm very excited to go check it out.

Yeah, it's nothing exciting. It's a very simplified version.

I like that, though. I like simple.

Yeah, me too. Me too.

Fantastic.

How about your win?

My dog Sawyer had a knee surgery and it went well this week.

Perfect.

Talk about causing some anxiety. And I was really concerned about this because he's such a playful, active, big dog and he's got to take it easy for a couple months and we got to tackle his rehab coming forward, but he's doing really well so far. Very thankful for that. I can't wait for the spring when he can walk pain free and without a limp and. Yeah, so really excited. We have a really good vet here. Boy, it was crowded. He must have a great reputation because it was tough getting in and out of there even early in the morning. They are good. But I'm thankful. I'm thankful for great medical help, whether it's for my own family, myself, the humans, or even my animals.

Pets are important to us, man. And we talk about anxiety. And when, even when our pets are in pain or discomfort or there's something going on, we have some anxiety about that. And so I'm glad Sawyer's okay. That's awesome.

I did hear something like that. Something about they improve your loneliness, like 40%, especially in elderly having a pet. Don't quote me on that. But yeah, you get the spirit of it.

Yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely. What's your resource tip or hack this week?

So my resource is something that I just found out about, and I found out about it from an email at Amazon on Amazon. My resource is something that I just found out about it from an email from Amazon. I'm an Amazon Music subscriber. I have the very basic program where you can listen to it on one device where you have access to billions of songs, apparently. And of very few songs have I not been able to find on Amazon Music. But I found out that if you're an Amazon Music subscriber, you also get one free Audible book a month to download.

I did not know. That's fantastic.

Yeah. And I've tried it for the past couple months and I've got a couple free audiobooks from it. And I was. Last year I canceled it. But last year I was a subscriber to Audible, where you got one free Audible book a month to download, and that cost $15 a month.

Wow.

And Amazon Music is not 15amonth. So I don't know. I don't know what the hitch is here or what it is. Maybe it's because I'm both an Amazon Music subscriber and I'm an Amazon prime member that I get. I get it. I don't know. But what I do know is if you're an Amazon Music subscriber, check it out, because chances are you're going to get one free Audible book a month, which is pretty cool. Man.

That is really tempting. I'm a Spotify user. We have. I don't pay it. My wife's paying it, or as a family subscription. So it's not coming out of my fun money anymore like it did at one point. Yeah, I like that. That's fantastic.

How about yours?

Speaking of music? I really find music to be healing for me. Interesting. There's a whole genre called the blues. Why would you want to listen to the blues?

Yeah. Interesting.

Boy.

But it. If you listen to the blues and you let yourself feel it. It's some good stuff, man.

I was thinking of that. Should I listen to this kind of music? Does it really make me feel better? I think this song and this artist. I really like this artist. I found him perusing a website about new music and this particular album, I think it was called Southeastern. Pretty acoustic. He's an artist that was part of a band you've maybe never heard of called the Drive By Truckers. But he's been a solo artist for many years now. Jason Isbell is his name and he has a song called Anxiety. Huh. And it hits hard. He's got great lyrics in his songs. Part of the song says anxiety. How do you always get the best of me? I'm out here living in a fantasy. I can't enjoy a goddamn thing. And there's another part that says, I'm. I'm wide awake and I'm in pain. And that hit home too, because, Joe, you talked about that anxiety attack. It is pretty descriptive of what that really is. I found this song to be comforting in some way.

Definitely. That's a heck of a quote right there, man. Because it's raw.

Yeah.

And it's real. And if we really let ourselves think about it, we have been there. Right?

Yeah.

We can't enjoy a thing. Wide awake and in pain.

And how.

The question is, how are. How am I letting. I love how he says this. How do you always get the best of me? It's like we're just being overwhelmed. We're being attacked. We're being bullied by this anxiety. Right, Right. Good stuff, man. I'll definitely check that song out. I think I've heard it. I think I've.

On your Amazon subscription.

Yeah.

I. I check out that song. It's pretty raw. I like your description of that. His lyrics can be hard hitting.

Yeah.

I really, I do. He's a great lyricist.

Well, that's what art is about sometime. The beauty and the pain. Right?

Yeah. He's. I would call. I think they probably put him in the genre of country alternative music, but I don't know. What does that really mean?

I'll check out Jason Isbel.

Isbel.

No doubt.

How about your quote for the week?

My quote comes from one of my favorite quotables. One of my favorite quotable people, I.e. none other than Winston Churchill. This guy just has a way with words and that's why he was such a great leader. He has a way with words. He has a way with being very succinct and to the point and a really great communicator. When I look back at all these worries, I remember the story of the old man who said on his deathbed that he had a lot of trouble in his life, most of which never happened. Winston Churchill.

Oh, we love Winston.

Isn't that so true?

Oh my gosh. Yeah, I was gonna say. I know I've. I could have went to this. There's another quote that comes from someone else is really famous. I can't think of it right now. But yeah, we've talked about this for sure. How many things have you worried about that never came true? I don't know if I remember Winston Churchill saying this, so. I love you bringing this to me. Hey, I was thinking of you. I wanted. Before we get off too, I wanted to mention. I don't know if you saw on the History Channel, if you get. Can get the History Channel, but there's a couple of parts. Thomas Jefferson biography or story. Yeah. Deep look into Thomas Jefferson, which is.

Wow.

Talk about raw.

Oh yeah.

Yeah. So many things I didn't know about him, which you probably know.

Yeah. Some things you don't want to know about him.

So some of his writings were a little uncomfortable for us today. But you definitely gotta look into the.

Look at history from the perspective of the time. I just, I always wonder. We're not. We don't have to get deep into this. But I always wonder 50 years from now, what am I doing right now or what is my mindset right now that people will look back and say how could they have thought that?

Yeah. I think this. The historians that are talking in here, I think they do mention that too.

Yeah.

Don't be too. Don't be too harsh on them.

Right.

But. Right. They had their founding fathers, had their fail felties too. But they also did some pretty amazing things. Talks about how they were getting information about democracies and republics and the analysis that went into the creation of our constitution and those kinds of things which were pretty amazing.

One of my favorite podcasts, Good and.

The Bad is in there.

One of my favorite podcasts was called the Thomas Jefferson Hour.

Yeah.

And it was by. Hosted by Clay Jenkinson. He's gen. He since has changed it with less focus on Thomas Jefferson and I think he's called it speaking with America or something like that.

Okay.

But he really does a deep dive into Jefferson and how Jefferson would relate to today's issues. And every once in a while he would show up as Thomas Jefferson. Yeah. It's very interesting. I don't know how we went off on this tangent, I just wanted to tell you that I'm a Jefferson. I'm a, I'm definitely a Thomas Jefferson fan.

And what he does. If you check that out on the History Channel that I just saw this week, I will. Could have been my resource for the week.

What's your quote?

Nothing diminishes anxiety faster than action. Walter Anderson. And I want to leave that with you. We didn't talk a lot about that, but I said it a little bit when I was trying to tackle. And I give this advice to my kids all the time when they're anxious about their career, their job. My son, we talked about this. He did this. He was feeling really anxious about his job. He was on the phones with nasty clients, claimants beating him up every. And he, it got to him. Nice. And just take some. Here's some. Here's a strategy. Let's make a plan. Let's. An action plan. Let's take action on this. And that has always made me feel better, definitely.

And I do. We've talked a lot about taking action. And I don't want to miss this because we, I guess we could have talked about it a little bit more. One of the best ways to get over anxiety is to just take action, just to move towards something. What is it that, that, that book that you like so much, Pick the least suckiest thing and move forward.

Come up with a couple strategies. Plans, three or four strategies. Three things. Actions you could take. Do a little something right. The infant sucks. Even if you don't have much faith in it.

I agree. Nothing diminishes anxiety faster than action. And I could not agree more with that.

Take us home.

Our website, our updated website. Dudesinprogress.com dudesinprogress.com there you can listen to all of our episodes. Now there are our show notes with the resources and stuff that we talk about in every show. @dudesinprogress.com you can reach out to us and find out about what we do here on this show. If you want to email us and talk about the show, talk about subjects that you want to hear, we'd certainly love to hear from you. DudeDudesInProgress is our email address. DudeDudesInProgress.com is our email address. Remember, if you're anxious about something like we just said, take action, make some kind of progress. Don't be anxious about being perfect, that you'll get caught in that loop and it'll be an absolute disaster for you. One step at a time. Because progress is better than perfection. As long as we keep moving forward, we'll be okay.

Yeah. I hope this was helpful for you, for me and for anyone listening.

It was for me. Thanks, pal. Talk to you soon.

It.