John says 'perfect love casts out fear.'
Perfect love displaces fear. I think fear can displace our awareness and experience of perfect love. It cannot displace God's love, but it sure can displace our awareness of it.
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Knowing you're in anxiety's grip is actually not as easy as we think. We tend to bear down and try harder instead of pausing.
One way to notice it: you are no longer aware of God's presence and God's love.
It could be that your anxiety has displaced your awareness.
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Warning Signs:
- you start to think it is all on you/all on your shoulders.
- 'if it is to be, it is up to me.' An anxious statement if ever I heard one.
- An impending feeling of doom or hopelessness.
- Rigid thinking, either-or locked in thinking.
- double binding.
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Chronic Anxiety has a 'gospel.'
'it is on you, there is not much you can do, you are not ______ enough, YOU are not enough, there are only bad options, try harder, do more of the same.'
Recognizing Chronic Anxiety's message helps you displace it with the actual Gospel.
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Even though we have the Gospel, we often don't access it. We spend most of our time living by our false selves, not by the Gospel. I have been doing this work for decades and I still spend more time living for false self, than I do resting in my identity in Christ.
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