If we are honest, this is a lofty goal. We often do feel anxious. It could be about our finances, or about our health, or our safety, or the security of our closet relationships. During the pandemic, all of these concerns have increased.
Jesus says to us, “Peace be with you!” but how can we walk in this peace?
On a purely human level, there are things we can do. First, I would like to recommend the book by George R. Faller, and Heather Wright, Sacred Stress: A Radically Different Approach to Using Life’s Challenges for Positive Change, (2016). This book integrates new understandings from psychology with a Christian perspective.
Research has shown that if we change the way we think about stress, we will find that our bodies react differently. If we reframe our thinking to expand our perspective on potentially stressful events, then our body will feel less stress.
We need to reframe stressful events as a challenge rather than as a threat. I love the following quote by Abraham Lincoln, “We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.”
We have a choice. We can complain and enter into negative thinking and as a result feel distress, or we can rejoice and enter joy and peace. The same rose bush can create two entirely different realities.
It is easy to see how we could make this a part of our prayer. When faced with a threatening situation we could take this concern before our Lord in prayer. Prayers of thanksgiving to our Lord for the many blessings we have received can also help us avoid complaining and negative thinking.
A modern stress management model involves knowing, naming, and reframing our stress. First, we need to recognize that we are entering into stress, then name it, then reframe the experience.
The first step is to recognize that we are feeling stressed. The reason this is necessary is that we are often unaware of what is happening. Psychologists call this emotional self-awareness or mindfulness. There are many ways to understand mindfulness, but I would recommend the book by Gregory Bottaro, The Mindful Catholic: Finding God One Moment at a Time (2018). We need to become aware of our emotions in the moment.
The second step is to name our emotions. Very often, our body may be giving us signals that we are experiencing a stressful emotion. It is very healthy to take ownership of these feelings and to try to gain clarity and name the emotion we feel. Naming the emotion helps us to gain control and calm ambiguous emotional reactions.
The third step is to reframe the stress. Research on people in stressful situations has shown that “naming our anxiety and then reframing it as excitement” has a huge impact on our performance under stress. Reframing our stress can also help us to place God into the equation. Only then can we walk in the advice of St. Paul, “Have no anxiety at all, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God” (Philippians 4:6).
Through deepening our relationship with God in prayer, we can experience his peace in our life. God desires our happiness and calls us to experience his joy.
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