Have you ever found yourself in difficult circumstances and believing God will help you through but still feeling anxious and stressed? Have you ever noticed yourself doubting God’s promises even though you believe His word and know He is a God who keeps His promises?
Here is why you most likely feel that way and what might lead to the best solution.
Christ designed us with three interconnected parts or aspects commonly called: Mind Body and Spirit. He designed all three parts to work in harmony and result in a complete healthy unique expression of His infinite character.
When any one of those parts is out of balance with the others or functioning poorly it effects the other two.
The primary foundation for Christians to restore the proper balance and function of all three parts is our living growing friendship with Christ Himself. He designed it to fulfill the spiritual part of our being and influence the other two parts, our mind and body. I refer to this part of our being as Faith because faith is the aspect of our spirit that most clearly effects our emotions of peace, confidence, and the felt sense of relaxation IE reduced stress.
While it is clear that what we believe does influence how we feel, how we feel (mostly in our body), can also influence what we believe. For example, most of us know that generally roller coasters are safe and the statistical facts demonstrate they are. For example in 2011 people took approximately 1.7 Billion rides on roller coasters throughout America with a .00008% chance of injury or death (1). By comparison 7800 people died in vehicle accidents in 2014 which means you have over a 550% greater chance of dying in your Kia than on the Kingda Ka super roller coaster (2).
You might feel OK while waiting in line to ride Kingda Ka at Six Flags New Jersey but often when you actually get on the ride and suddenly realize you are going faster than you expected and diving, twisting and turning more than you anticipated, you start to feel fear. You might start reviewing all the news stories you have ever heard about accidents on roller coasters. You forget all you know about how safe roller coasters are and start feeling scared maybe even terrified.
Why is that? Your head knows you are safe but roller coasters (especially the big thrill ones like Leviathan – Toranto Canada) are designed to trigger your body’s feeling of fear. The sensation of free fall, the feeling of extreme speed with sudden unexpected turns and even upside down twists where you face the ground speeding up toward you at 70 + MPH. All of those physical and visual cues are designed to trigger your body into feeling as though you are in danger of dying – in a big crash. That’s the thrill. But it is basically just body sensations being triggered to such an intense level they override what you know to be true.
Our felt sense of faith works in a similar way. We can know and believe the Faith facts of God’s promises to supply all our needs, to never leave us, and protect us but when we end up in a situation that feels out of control, that mentally looks like disaster is looming ahead, we tend to forget the facts of Faith and believe the feeling sensations of impending doom that seem so very real.
This, in my opinion, is the biggest reason Christians can still be terribly anxious and stressed while at the same time believing God’s word, praying regularly, and trusting He is a God who keeps His word.
It is because of this Mind Body Faith interaction that I believe mind body methods such as Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) can be so incredibly helpful both in reducing stress and increasing your felt sense of faith. EFT essentially helps you dial down the felt sensations of danger or fear so your feelings are not so powerful they easily override the Faith facts you know to be true. When a person gets to a point of having an unshakable felt sense of God’s love, protection and blessings despite any and all circumstances then there should be no reason to feel stressed, ever. (I am still working toward that myself.)
God has been and always will be faithful, we just need to get our feelings to line up with the facts. Â Developing a felt agreement between what you know is true and what you feel is true is what Mind Body Faith is all about.
What has been your biggest struggle between what you know by faith is true and how you feel? Â What has helped you the most to develop agreement between the truth you know and the feelings you experience?
(1) http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/07/22/roller-coaster-death/2574425/
(2) http://www.livescience.com/3780-odds-dying.html#transportation
