Spiritual Practice and Anxiety Relief

[mvillarreal]

Does anyone here have any spiritual practices that help them with anxiety and would recommend trying? What are they, and how do they help you?

[Mary-intussuception]

I'm a Christian and pray, read the Bible and sing praises /hymns regularly.

I wouldn't be able to cope without the Lord.

[Hidden]

I read positive quotes when I feel down, religious passages and pray the serenity prayer when I am struggling. Hope it helps.

[Jeff1943]

Contact a good spiritual healing centre for contact or absent healing.

[LadyO4]

The best way to get relief from anxiety is to find the root cause of it and treat that. It varies from person to person too. Someone may be anxious or depressed because of hormonal changes in their brain chemistry or someone may be feeling anxious from the pressure of unmet expectations placed on them. Until you determine what has caused the anxiety in the first place, it will be hard to recommend a solution.

Here are two approaches that go hand-in-hand:

1. Chances are, something is happening in your biochemistry, and can be corrected by a visit to a functional doctor specializing in endocrinology, who will takes some tests to determine what the problem is and how it got there. Once a person becomes educated on the human body, and how God is capable of keeping us healthy and whole, they can begin to latch on to hope and expect results.

2. The Bible says, "Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus." Philippians 4:6-7.

Isn't that a great verse!!!! God can guard your mind!!! The Bible also says that we can be transformed by the renewing of the mind! Wow! Romans 12:2.

So you can see how God protects that which He created, and He does this because He loves us. Many will come along and fabricate a plan to make lies look like the truth, but when a person is connected to God through faith, they can recognize false hope from a mile away and turn from it. Let God bless you today friend!

[Waiting4themoon]

Hi mvillareal and some of your respondents,

There is a difference between spiritual and religious. I think mvillareal was asking for spiritual practices. One of the biggest eye openers for me was the ability to detach spiritual from religion. That way any disillusionment with a religion doesn’t mean that the God that was associated with that religion needs to be discarded to. One can hold onto God without religion. God can be anything you want God to be. You choose.

My spiritual practice is mindfulness. I have found it very helpful in being able to recognise that I am not my thoughts but rather, I have thoughts.

There is tons about it on the internet.

With love,

[LadyO4 in reply to Waiting4themoon]

In all due respect - God is not who you want Him to be - He is who He says He is, just like you are who you say you are. God is a spirit, and works on behalf of His loved ones He created. This is not a debate, just a clarification. Blessings to you today.

[wantobefree]

Meditation is one of the greatest things for this. What meditation does is, helps you be aware of your constant thoughts, lets you enter into silence and gives you the possibility to connect to your spirit. You are a spiritual being living a physical experience, you are not a physical being that has a spirit. Once you actually understand this, you begin getting your power back. You begin feeling connected to all creation. You are in charge of your thoughts and therefore your actions, you are in control of your life, you have that power.

Also when you wake up every morning and before you go to sleep listen (youtube is good for this) to positive affirmations. This helps rewire your brain and change your thoughts. Contact me if you need more guidance.

Much Love to you.

[mvillarreal in reply to wantobefree]

The only thing about positive affirmations that can be difficult is that, if an affirmation really is outside of what your subconscious views as possible (for example, if I affirmed, "I AM attentive to where I have placed my keys," just as a humorous example), your brain actually resists it, and the affirmation just confirmed the negative belief because of that subconscious resistance. Is there an alternative to affirmations that avoids this pitfall?

[wantobefree in reply to mvillarreal]

The idea behind affirmations is to listen and say positive things about yourself, because the more you say and think things like this the more your brain will integrate it and believe it. It is recommended that « I am » should always be followed by something positive. Unfortunately we are used to doing the opposite and so we believe all these negative things about ourselves. If we keep up with affirmations your brain will habituate to these things you are saying and thinking about yourself. Affirmations don’t have to be specific, they can be more general. Like « I am attentive or I am focused, I am abundant,

I am generous, I am loving etc »

Hope this helps.

[mvillarreal in reply to wantobefree]

From what I hear from psychologists, though, that doesn't actually work if you don't already believe it, at least to some degree. Your brain actually resists ideas if your subconscious perceives it as outside of the metaphorical "possibility circle." Here's an article that addresses the issue: psychcentral.com/blog/why-p...

[LilyAnnepuppy]

Meditation and prayer to God as I understand Him.

[wantobefree]

I understand your point, however affirmations is not the only way. It is one practice of many that need to be integrated together. The idea is to begin changing our way of speaking about ourselves, to retrain ourselves to speak positive, to be aware of how we refer about ourselves.

Actually what psychology is telling us now is that we can change our subconscious mind. The very thought of our subconscious mind taking over our lives and leaving us powerless is exactly what We need to change. There is a lot of information out there about reprogramming the subconscious mind. The idea is not to live in autopilot but to realize that we have the power to change and control who we are. To

Realize that we are not slaves of our subconscious mind or our thoughts. There are many ways to do this, affirmations is just a small part and you don’t have to engage in this if you don’t feel comfortable. But remember that for any

Change to happen one must step out of their comfort zone. Because we form habits out of the things we say to ourselves. And then we believe we are our habits.

I will leave you with this thought from Eckhart Tolle “what a liberation to realize that the voice in my head is not who I am. Who am I then? The one who sees that”

It is a powerful exercise to begin thinking about who is the one observing your own thoughts.

Shoot me a private message and we can chat more about all this if you’d like. It is quite interesting.

Much love to you.