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Christian Help for Anxiety and DepressionChristian Help for Anxiety and Depression Welcome to this website. We wish you every help in the serious life-damaging matter of your depression and anxiety. At the end of this discussion, we will share a few insights about where to get support that is both convenient and inexpensive, and highly effective. Depression can be the poison in your soul, and you can overcome it. You have a life after this and we want to get you past this obstacle to that new beginning that lies ahead. Let us begin by saying that God never intends for our state of defeat to be permanent. What he intends for us is to teach us something about ourselves. Depression or anxieties can arise from several different sources. At the basic level, it can arise out of a chemical imbalance in the brain; in which case we can be easily remedy it with medication. The problem however, is that a depletion of the chemistry of the brain can arise from emotionally caused sources, as in the case of abuse or neglect in childhood. In that case, taking medication may work for a while, but will only cover the symptoms temporarily. Extreme depression can cause the imbalance of brain chemistry as well as the imbalance of brain chemistry can cause depression. The two conditions go hand in hand. Christian help for anxiety and depression dictates we must consider nutritional factors as well. If we feel low in spirits, the natural thing for us to do is to be neglectful of such things as sleep, exercise, nutrition, and the proper amount of social support we need. This in turn adds to the emotional imbalance. For starters, the brain consumes many B vitamins. A scarcity of B vitamins and Iron among other chemicals necessary may produce a depressed or anxious hyper-vigilant state, where no rest or trust in life is possible. This greatly increases the fatigue and lowers the threshold for anger triggers. What we want to guard against here is to look at the state of depression or anxiety as only an unconfessed state of sin. People can feel guilty, shamed, and unworthy for reasons other than unconfessed sin before God. People can have a heavy heart and feel very ashamed for no apparent reason whatsoever. Feeling unloved and unlovable among a congregation of believers is hard to explain. For someone in this condition, being alone is the most comfortable state, because feeling unworthy to be in church, and should not be confused with any state of backslidden moral decline in his or her absence from the congregation. These persons want to participate, and they want to be happy, but for them happiness and enthusiasm are temporarily impossible. Christian help for anxiety and depression may not mean addressing a moral matter; it may also mean addressing a medical matter or an emotional matter. In the case of unresolved emotional issues from our past, the need is for therapeutic measures. Some of these measures of changing perspective appear to be counter to Christian principles. Christian help for anxiety and depression means to put your self ahead of God and all others in your world. While this sounds satanic, it is actually necessary to develop a healthy sense of personal boundaries, where no such natural sense of boundaries exists. While God is supremely important in the overall world, in our personal world we should come first. Depression can arise from someone not embracing fully their permission to ‘defend their own air space’ as we call it. Feeling violated and not having the right to defend your own soul space with boundaries brings on depression directly as a result. The outside behavior is of a wonderful obedient child, submissive wife or other supportive role acted out in model fashion. However underneath they have turned their anger inward, compounded by guilt for feeling angry because of the sexual or verbal violation someone has put upon them. The next therapy difference (seemingly) from Christianity is the embracing of your right to have your own feelings. We call this the ‘justified agenda,’ which means ‘hating the thing that hurt you.’ Christianity does not allow hate in any form, and they embrace passivity with zeal. However, in the emotional functioning of human beings, hating things that hurt you is a healthy function of a balanced and robust psyche. We can simply confess and receive forgiveness for spiritual matters, like robbing a bank or flying an airplane into a building, but emotional matters need the opposite treatment. In such cases, you cannot simply put it behind you and forget it. That may be exactly what they have done up unto this point. In therapy ‘the only way out is through.’ What we mean by that is that they need to go back and process all the past pain and suffering of the bad that happened to them, and feel all the anger that it has caused them, so they can get it out of their system. This is just an overview of some of the tools therapists use to lead clients back to an empowered state of mind. What the depressed person needs to understand is that they can be selfish and embrace their own significance, as we call it. For most of us, anger is a problem and a sin that we need to confess to God. For most of us, selfishness is a problem and a sin that we need to confess to God. Surprisingly persons that experience depression as well as states of anxiety have exactly the opposite problem. They usually demonstrate a pronounced weakness of self, not knowing where the world ends and they begin. Sexual violations in childhood produce this kind of perspective, which makes them in fact ‘too Christian.’ For them feeling anger is impossible because they have turned it all inward upon themselves. When we talk about Christian help for anxiety and depression, we need to look at the religious community, as it exists today. The world today is getting smaller and as a result, it is getting more competitive. This is not just true for businesses as they compete for employees and customers, but for churches as well. What that has meant in the last twenty years is that all churches have had to adapt to remain competitive with other churches in their ministries. Divorce, alcoholism, prison sentences, affairs, bankruptcy, and a host of other maladies that have plagued humankind were once reasons to ban a churchgoer from membership due to immorality. Those days are gone. If you live in any size of a city at all with more than several churches, there will be competition for you, its member. What that means to you is that churches have had to alter their ministries to include all the needs of the community, where before they banned them as immoral. If any one church banned all the divorced, affaired, bankrupt, and prior imprisoned persons from attendance, they would not have a congregation, and would be out of business very quickly. Perceptive churches now wisely see such maladies of life in their proper perspective, and that is as emotional growth needs of the individual. Churches now have very specific ministries addressing sex offenders, divorce recovery, alcohol, depression, and anxiety help groups. The first step would be to seek out the resources with your present, or the nearest local church. There are many reasons for this. Of all the options of therapy, church help groups are of like-minded faith. If you go to a therapist, or to group counseling, the other members may not be Christian. While that may be a plus to you, it may be just as important to you to receive counseling and sharing among believers. If you belong to a church, inquire as to the help ministries that your church offers. There may be a depression or anxiety group meeting weekly in your church now. Sometimes churches do not publicize all their help ministries. That may be for reasons of confidentiality of the participants, like a sex offenders group, or it may be to keep the non-dedicated participants from dropping in out of curiosity. Bring your needs before your pastor, if there is not a help group currently meeting, perhaps the pastor will see the need is great enough in the congregation to start one. Your pastor may assign an assistant, or even an experienced nonprofessional to chair the meetings. Remember, the healing dynamic is one of mutual comforting and sharing of ones painful past in an understanding and safe environment. Christian help for anxiety and depression means talking about what is bothering you, for it is the talking and the sharing that does the healing. Another point we do not want you to miss is we said ‘nearest local church.’ The reason is the closer the church facility to your residence, the less cost in time and effort on your part to travel to the meetings on a weekly basis. That means less missed meetings and more healing. If you have to drive across town after a long day at work, that will add to the stress in your world. A church as close as possible is best in the end. God bless you as you begin your new life today. We would love to hear from you. Please tell us how you are doing in your search for answers, and to share your trials and victories with us! We answer every Email personally.
Please consider our first in series book Overcoming Depression from Emotional Abuse/Tools of your Mind. For help with any emotional abuse, self-esteem and emotional healing issues, this book has the definitive answer to your or your loved ones' difficulties. In it, we take you through your spiritual journey back home to your Original Self. We talk about God's purpose behind that soul’s journey, as we follow our heart’s dreams to our ultimate destiny. We answer many questions about selfishness, prosperity, psychotherapy, and finding our dreams and happiness. We share much about boundaries. We also talk about the spiritual controls we have within to bring our good to us. Those controls are our Sincerity Switch, Spontaneity Switch, and lastly our Feelings and Dreams Switch. Thank you for visiting! Shayne and Lori North
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