Lessons From My Therapist with Kat Harris

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Thank you Newsstand Studio at 1 Rockefeller Plaza for providing a place for me to record this episode for y’all! No more Brooklyn closet recording!!!

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.” - Philippians 4: 6 (NIV)

If you are a regular listener, you know that I have struggled with anxiety a lot over the years. I even did a whole Mental Health May series this past year (which you can check out here). Well my anxiety has reared its head again this fall. I can sometimes resent how it takes me away from the moment at hand. My invitation to myself + to you is: What if I/you/we could learn to not resent the discomfort but lean in and trust that my body is resilient. Like Glennon Doyle says, “I can do hard things,” and I can feel uncomfortable things, pain, grief, nervousness, or anxiety and still feel safe and at home in my body.

Lessons From My Therapist

You may have heard this verse before: Philippians 4: 6 (NIV)
- “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God”
In the King James Version, it says “Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.”
Greek “careful”: to be distracted to the point of separation
What my therapist explained to me was that anxiety separates you from yourself—because it removes me from the present and gets me to obsess about the future. Out of body. Besides yourself.
The goal is to get back into yourself, back in your body.
Like with the addict: the moment to focus on isn’t necessarily the relapse, but the runway that led them there. The 10 steps before that you took that led you down a path towards anxiety.
FOR ME: not eating, well, caffeine, alone time, time with Jesus, moving my body—my body is already on high alert b/c some family stuff going on—so things that normally wouldn’t trigger me are activating anxiety—so I need to be extra kind and caring of myself.

Be careful for nothing, BUT

“But” is where the answer/help comes in. It’s an invitation to try something else. Try these 4 things:

1. Prayer:

In anxiety we’re separate from ourselves, God, and others. Prayer reconnects you with God and it INTERRUPTS your disconnection to self. Reminds me I’m not alone and it’s not all up to me.
This is an ACTIVE way to take your thoughts captive: 2 Cor. 10:15
The invitation of Jesus isn’t to BUCK UP + GET OVER IT: it’s to let go of the back breaking load: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” - Matthew 11:28-30.
The invitation of God isn’t to DO more or less of anything. isn’t to just NOT do something—whatever it is: anxiety, lie, gossip—no the invitation is to BE.
“Be still + know that I AM God.” - Psalm 46:10

2. Supplication:

Emergent prayer / emergency prayer.
AA 12 steps (very familiar to Phil 4:6)
- We admitted we were powerless over alcohol— that our lives had become unmanageable.
  - Don’t do ‘x’, BUT PRAY
- Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore our sanity
  - + SUPPLICATE: GOD HELP ME
- Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him.

3. Thanksgiving:

GK: Thanking god for things in the past + things yet to come
Fear focuses on the worst case scenario. Gratitude focuses on the reality that with God anything is possible.
Gratitude reorients my heart from focusing on doom to possibility.
Gratitude reminds me that God has shown up for me before + God will do it again.
HABAKKUK 3:2

Lord, I have heard of your fame;

I stand in awe of your deeds, Lord.

Repeat them in our day,

in our time make them known;

in wrath remember mercy.

In fear, in dread, in anxiety, in hopelessness, remember hope. Remember possibility. Remember what God did in the past and thank him for it THEN ASK HIM TO DO IT AGAIN.

4. Requests:

Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.
Emphasis on requests: a polite demand for something due to you—like when you get a reminder to pay your credit card bill. Like they ask you nicely = remind you when it’s due. But it’s not really a request; it’s a polite demand. You have to pay the bill.
Dear God, HELP. Thank you for helping me in the past + I thank you in advance because I know you’re going to help me again. That’s who you are. Now please give me peace in my body.
Then the verse that follows this 4-step formula is this: “And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
“Peace” here in the GREEK: to make one; whole, to be put back together.

BE CAREFUL FOR NOTHING.

PRAY.

ASK.

THANK.

POLITELY DEMAND.

PEACE—then you’ll go from separation back to connection—self, god + others.

I don’t know about you, but this feels like really beautiful news to me.

When I’m in a moment of fear and disconnection: pause. Invite god into the moment. Ask for help. Thank for the past and future. Politely demand! PEACE. Peace is your portion. Peace is your legacy. Even right now, I speak peace over your body, mind, soul, spirit.