Anxiety and Our Youth Podcast Episodes

Because the thoughts running through my head were, my life is pointless. Everybody would be better off without me. Why am I even here? I have no purpose. And I just really was done. I didn’t really see any purpose of going on and it scared me. Welcome everyone to Breaking Bread, the podcast brought to you by Apostolic Christian Counseling and Family Services. 

Excellent as always to have you along. Today we’re going to talk about anxiety. Generation Z has been dubbed the anxious generation and any adult who has had the opportunity to walk alongside these anxious ones knows how painful it can be. And sometimes we need someone who has walked the road in both directions to provide light and insight. 

And I am super excited to have Nichole Suvar on with me to help be our guide. Nichole, welcome to the show. Thank you. It is wonderful to be here. Nichole, our audience cares more who you are than what you do. So, we’ll start there. Yeah. Okay. So, Nichole Suvar, as you already said, I am married to Paul. We live in Leo, Indiana with our three teenagers. So, we are in the middle of all of that. I grew up around the Latty area for those who want to know on a map where I originated. And we have now lived in Leo for going on over two decades. So, it really feels like home. I work at Gateway Woods. I have been there for 16 years. For 5 1/2 of those, my husband and I were house parents and then he went on to teach at a local high school here. And I have worked in the foster care and adoption department ever since then.  

I so appreciate that and as I said in my introduction, Nichole, you’re somewhat of a guide who has been in both directions with anxiety and just by what you’ve said there with teenagers in the home, you understand this space in foster care working at Gateway Woods. There’s a lot of anxiety out there and it’s so heartbreaking to see it prey on our young people. What are your thoughts on that phenomenon as it has become more prevalent, but it also has become something that has been talked about a lot more.  

So, I think there’s this careful check to make sure, is it something that everyone has because now we’re all aware of it? So now I’m like, oh, if this kid can’t figure it out, like they’re worried about everything, they must have anxiety. 

And so, I think it’s good that it’s there so that we can start identifying and talking about it for those kids and adults who actually do struggle with anxiety. But I also want to make sure that we can clearly define those things so that those people don’t fall through the cracks because if everybody has it, then it becomes so normal that those who really need clinical care are still missing it. 

Right. Does that make sense? It does make sense. And you would have insight into that, Nichole, that simply says it is possible for people to fall through the cracks. That is a possible thing and it’s a tragic thing. And I want you to share a little bit about your background because you felt like you were one of those who was falling through. 

Is that a fair statement? Yeah. I don’t know if I would have called it falling through the cracks, but it’s almost like on the opposite end as far as when I was growing up, it was not something that was discussed at all. That was not a word that people used. Just mental health in general was not really talked about. 

And my first memories of being anxious go back to third grade. Now looking back and talking through it with my counselor and working through things, I’m realizing that some of those times I was having symptoms of panic attacks. I didn’t have words for those, so when I would tell my teacher and my parents what I was feeling or that I was worried about something, those are the terms I would use. 

I was worried and I would just be told, oh, that’s not that big a deal. Oh, don’t worry about it. Because really for a third grader to be concerned about these really big things, it makes sense. I think even now we want to just be able to tell a little 10-year-old, that’s okay. You don’t have to worry about that. 

And so, if that was the only language I was told over and over that’s not a big deal. Just stop it. Don’t worry about it. And so over time, I just learned that, okay, obviously they’re calling it that big of a deal that it’s getting shut down. This must just be my problem that I need to figure out. 

And so over time, I kept a lot more of that to myself because the language kind of changed. For you to tell a little kid not to worry, you see it as if they don’t really understand things and it’s fine. Don’t worry about it. But as they get a little older and maybe in their teen years, if they start having these anxieties and worries and especially if they’re also claiming to be a Christ follower, then you start changing that language to oh, just give it to God. Are you praying enough? Are you reading your Bible? We start putting those into the language. And so, I was starting to hear more of that. 

The problem was I was giving it to God. I was constantly praying about it, and it would not go away. So, then I started deciding like, well, obviously I’m doing all the things they’re telling me to do. I’m praying about it. I’m reading my Bible. It’s not going away. This is my problem. And so, there’s this shame that started being attached to it. I can’t be a good enough Christian because throughout the Bible, you see verses that told me to cast all your cares on him. In Matthew, and in the Sermon on the Mount, do not worry about tomorrow. And so, I’m seeing all these things as a command that I could not follow. And so, I lived for many years with the thought that I just was not a good enough Christian and I needed to keep trying harder and harder.  

My head is exploding right now with things that I want to ask you. Okay, Nichole, I don’t want to interrupt your story too much here, but first a comment and then a question. My comment is when a person thinks that they must be praying incorrectly or they must not be believing fully, some other things start running right there, which is part of the collateral damage of pray more and believe harder. 

And so, I find that to be kind of a clarion call of awareness. But would you take us back to what anxiety felt like? Some people really still don’t know what you’re talking about. They know their little third grader. Yeah. Is there any sort of example that you could give? How would you best describe this as a third grader or as a seventh grader? These types of things unsettled me, and I couldn’t straighten them out. Help us feel that.  

Yeah. The memories I have would just be sitting in the classroom and my palms are really sweaty. I would feel this like buzzing feeling in my chest and it wasn’t necessarily like a heart fast heart rate. Sometimes that would come. Sometimes it just felt like there was something in the middle of my chest just vibrating and I didn’t know how to get rid of it. It would sometimes make my fingers, or my toes tingle a little bit. And so, to sit still in a chair or at a desk, it was very difficult to try to keep that contained. And so, there were times that I would just go to my teacher, and I didn’t even use words to describe that. 

I think I mostly would project it onto other worries. It’s like I’m so worried about it, and I would just start throwing things out. And so, for them, it was circumstantial. Yeah. And I think because again, I’m 10 years old and I don’t know what this feeling is, but I have all these other little worries that are in the back of my brain. 

So, it must be that these are the things that I need to talk about. So, like, I was worried about the ozone layer long before anyone was concerned. I thought for sure we were all going to die from the ozone opening up. We’re all going to burn. I was always afraid of fires and tornadoes. I remember when there was some ozone talk out there in the early nineties, late eighties. 

Yeah, I latched onto it. So yeah, that would be some of those feelings I would have. Those are kind of like the beginning of panic attack feelings. And I want to say that I don’t fault my teachers. I don’t fault my parents at all either. I believe they were just operating with what they also had for tools because there just was not a lot of discussion in the 90s when it came to this kind of stuff. 

Well and let’s just pause there a moment. I really appreciate that. You’ve helped us feel like, wow, there’s something very real here. But what we experience as a caregiver is circumstantial worry. I am worried about the ozone layer, or I am worried that somebody is going to leave me or somebody’s going to die, or I am worried about the thunderstorm or the high winds. 

It can be exasperating. They bring a logical worry. to surface, right? That the house is going to blow down. And so, you can explain logically how that doesn’t need to be a probabilistic worry, right? So, I see this lack of logic in feeling. That’s where I’m driving here. My child is exploding with feeling and best articulating with poor logic, for which I counter really well. 

But it makes no difference. I’m completely missing them. Is that real to your experience? I think it’s very key that if we have someone who struggles with anxiety, there’s something about validating what they’re feeling. And when we say, don’t worry about that or that’s not that big a deal. Or we come over with this rational explanation. We’re not validating the fact that this is still a very real experience for them. Their body is feeling this fear and so you need to validate and speak into the feeling versus just rationalizing it away. Yeah, that makes sense. And that’s the piece that I often miss as a father. 

We don’t want it to be as bad as what they feel it is. And so, we want to minimize it because we want to believe it’s minimized. Does that make sense?  So, we have competing interests here that make it very difficult to walk with an anxious person. Right. And I think validating isn’t necessarily jumping right into it and being like, yes, this is a very big deal. I think it’s more about acknowledging, okay, so you’re feeling scared about these thunderstorms. What is it that is making you scared about it? What are you afraid is going to happen? And so just allowing them to give words, to talk out loud about the feeling that’s inside. 

Because often, if we just are giving voice to what we’re saying, there’s been times when I’ve been allowed to be able to speak the anxious thing out loud. I can even start realizing that’s not a real thing. It’s about bringing it into the light. What I think it’s like when we keep it inside and it’s in the dark, it can feed. 

I think that being able to separate between being concerned about something, if you’re worried about something, if you’re anxious. Understanding that I think we all need to have concerns. That’s what keeps us safe. That’s what keeps our family safe. That’s what helps get things done is because we’re concerned about something. 

And worrying is what we do. And anxiety is that feeling we can have. And I think it’s just being able to see it on a spectrum because we all need to have some concern. But when we start tipping further into the worry, into the feeling of anxiety, it’s often because we’re starting to take it all on ourselves, and we’re not just doing the small parts that we can do if we’re concerned. We do the things we can do, and then we’re leaving it to God to take care of what he can do and let him be the one who holds it all together. But when we start moving towards the worry, that’s when we start to pick it up for ourselves and think that it’s our job to do it all.  

I really like that. That’s really helpful for me, Nichole. So, we could pontificate about how important words are. Yeah. But if you’ve got the words, then you have the capacity to think about a certain thing. You have the capacity to discuss a certain thing, and really what you’re doing is you’re giving us some words so that we can think more healthily about this matter and talk about it. 

Any other words? Now I’m really curious. Yeah, I think those are the ones that kind of stick out to me because we often clump them all together, and so we think they’re all the same thing. And so that, like in Scripture, when we see don’t worry about tomorrow for tomorrow’s cares will take care of themselves or cast all your cares on him. 

For so long, those verses were so hard for me to read because to me, they felt condemning because I could not do it. I tried over and over, and I could not get rid of it. And a few years ago, God started showing me that instead of a command, those are verses that are an invitation. So, when we start seeing it’s not God shaking his finger saying, stop it, cast all your cares on me. But it’s more like him coming up beside you and saying, I got this for you. Lean it, cast it over onto me. So, I didn’t give you any new words, but just helping you understand that those are on a spectrum and not just all clumped together in one spot.  

You didn’t give us a new vocabulary, but you did give us a posture, I think, which is really helpful. A lens both for the helper and for the anxious one to feel invited into a place of peace that is possible for them in Christ. Christ gives us peace and he invites us into that place. 

But to your point exactly, I have tried to be the father who says, don’t worry. Don’t worry about that. It just never lands good. I think it’s really to be the parent that if your child comes to you with a worry, instead of being like, hey, just stop it, it’s how we maybe used to read those verses, but instead we can come alongside our child and be with them in it. There’s something really big about having someone who’s willing to just sit with you in that anxiety versus let me just try to fix it right away. We of course would love to have it fixed but there’s something more healing about having somebody who’s in there with you. 

Which just shouts the gospel narrative and how Jesus steps into it. And I interrupted your story way back when. I’d love for you to pick up with it and I really want to know what made the difference for you in terms of how you found healing. So, pick up your story wherever you like to, but as a young person and then as a young believer. 

Yeah, a part of that I would say just fast forward, merely because it’s the same thing over and over and over, and the fact that I just kept trying harder for 20 years. Yeah. Well, let’s just pause and give due respect for those 20 years, Nichole, okay? We can’t do that justice on a podcast, but that is painful. 

Yes. And anybody who struggles with anxiety knows exactly what you’re saying in terms of repeat, repeat, repeat. Yeah. Loop, loop, loop because that’s really real. Yeah. And so, it wasn’t until I was 36, it was actually a New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day, and I was standing in our laundry room, folding laundry, and I just started breaking down, sobbing, and I was kind of caught off guard by it. And I had to think, why am I standing here so broken and upset? Because the thoughts running through my head were, my life is pointless. Everybody would be better off without me. Why am I even here? I have no purpose. 

And I just really was done. I didn’t really see any purpose of going on. And it scared me because there was still just a little bit of rational thought and the fact that I’m like, no, I have a husband that loves me. I have three healthy children. I love my job. I love Jesus and Jesus loves me. 

I knew all those things, but yet there was this overarching thought that there was no reason that I should be here anymore. And, like I said, that scared me. And for the first time I started reaching out and saying something about, hey, this is what I’m feeling. And just to give you a picture of how deep I had this buried, my husband had no idea. 

I became so good at hiding my anxiety that Paul had no idea. And I’m not saying because he was completely clueless. He’s a very attentive husband. I just had 20 years of practice to keep stuffing it down. And so, it was actually in a group Bible study with some ladies about a week later that I mentioned, hey, I think I’m struggling. And I kind of described what I was thinking. One of my friends in that group said, hey, have you ever thought about calling ACCFS? You can make a phone call and talk to somebody. And I think I sat on it for a day or two. And then yeah, I made a phone call and talked to somebody at ACCFS. 

And that was the first time in my life that I said, these are the things that I’m struggling with. These are the thoughts that I had. It was the first time I had someone tell me that it was not okay. Like that was not a normal thing and I didn’t come back with a thought of them telling me, well, have you tried praying more or how about reading some Scripture more? 

But for them to actually say this sounds like you need to get some help. It sounds like maybe there’s some anxiety or depression there. And of course, they can’t diagnose me. So, they just said, here’s the name of some counselors in your area. We think you should give them a call and get started, call your doctor and get an appointment and tell them these things. 

And that was the first time in my life I had anyone tell me that it was more than you just need to stop it. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Nichole, I want to pause, and I want to go back to this very dark moment that you had in the laundry room and the dark thoughts that came over you. Maybe suicidal ideation is too strong of a term. Okay. But I just want to place my finger on the human experience of anxiety and other things that can put us believers in a dark place with thoughts that scare us. You are not the first, you are not the only. Thank you for bringing that forward in a place that we can hear it because it’s very real in the lives of many, I predict. 

Would you agree? Yeah. Yeah, I think so. And, and again, like there’s that shame attached to it. Because we should not think about those things. I mean we have this hope in Christ, right? And so, those are the things I’m telling myself when I’m trying to combat it back with, stop it because you have Jesus. 

But the fact is that we’re all broken. And Jesus knows that, and we should not be holding this shame over each other when we are having these kinds of struggles. That’s when we need our fellow Christ followers, our brothers and sisters coming along beside us. And so, I think Satan likes to keep us in that shame because then we hide it and we keep it to ourselves and we suffer alone. 

The relief you found was being able to be received by another individual and heard. I’m still really interested in your off-ramping and on-ramping to what. Yeah. So, I did call the doctor. I got into an appointment. They diagnosed me with generalized anxiety disorder with acute depression. 

And they suggested to get me out of that depression state that I get started on a medication, like a low dose antidepressant. And I was desperate enough. I was in a place that, yeah, let’s try it because I was to the point that I’m like, you know what, I’ve been doing this for 25, 30 years. 

So, let’s try something different. So, I did start on a low dose medication, I did get in with a counselor right away, too, and started seeing a Christian counselor. That medication took about two weeks to really start kicking in. But one thing I noticed is that it just quieted some of those irrational thoughts that were shouting in my head. 

It didn’t rewire my thinking. What I could start doing is taking all that truth I knew all along, I could speak it over the top of the anxiety, and I could hear it, whereas before, it just felt like all those irrational thoughts were so loud that it didn’t matter how much I knew, I could not fight against it. It helped just give me a little extra assist until I could start and when those voices are quieter then working with the counselor, I could start learning some new tools that I could start using so that when I would eventually come off medication, I practiced with those tools enough that I knew how to use them because I was able to practice them in a safer space. 

Yes. Well, tell us a little bit about those practices and I’m really curious what maintenance looks like for you. Do you find yourself slipping back into bad thought patterns? Is that still accessible to you? Is it something you can slide back into? What does maintenance look like? 

Yeah. So different tools like some thought stopping techniques. One thing I really like to do is called landing the plane. And it’s often like if you’ve had an anxious thought, it’s like this little airplane just flying around your head. It just keeps going up there and you can’t just knock it out of the sky. 

You need to give it a place to land so it can stop just flying around your head. And so, creating these runways of thought that would counterbalance whatever this anxious thought is. So, it’s kind of like thinking the opposite, but it’s giving it a visual. There’s something about having that visual when you’re trying to work through thoughts. Sometimes you have to do some visuals and sometimes you have to do some physical movements with it.  

Another one that I even do with one of my daughters is whenever she’s having some anxious thoughts that we put them in a box, and we speak whatever that anxious thought is. We speak it out loud and then we just do it with our hands. We act like we’re grabbing that anxious thought and we’re sitting in a box and we’re putting the lid on top. We can label it, so we know right where it’s at and we’re going to put it on the shelf. So, we’re like doing all these actions and we’re putting it on that shelf because you know what? There’s a part of that concern that maybe is legit, but it’s something we don’t have to carry. So, we’re going to put it in this box and we’re going to put it on the shelf. And every time that we feel like we’re starting to pick it back up, we tell ourselves like, nope, I put it in the box. 

And there’s something about just doing that physical movement and saying it out loud that helps your brain process it. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, and I really appreciate you talking about the visual and then the physical. Some of what is difficult about anxiety is it’s so hard to get your mind around it. 

It’s so felt. Some of these techniques, whether it’s an airplane flying around or a box, I think are really, really helpful in making the intangible very tangible. Yeah. There are days that I will wake up and I just feel anxious. I can go through my whole list of things and I’m like, nope, none of those things. 

I’ve given it to God. I’m not worried about the outcomes of these things, but my body still feels anxious. And so, I know that when it’s in that state that I actually need to do different things to communicate with my body that it’s safe because right now it’s acting in a way that it does not feel safe. 

Think about if a bear just came into the room right now, how your body would react and your heart would be racing, your breath would be shorter, your muscles would start tensing up. And those are all things that your body could start doing if it’s feeling anxious because our bodies react the same way to being fearful of public speaking and being fearful of a bear attack. 

Our body understands it all the same. So, we have to go through the steps to tell it, nope, not going to die. And so, one thing I really love to do is breath prayers. And that is just a combination of taking deep breaths. and getting that oxygen into your body because your body starts getting deprived of it because you’re breathing really short, your heart’s racing. 

And also, I incorporate Scripture. So, I love to do Psalms because there’s just so much in Psalms. And you just pick out two lines of a Psalm that is really speaking to you. And as you’re breathing in through your nose, at least for four seconds, you breathe in, and you think the first line of that prayer. And you hold for four seconds. And then as you breathe out through your mouth, you think that second line, and then you hold for four seconds and then you repeat. And it’s really important that when you’re bringing in those breaths that you’re doing that deep belly breathing, where you’re like sucking it into your belly versus raising your shoulders up and taking a breath so that you’re allowing the whole body to breathe. 

If you do a cycle of those, like three to five minutes over and over. You start communicating that your body is okay. And you start tapping into the parasympathetic nervous system that starts to help release and relax your body. So that’s the first thing I go to if I’m starting to feel anxious in my body. 

Thank you everyone for listening to this conversation with Nichole Suvar. I’m really grateful for how she has articulated, illustrated, and personalized the anxious life. When we come back, we’re going to look at some practical matters as we engage our young people who particularly may be struggling with anxiety. 

Thanks, each one for being on. Goodbye. 

That is my life now. It’s like, I have anxiety. This is how I live life with it. And I make the choices so that I am in control versus allowing the anxiety to control me. Welcome everyone to Breaking Bread, the podcast brought to you by Apostolic Christian Counseling and Family Services. 

I’m very glad to air the second part of my conversation with Nichole Suvar, as she has unpacked and shared her own personal testimony with anxiety but also given us a bit of a guide and a roadmap to walking with others who are anxious. Thanks for being on. 

I think it is also a maintenance thing when it comes to phones and screens. Maybe some people feel like it’s a broken record, but it is a very real thing that is feeding into anxiety. And so that is something I’m very intentional about. Our phones are not in the bedroom. I don’t use it for an alarm clock. 

It is across the house plugged in for the night. So, the very first thing when I wake up is hit an alarm clock. It is an old-fashioned thing. And the very first thing I’m doing is the Word before the world. And I need to make sure I’m in Scripture. Sometimes it’s just a Psalm that I read while I sip some coffee. 

Sometimes I add in some worship music while I’m waiting for the coffee to brew even if it’s not a full-on Bible study. First thing I do is get up like 5:00 A.M. So, that’s not happening at 5:00 A.M., but being immersed in the Word before I’m ever going into the world is very important. 

And you’re controlling the controllables in that way too, aren’t you? Yes. I would think anxiety plays on a great deal of uncertainty. Anxiety has got to play upon risk, uncertainty, and question. And it sounds to me like you have found health in controlling the controllables in the certainty of just waking up and stepping into the Word. 

Yeah, we all live with these stories in our minds about ourselves. And I feel like whenever we go to social media or anything on the Internet, even if we’re looking up something in the news cycle, those things will end up solidifying those stories that we have in our head. 

Whether it be if we’re fearful, if the story we believe in our head is I’m not worthy. This comparison game of other people have it better than me, you are going to find something. And that just feeds into that anxiety. If you’re concerned about money, it’s not going to take much for you to get onto the news and hear something about economics. 

And so, if that is the first source we are going to, that just verifies our stories and is just going to feed into that anxiety like these stories and lies or whatever we believe in our head. If the very first thing we’re doing is Scripture and we’re going to the Word, we’re also going to find things, but we’re going to find those things that are going to speak over it and be like, yes, maybe you are concerned about finances, but here’s this and here’s the truth. 

And so, I think that’s so important. I love the practicality of it, and I think it really hits home. I am interested. You mentioned Gen Z and in fact, we started the podcast with that and so let’s go there a little bit. You talked about technology, and they are living and breathing if but it’s easy for you and me to have a practice of a real Bible in our hands. 

That’s kind of like home, you know? We come home when we put away our technology. This is life as I know it. That is not the same for our kids. Gen Z is the first generation that does not have a childhood that did not revolve around a screen. Because any millennial, at some point, they can go back a little bit of their childhood and at least somewhere in there, they remember just running around the neighborhood and finding a few kids to play kickball or riding bikes with a friend. And there was nothing that had to get captured on a camera or anything. It was just interacting face to face with humans. And Gen Z is that first generation where instead of a play-based childhood, they now have a phone-based childhood. 

And that has just kind of rewired the brains a bit for those now Gen Z and on. With that screen being part of their home, that’s very interesting that you say it that way, because I feel like there’s some truth to that. A few different things come up. You’ve got social deprivation, like they are not able to figure out and have a conversation face to face with people and not have to do it behind texting and or even videos like we’re things that can be curated. There’s something about just being able to understand in a social setting. 

You’ve got sleep deprivation because now there’s access to all these things much later into the night and just like the blue light and what that can do with their sleep. There’s that attention fragmentation that happens because now we’re all into these short little videos. I mean, even like YouTube does YouTube shorts and they’re less than 30 seconds. 

And I even notice it in my own self again, who’s had a fully developed brain before I hit screens, but there’s a time where if I’m checking email and I’ll check it for just long enough to be like, oh, well, now I need to hop over here and do this. No, I don’t. I could just stay right here in this thing. 

Our brain wants to constantly switch. Yeah. And then that last one is just the addiction piece because of the dopamine hits that happen when we get on those screens. And those four things. If we start to intentionally try to address those with our kids, we can start getting to the root of what’s feeding that anxiety, too. 

Yeah, I think those four things are excellent. It’s really heartbreaking to see our younger generation, called the anxious generation, per your own testimony, how anxiety gave way to depression. Yeah. Are we going to see a depressed generation? Yeah, that was something that was explained to me when I went and received my diagnosis, is that I had been anxious for so long that it started to deplete those parts of my brain that would release certain chemicals that would keep me out of that depressed mood, but because the anxiety depleted all of those places, then the depression comes in. 

And so, if we are allowing this anxiety just to rule, eventually, everything’s going to crash. Oh yeah, that’s super interesting. So, an anxious person is going to cope with their anxiety. I mean, you’re going to cope with it. The question is, is how? Yes. And is that sustainable and healthy in the long run? 

Often it is not either one of those things which will lead to a deprived place in depression. And that really amplifies some of these things that you’ve been saying, Nichole, this whole time, that if we learn to walk with our anxiety in a healthy way with healthy inputs, you haven’t given us a silver bullet on how to get rid of anxiety. 

I’m noticing, Nichole, I was kind of hoping that maybe you were going to be the one. Here’s the secret. But you’re really helping us to learn how to live with it. Yes. Am I right? I think that’s really what it is. Because I feel like that is my life now. I have anxiety. This is how I live life with it. And I make the choices so that I am in control versus allowing the anxiety to control me. And I think that the screens aren’t going to go either. I think it’s good to have some healthy conversations with your kids about screens. They probably have already heard some of it, but because the desire to have that thing is going to be very strong.  

And reality is there. It’s just how life is. Phones are needed for so much stuff. There are some things you could take off the phone, but so much communication and work are related to having these. So, to get rid of them all together, I don’t think that’s the feasible way but helping them be able to understand how they control the tool that’s in their hands versus allowing that tool to control them and then giving them just these different practical resources, practical ways to live with it. Maybe you can look at the upside here, Nichole, if this is an upside, but we almost have to train and introduce things to our children at a younger age. 

Yes. Let me give you an example. I never thought through identity until I was like 35. You know what I mean? I got along fine without ever really thinking about my identity. It’s a huge thing, I need to think through it. But I’m finding conversations about identity happening in the teens, in the 20s, right? 

Like in early teens. Yes. Way earlier, but necessarily, so it’s almost maybe a call to present Jesus in a beautifully compelling way. He has got to be a part of our living. He always has been. At younger and younger ages anyway, now I’m kind of going off, but anyway, I like that. I was taken by what you’re saying. 

Yeah. So, thinking again about our teens and their phones, like I said, a few of those earlier things that phones can do to them. Things like fragmentation of attention, a few other things that can happen. And then I’ll give some things that we can help counteract. 

There’s this phenomenon of fear of failure. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but not every kid is getting their driver’s license right at 16 anymore. And there’s this pressure they now have because they see so much of other people’s lives on camera and on view, and they are very afraid of failing. 

And so, there are a lot less things being attempted, even things that aren’t super hard, they just don’t even want to try them. And so, one of those things would be getting a driver’s license. That’s kind of a simple one that you can see. There’s also that lack of purpose. I just want to make a comment on that. 

Yeah, I think you’re absolutely right. Speaking of YouTube shorts, they see the best of everything. I mean, we’re a long way away from being a shining star in a class of 30. You know what I’m saying? Now, we’re in a class of 8 billion, and hey, you know what? I can’t shoot three pointers like he can, and I can’t play the piano like this one can. 

Check this out. And I can’t do that. So, we see the best of everything. Yeah. And what we see is this person who maybe took five years to get to this point where it looks this good. But we’re seeing that one day of the five years. And we’re looking at our day one and thinking that we’re comparing the two. 

And that’s not fair at all. And so instead, we feel this pressure that we have to present everything that’s good and great. And if I can’t, well, then I just won’t. I’ll just not try. I interrupted you. You were going to say something else. The other one I was going to say was this lack of purpose. 

Social media has driven deep into our brains the thought that we are the most important when our purpose is just ourselves. And it’s the liking of selfies and we post for likes and shares and so we feel empty, like eventually we’re going to come to the end of that because it is just so much about ourselves versus living outside of ourselves for a purpose other than ourselves. 

Like that is all social media is, me. Yeah. We think that it isn’t because we’re looking at other people’s things, but the reason that you’re on there is about yourself, putting yourself forward. Any time our purpose is within our own selves, we’re going to come up empty. 

There’s a wealth of wisdom in that, Nichole, and I think you’re right on and it furthers the point of what needs to accompany our young people in the lives that they live today. And this idea of others, which is the great commandment of loving God and loving others, I mean, is so practical and so helpful to our health, which is another fascinating concept that, yep, God’s principles play out through every single time. 

Imagine that. Yes, I know that is something when I’m starting to feel low, like I feel the depression is coming on or even when I’m having anxious days, is that I need to look for someone else to help. Because then we suddenly stop just ruminating on whatever it is about ourselves, and we start thinking about another person. I mean, there’s a reason why Jesus says it in Scripture because he knows that it helps us. Yeah. And then one other thing I wanted to mention was this false sense of accomplishment, especially with video games because you’ve just got to beat this level or if you’ve got this little game where you have to build a little tower and you have to get so many armies and you check this list off and you’re like, yeah, I did it. 

But in reality, you’ve done absolutely nothing. Okay, so Nichole, nothing makes your point better, and everybody who’s played a video game, so I’ll speak from experience, is doing something great on a video game and then trying to explain that to somebody else. It always falls flat unless you’re a geek in the same game, but typically if you go to mom or dad and try to explain to them how awesome you just did at that level. Yeah. They’re going to look at you like what are you talking about? And you’re, yeah, anyway, I wonder if you did the laundry and why your room is still a mess.  

So, when you have this false sense of accomplishment, then you move into real life and actually you haven’t really accomplished anything. And then it falls back on that lack of purpose. And so, they just feed off of each other. So, I think that what I have found helps counterbalance some of those things. I mentioned earlier about validating over accommodating if you’ve got someone who’s very anxious and they want to avoid doing things. There’s something about acknowledging how it makes you feel but then having the courage to just go do it. You might fall flat on your face, but what you’re doing is you’re building these thought patterns in your mind so that you are able to do something. Because there’s something about, if you’re anxious, doing a thing and you tell yourself, well, I can’t do it. 

And so that your mind is like, okay, I cannot accomplish this. I cannot do this. And you start putting that into other parts of your life. But if you decide to go and tackle a hard thing, and even if it wasn’t 100%, you’ve still done it and your body and your brain communicate the fact that I am capable of this hard thing. 

And then there’s going to be another hard thing that comes along that you could go back and be like, listen, I tried that before. And I lived through it, so I got to do this hard thing here. So just being able to validate with someone that, yes, it’s okay to feel anxious about this thing, but we are not going to avoid it. 

We’re going to try to do the hard thing. Here’s what was fresh and what I really liked about what you said. If there was anxiety about speaking and so you could never do it but a person steps into that and tries it and maybe according to their metric they failed at it. 

No, actually, they stepped into a fear. That’s success. Yeah. So, I think what I heard you say there is whenever you step into anxiety and do not recoil from it, it’s a success regardless of the outcome. Is that correct? Yeah. I agree. It helps start making these new roads in your brain. 

Yeah. So, I think with teens, when we talk about video games or if they’re getting on their phone just to scroll, teens do a really good job of numbing out. I think that it’s not just a teen thing like adults do it too. We just want to dissociate a little bit and not really think about everything that’s going through the day. 

So, we just want to numb out and not think about it. But that’s not necessarily a healthy way to go through life in general, or even just to think through things that have been like, maybe you did have a hard day, but just dissociating isn’t always the best route to go. So, I have three words to help your kids. First to recognize. Help them start being in tune to their body to notice those different signals that they experience with different emotions. It’s like a check engine light. What or how are you feeling in your body when you’re feeling anxious? 

So that when they start feeling those feelings again, they’re like, ah, okay, there’s something that’s making me anxious and they can start following and going down that road to figure out if it is actually something or is it because I’ve been scrolling for the last 35 minutes and now I feel terrible about myself because everybody else has it figured out and I don’t? 

So, really know yourself. Yeah. It’s giving and helping our teens learn that. And like you said, I think we’re having to help them learn earlier in life, which I don’t think in that way it’s bad for us to know ourselves. And I think once we start recognizing those different things in our body, then start to regulate and understand some of those things I mentioned earlier, that starts communicating to our body that we are safe. 

Just different calming strategies to slow down that nervous system. Sometimes it involves just getting outside. There’s something about being outside in God’s creation that just reminds us that he has everything in control. I think there’s something beautiful about being reminded that we’re a very tiny, small thing in this giant world, but yet we’re still cared for. 

And he still knows us and loves us. And we get that when we’re outside. If we’re really being mindful about what we’re seeing and doing. Being around and having face-to-face conversations with people can help start regulating our systems. They found that having face to face conversations with a friend can help lower the cortisol in our bodies and help increase that oxytocin, those feel-good hormones just by having a 15-minute face to face conversation. 

And then that last one is repair, and that’s like helping them take ownership of what they do that feeds into anxiety and being able to identify some of those things and that there’s maybe some relational work that needs to be done between them and some other people, or if it’s just phone use that they need to figure out, or if it’s some other bad habit. Being able to identify and then being intentional and taking those steps to repair it. 

I love those. And then again, speak of the optimism here, the hope is that perhaps a generation is going to be learning these practices and learning themselves early. It’s only going to prepare them for the future, which I think is really exciting. I’m dead set on belief because I can’t live with any other reality, but I’m dead set on the belief that God is going to use what our young people are dealing with to only bring about good and for a stronger church in the future. I think that is fun to think about and I think we have every right to believe so. Yeah. So, I think that’s something we can speak into those people who are anxious. And I know, like I said, for years people would just say, pray more and read the Bible more. 

And that is a component, but I think it’s so important when we have people who are anxious that we can introduce them to Jesus, because there is a part of my anxiety that is alleviated when Jesus is in the picture. There’s that generalized anxiety disorder, that’s a thing, just kind of like diabetes and heart disease. 

And those are diagnoses that I could still walk alongside Jesus with. And so, this anxious generation, we can introduce them to Jesus, the true peace. I think that speaks with the hope that you have, that you spoke about. It’s amazing. Nichole, I really appreciate both the story you shared and your own experience as well as helping us step into this, into the anxiety that our children or young people have. 

I know intentionality is an important term to you and I want you to speak to intentionality. What that means to you as it concerns living well. Yeah. So, once I had that diagnosis and I really started down that road, I liked how you said it was like the exit ramp on ramp, but I started down that road of healing. 

I really dug into learning more, learning all that I could about just living with anxiety. And one thing I found in my daily life that I was already doing, and I didn’t realize that was kind of like my coping of sorts, was being intentional. I mentioned that word throughout this at some point. 

But just the intentionality that we need to have for our mental wellness. I think just like with physical health, we can’t go to the gym once and we’re like, hey, we’re good. I am in shape. We need to be intentional every day with our health to keep our bodies physically healthy but also being intentional with mental health choices every day so that we have healthy minds. 

One thing that I started noticing was there were seven different areas in life that if I just do small things every day, it will help. It would be another way of helping me be in control of anxiety instead of anxiety controlling me.  

So, the seven areas would be matters of the heart. Most of all, just like where am I at with Jesus and my walk with him, our thoughts, not letting those thoughts control us, not believing everything that I think, having healthy discussions around money and being good stewards, being generous with what we have, relationships, our home, just how we care for it and how we open it up to others our physical health, there’s very much a component between being physically healthy and being mentally well. 

So just doing what we’re able to in small ways to add to our physical health. And then that last one is just being intentional with our time and just being thoughtful with how we are spending it. So I found that when I use those seven different areas, I don’t not do all seven of them each day, but if I’m feeling like something’s just a little out of balance, I’ll just run through that list and be like, is there something here that I need to address and just being intentional, using a small moment to address one of those areas. Nichole, thanks. Thanks for being on. Thanks for sharing your experience as well as your wisdom on this really, really important topic. Very, very grateful. Thank you. Yeah, this has been great. I’ve loved this conversation. Thanks to each one of our listeners for being on. 

I know that you’ve been blessed as I have been blessed by Nichole’s commentary on anxiety. We wish you the Lord’s blessing as we go forward. Goodbye.