Getting To The Root Of Anxiety

Welcome to the Beauty and Battle podcast where we talk about winning in marriage by waging a war. I'm Jason

Benham. I've got my girlfriend slash wife, Tori Benham with me. And we are here to talk to you about

how Satan tries to get you to fight face to face with your spouse. But God designed you to fight

shoulder to shoulder against Satan so that you can win in your marriage, fighting together,

draws you together. We cannot wait to jump in. So here we go.

Okay, we're staying on this topic of dealing with anxiety and marriage. Today we're going to talk

about getting to the root of anxiety, getting to the source of it. And we've got a four step

little process to help you do that. And it's really fun because anxiety is an epidemic. I mean,

it's the epidemic of our time. I mean, you think about it worldwide. It's just crushing people.

And then especially in marriage, I mean, it's just happening, especially if you think about

you know, a spouse who's who's maybe living well, living healthy, healthy lifestyle and doing well.

But then they're seeing their spouse struggle. I think sometimes as we defined anxiety in the past

as projected powerlessness, you know, projecting fear into the future, it's easy to get a little

anxiety about your spouse. And I think we realize how much anxiety wrecks our health, right?

How big of an impact it has on that. You could be eating healthy. You could be exercising every single

day. But if you are struggling with anxiety, your body feels it. And your body's breaking down

because of it. So it's going to affect every aspect of your life, especially your marriage.

And this coincides with Tori and I a couple of weeks ago releasing our book Unshakable,

Approving Plan to Crush, Anxiety, Defeat, Overwhelming, Conquer the fears that freak you out,

where the Lord brought both of us through some stuff. Mine was a little heavier than Tori's.

But go grab that on Amazon, okay? Make it an early Christmas present.

Yeah. And it really does chronicle Jason's journey with anxiety. And what the Lord really showed

him during that time, it became a time of research and just begging God, because when you're in that

desperate state, you're just looking for answers, you're looking for breakthrough. And you know,

I think God has made you in a way where you're very systematic. Your brain is wired that way.

As you're learning, you're writing things down, you kind of build systems around everything.

And so I believe it's going to help so many people to see the system kind of around it,

to break it down, to have some handles on what we can do when we're faced with this.

Well, in our last podcast, we shared the three-step process on how to free yourself,

which is recognize, renounce, replace, recognize what's going on in the moment,

that it comes from Satan, renounce the lie you're tempted to believe in that moment and replace

with truth. Very simple, but we dove into that on the last podcast. And since you're talking about

systems, one of the things that was really bothering me when I was going through, you know, anxiety and

even having panic attacks was that I couldn't get to the root of it. I didn't know where to go.

How do I find out what's causing this? Yeah, what do I do with it? Yeah. And so I sat in that for a

while and just, you know, prayed and Tori helped me a lot. And her and I just began to talk and

came up with a four-step process that really helped me and it's STOP. And we're going to talk

about those four in just a second and help you get to the root of anxiety. But I'll tell you one

thing and this is just kind of fun to think about. One of the things that really did help during

those moments when I felt like hopeless, depressed or whatever, it's good music. Yeah, that's true.

And that's a great lead in for the song today. Wait. The lundy gave us. You just told me what

song it was. And you know, I feel like we did this one last week. I don't think so. It just hit me

because I remember when that one was two weeks because I remember saying it has like a 40s vibe

at the beginning. No way. Yeah. So, okay. He told me which one it was and I was like, yeah,

let's do it. She wasn't paying attention. Just now hit me. It's the same one. That, Tori. Sorry.

That makes me anxious. Can I play it again? Play it again. You know what? This is called The Romantic

by Bruno Mars. Yep. And it's risk at all. That's what it is. Starts with something. I didn't,

I didn't play this part last time. Okay, play a different part. Okay, here's a different part.

But this is so cool. Like, I just love it. Check this out. Oh, man. I screwed it up too. See,

even in the way that I did the thing. Hold on. Hold on. Here comes. Listen.

It's crazy, but it's true. It's nothing. Well, watch out this. It picks up. This is so cool.

This is the best part. Yeah. Can't you see yourself? Like,

you're wearing a sun dress. I'm wearing linen pants. Maybe no shirt. Just kidding. We're dancing

in our kitchen. Like, anytime I hear music like that, we're in the middle of a major remodel.

And we have been living in hell in three inches of dust. It is true. It's filth. We're living in

filth. Tori has said several times that, that Nimo quote, finding Nimo in all the little fish

are in their own aquarium. Yeah. And the filter broke. Yeah. And the one girls like, we're swimming

in our own. And they just kind of cut it off. But that's what we're living in right now. And

I keep, we love music. Dinner music. Like, that's, you know, our unwind time. It's like, turn on

the music. Start cooking. And you just, and I'm like, I am just envisioning that every single day.

Like, some good music like that song right there. Cooking in a kitchen. And I'm actually excited

to cook. I love to cook. But like, I'm really excited to cook. And just before this podcast,

Tori and I have a couple of contractors that are in the house and we don't want them to leave.

Because they, we could tell they're like, getting wrapped up to go home. But we have floors going

in and all sorts of stuff. So the contractors have to stay to finish their job. And we found that

they'll, they'll bail. If we bail, they'll bail. And I turn on good music that they like.

Get them some food. And then we bought them some food. They're like, isn't this inviting?

Is this awesome? Let's stay here and eat with you while you work. Anyway, okay, Tori, let's get to

the source of anxiety. Let's talk about STOP. Okay. And let me give you just a quick,

I guess a little shameless plug on this. Whenever I finish the book, I sent it to two different

editors, two different ladies that I trust. And I said, please read for a content edit.

You know, I don't need copy edit at this point. Just content edit. Tell me, does it, does it work?

What's missing? What's good or whatever? And both of them sent stuff back like, okay,

this is great. Like this is really going to help a lot of people. Both of them mentioned

one of them in particular, this STOP method. And she said, I cut it out of your manuscript. And

I taped it onto my desk because it's so helpful. It is. It's so helpful. We talk about it all

the time. You can't manage something that you don't become first aware of. And I think that

this is what that does. Is it helps you to be aware of what it is that is causing the anxiety?

Where, what's the root here in Jason? We'll get into these STOPs. Do you want to say STOP?

These four different things that are the root of anxiety. And when you become aware, you're like,

okay, this is what that is. And then you recognize what we talked about on the last podcast,

knowing what anxiety is. It is projected powerlessness. Right. So you're projecting into the

future powerlessness. And then when you recognize, okay, this is where the root of it is. This was

I can see that this is it. Then you can better manage it because you know what you're dealing with.

Sometimes when you are dealing with something and life is busy and you just don't you don't even

have the time to process what's going on. You just kind of go through, you're just like

feeling it. Your body is feeling it. And you just don't even have the, you know,

yeah, know how. Know how that's the word. You've got it, babe. You finish it. You finish my

sense. You just don't have the know how of what to do next. Yeah. And this helps you get there.

Yeah, it does. And so let's just start. We're looking at STOP. Okay. How are we going to get to

the root of our anxiety? So let's start with S. Now S actually has three things through three

aspects to it. S is sin, self-talk, stress. So you want to get to the root of your anxiety.

Number one, when it comes to the STOP method is you're going to start with sin.

Okay. Why? Because anxiety and conviction, anxiety and conviction feel really similar.

So we start by asking God if there's any sin we need to address. Now chances are good.

There's not going to be any sin issues going on, right? But you always start there. Exactly.

There's Jason's going to get into all of them. There's a lot. And even with the S,

it's not just sin, it's self-talking stress, right? And so you're not we're not saying that you

have anxiety and that it should probably have sin in your life. You got sin in your life. That's

not at all what we're saying. But always start there because there may be something. There may be

a conviction that feel you're overwhelmed with guilt and shame from something that needs to be

addressed. And you mistaken it as anxiety, right? It's like I'm feeling so anxious. No, actually,

you're feeling good. God is convicting you of something. Yeah. And you just need to deal with it.

And he is such a gracious God that he wants, he wants you to deal with it. He wants you to bring

him to him, repent of it and turn away from it. And then you'll be free of that condom that you're

totally free of that guilt and that shame. It's gone. But you just have to deal with it sometimes.

And that sin, it's you've either done something you shouldn't have done or you haven't done

something that you should have done. And in my case, I had a massive anxiety episode when

the Lord told me to do something. It was specific to one of my books that, you know, I didn't want

to write this particular chapter or whatever. I wanted somebody to write it and then I edited it.

And I was being lazy. This was years ago. And I started feeling massive, massive anxiety. I

didn't know what it was until one morning I was praying and the Lord just convicted me like,

you're abandoning an assignment that I gave to you. And the minute I was like, God, I'm sorry,

I surrender. I'm going to do it. The anxiety lifted. You know, and so it always start with sin.

Yeah. Doesn't always end up being sin. Most of the time it won't be. But once you start there,

now you're now you've kind of got things good with God. It's like, now let's go further. Okay. So

staying in the S. So it starts with sin. Then it goes to self-talk. You know, you got to evaluate

yourself talk. We've talked a lot about how Satan is your adversary who makes accusations for

your agreement. Yeah. And the accusations come in two forms. You know, they're negative thoughts

about other people and negative thoughts about yourself. But specifically when it comes to anxiety,

it's negative thinking about yourself. Yeah. Right. Because if you're if you're negative thinking

about other people, that takes you back to sin. But you've already dealt with that. So you're not

dealing with bitterness toward other people. Now it's what lies are you believing? What's the

negative self-talk that you've got going on about yourself? And it's the same thing as Moses when

God said, Hey, I want you to lead the Israelites. And the first thing that he says is I can't,

I'm not going to speak. I'm not really good, you know, communicating totally. And God's like,

who made your mouth? I can so relate to that one. Yeah. Because when I talk about in the book,

the height of my one, one of my anxieties in life, there are so many. But one of them was when

I began to speak with you. Yeah. And oh, my goodness. I was like, who the heck do I think?

Yeah. I'm like, I do not do this. This is like, this is not who I am. Like, I'm not a speaker,

I don't do this. And I think the self-talk was just this, I can't do it. In my mind, it was a

repeat of, I don't do this. I can't do this. I'm not capable. And the Lord really showed me this.

And I was, I had to really get bossy with my souls with it. I put it is somebody said that years

ago to me and that I've never forgotten it. That sometimes you just got to get bossy with your

soul and say, no, stop talking bad about yourself. Shut the heck up. This is not working for me.

And I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength. And my, his strength is made,

his, what is the verse? And is made perfect in the weakness. His strength is made perfect

in my weakness. Yeah. So that's, it's just, it doesn't serve me or anybody in the world to say,

I can't do something or I'm not capable of doing it. But sometimes you don't even know that you

have that self-talk. Sometimes you just go on. It's so subconscious. You need to really search.

Like what are, and I did that one day, I got a journal out and I just started, what are the things?

What are the things that I'm telling myself? What are the things I'm believing? And you know,

and I just start, I can't do it. I'm not capable of this, you know, all the things. And then I was

like, okay, well, I'm not going to, I'm not going to do that anymore. I'm going to get intentional

and bossy with my soul. Say, I can do whatever God tells me to do. I can do in partnership with him.

Yeah. That's good. But it's definitely, you don't know until you, sometimes you just need to

get a journal. I say, what are the things I'm telling myself? I'm saying subconsciously.

And we've got several chapters on that on how to fix that. So it starts with sin, then it's self-talk,

then it's stress, you know, we got to check your stress levels, especially your schedules. Now,

when we say stress, you naturally think stress is a bad thing, you know, but we're supposed to

experience some levels of stress. But I would say you've got on the unhealthy side, you've got

stress that's tied to, I'm busy. I got to go to work. But you also have stress that's tied to,

let's go have fun. Let's do all this kind of like, and I never saw it that way. Like stress in

having fun until I read Dr. Archibald Hart's book on overcoming anxiety. And he said, you know,

much stress is done when you want to continue to go from one fun thing to the next. It's like,

if you think about going to a pro football game, you know, there's three and a half hours of

of the game. There's only 26 minutes of action. And the action is when people are cheering and

stuff like that, you know, it's like when the balls snapped and all that kind of stuff. But imagine

you cheered for three and a half straight hours, like yelling, clapping, hooting and hollering,

three and a half straight hours. But what does it, what does it really look like for football game?

It's, it's, if there's 26 minutes of action, actually, there's less than 20 minutes of action

in most games, but say 26 minutes of action in a longer game. It's about 10 to 15 seconds of

real action and then arrest. Yeah. They're going back to the huddle, they're calling a play,

then they go back to the line. Right. And it's about a, you know, 30 seconds to a minute of rest.

And it's action rest, action rest. And, and it's the same for the fans. Yeah. When in reality,

there's only about 26 minutes of total action. And the same is true with you going from one fun

thing to the next. And that's why a lot of these kids are burning out. And why young men are not

pursuing women is because they're getting their dopamine hit from, from playing these,

these video games that they're playing. Right. And it's just fun for like four straight hours.

And the next thing you know, they're dopamine receptors are burnt. Yeah. Like it's done.

They, they have nothing that makes them want to pursue anything. And so that, that side of stress

is, is a big thing. But on the other side, it's, you know, stress is tied to the number of decisions

you make on a daily basis. And Tori and I are experiencing that right now. You know, they say when

you build a new house, you make 10,000 decisions. Tori and I added on 800 square feet. But it's,

it's building a new house because we're literally going from the ground up. So we've had to make

these decisions. And the stress levels have been way higher. Even yesterday, Tori and I were talking

we were driving. And she was like, I kind of don't like you right now. But I love you. But like,

we were just talking with each other. It's like I'm kind of, I feel short tempered right now. Yeah.

Like we're, we're just really not ourselves. Like you're just constantly making decisions. And

your mind is never, is not present. Like we're both not like able to be fully present because

there's just like constant response. Yeah. And I'm like, I'm really ready to get the old Jason back.

Because I don't think you're listening to me right now. It's so funny. Well, so stress. Just

think about this. It's tied to the, to the number of decisions that you make. And stress is good

because we all needed in our lives. And remember, go back to listen to the three levels of pressure

that we talked about. Level one tied to everyday events. You need to feel a little bit of pressure.

So you can go to work and you can make a living for your family. Level two is events. A test you have

to take a speech you have to give whatever is tied to an event. Level three is emergencies.

The problem is if levels one and two start to feel like level three. How does that happen? Because

of fear. Fear presents itself. So Jason's in an airport and he wants to get a gate. He goes to

a level three when he should really be a level one. Okay. I see what you did there. Just give an

example. That's very nice. Okay. So there's S sin self-talk stress. How are we going to get to the

route? Okay. We start with S. Then we go to T. T is trauma. So past trauma can shape how you

respond to stress in the present. So it ultimately will then rob you of peace and security. And the two

types of trauma that Tori and I look at in our book of which we have seen that leads to anxiety

the most is physical and emotional. Physical trauma is the hardest overcome. You got into a bad

car accident after driving through an intersection. That's physical. It's something happened to your

body. Physical trauma. So the next time you drive through an intersection, after you get out

of a hospital or whatever, you feel a little shiver go through your body. It's like that's because

your body has trapped that trauma. Yes. You know, and it's going to take a long time to get past that

you're going what are you going to be doing? Recognize for an answer place. Recognize what's going on.

That's from a past trauma. Yeah. Renounce the lie. I'm unsafe. Yeah. Replace with truth. Totally.

Right. Yeah. A perfect example of this was last or two years ago. I think it was well going back

to the trauma. It was three years ago. Lundy was in that boating accident. Many of you know about

that. Some of you don't. But our youngest Lundy was an accident on the boat to being and it was

bad trauma. Really bad trauma. She had to get several surgeries and actually it was just one surgery,

but it was she was in the hospital. She was in the hospital. A ton. And basically,

she I don't even know how many stitches wasn't 32. 32 stitches. She broke her orbital bone and then

she had double vision for like nine months. And then she had as a swell when the swelling went down,

she had to go in and get surgery because her eye actually shifted. So they had to put her eye back

in place. It was so super sad. It was very traumatic because she had such a huge injury when it

happened. And then we had to wait two weeks before we went back to get the surgery, hoping that

things would align. And when they did it, they had to go in through the stitches that she got from

the injury. The third of two stitches, we had to go in to because we didn't want to have two scars.

They had to then go in the same injury two weeks later. It was just it was pretty detailed tour.

I'm feeling kind of weak in the knee. So let's move past surgery. Well, imagine being Lundy like

how old was she? She was 12 years old. Just super scared to go. Obviously the whole thing was

super scary and super traumatic. And then the next year she's playing volleyball and she got hit

in the face with the ball pretty hard right where the injury was. And she thought that everything

opened up again. That was like, you know, that's what trauma does. It says it's happening again.

There's something that you know triggers the original experience and says, oh my goodness,

here we are again. It's happening. And she was just convinced. Like, oh my goodness, I'm going

back to the hospital again. And of course, so she, this is like a physical trauma. Me watching it,

I experienced an emotional trauma because I'm emotionally gone through this with her already.

And she's just breaking down. You know, it's a really intense game too. It was like one of the

best games this season. We were beating a team that was like our biggest rivalry. And Lundy had

just look a great, the really great game. And then she had to get taken out. And I'm like, it was

just, I, that's what her back in. You can't get back in Lundy. No, but you know, you can just see

like what trauma does is she was just convinced. It happened again. And there I am, you know, my

whole body is saying, oh my gosh, here we go again. Like, she's really, really hurt. And it wasn't,

it wasn't like she was totally fine. Didn't open up. It didn't, it's not what she thought it was,

but she felt like she felt the year prior when it happened because that's the nature of trauma.

Yeah. So that that is exactly what happens with trauma. That's the physical trauma. But then

there's the emotional trauma. Your body can store emotional trauma. You know, I realized,

so in our book, we talk about how I, my first kind of anxiety slash panic attack came just

before I was speaking on stage in front of a massive audience. And I felt like I was going to pass

out. Like it was the weirdest thing. And obviously months later, it wasn't until I realized when I

was 12 years old, I don't know if I told the story on this podcast before, but I'll give you just a

quick story. But when I was 12 years old, our middle school and high school was going to go to

uniforms. And so they asked a certain number of us students to model the uniforms for parents.

So we actually had to model these uniforms and stand on stage, walk in front of the parents,

that kind of thing. None of us had to speak or anything like that. Just before I walked on stage,

my dad said, Hey, bud, when I, when I was in the military, we used to stand in formation a lot,

like what you're going to have to do tonight. So you're going to be in front of all those people,

make sure you bend your knees. Otherwise, you'll pass out. Well, can you imagine what I was thinking

about is a 12 year old boy. Don't pass out. Yeah. Yeah. And I talked to my dad about it afterwards. He

read the book. He's like, I didn't even know I did that. I was like, yeah, I didn't realize it

either until afterwards, you know, like I'm 40 years old, 40 some years old. And it was,

and I never even thought about that until that night, you know, and I'm like, Oh, my gosh,

why do I feel like I'm going to pass out? And I shot back to when I was like 12 years old,

scared to death. If I'm standing in front of people and I don't lock my knees, I'm going to pass out.

And I think subconsciously, that was a thought all those years. Make sure you've been in your

banger knees. When you're in front of people. Yeah. And now you're starting to feel like you're

going through this anxiety where you actually did pass out a couple weeks earlier, right? I did.

And so now you're, it's more front of mine. Like, oh, my goodness, I could pass out. So now that

that feeling of banger knees, banger knees, banger knees. Yeah. And if you're in front of people,

and then next thing you know, you know, when you're projecting fear in the future, like, please

don't pass out, you're saying I might pass out. You're thinking about something bad that's going to

happen in the future that you can't control. And then guess what happens? You start feeling

lightheaded. You start feeling dizzy and you could very well pass out. Yes. And so, but that's

because I had emotional trauma trapped in me since I was 12. And guess what? That wasn't my dad's

fault. Right. It's not his fault. He didn't mean it. And that's the thing that I think is very

interesting about trauma and something that was really helpful for me to learn is I think we

think of traumatic experiences like the one I gave an example of from Lundy or even, you know,

in emotional, like something really, really big emotionally that happened that you would consider

a trauma maybe like, you know, being abused as a child or something like that. Like, you would

think of that as a trauma. But here, you know, in your experience, it was something that was most

people would think that's not that big of a deal. Your dad told you'd bend your knees and you might

you might pass out, but because the emotion was at the level that it was, you were at that age,

the level was, they say that that which fires together, which fires together, wires together.

That's true. That's what neuroscience shows. So, like, these really big emotions that you have,

they, when they fire, they wire. And then you have an experience that reminds you of them,

and it brings you back to that wiring. And so, that's what was happening for you. It's like,

and sometimes we might think back to times where it's like, oh, it's not that. It wasn't that big of

deal. That wasn't a trauma. Well, it was for you because it was a really, really big emotion.

And it was really scary to you. And it stayed with you for the rest of your life. So, you can't,

you can't discount those things because sometimes those little things actually, you need to deal

with them and be like, oh, my goodness. That's what I'm thinking. That's the thought. That's where

it's stemming from. Yeah. So, that's the tea. It's trauma. It's physical. It's emotional. There's

other types of traumas, but that's what we stick with for us in the tea. So, and then now we're

going to move on to, oh, oh, is origin. Now, we're talking about nature and nurture. So, nature is your

family history. Okay. So, no, excuse me, nature is your genetic makeup. Nurture is your family

history. So, don't let me, don't let me screw those up for you. Okay. So, nature, your genetic

makeup. Look, some people are wired like a sports car. God created you to run like a sports car.

You're high octane. You got to be moving. Other people are more like a recreational vehicle.

They just move slower. Yeah. And you should. And it doesn't mean one is right, right, and the other

is wrong. One is good. The other is bad. It doesn't. It just means if you're an RV, don't try to

keep up with a sports car. And if you're a sports car, don't try to keep slow down with an RV.

You know what I'm saying? Now, here's what I truly believe, though. Typically, in marriage,

because you know, you can't put God into box, typically in a marriage, your spouses are one or

the other, but yet both of you kind of Lord willing get to a point where the sports car can

fly when it needs to, but then it slows down to a decent pace. And RV can go as slow as it wants,

but sometimes it speeds up, you know, to the pace to where you both can actually

live life together. Right. Right. And I think that's what you and I have done. In certain ways,

you fly like a sports car. In other ways, you don't. And the same is true with me. Yeah. And

then we just have learned each other. Right. But just how are you made? And so how do you know

which one you are sports car or an RV? How do you know which one you are? Well, pay attention

to your energy levels. Yeah. If you're doing something and you feel more energetic after having

done it, do that thing. But if you're doing something and you feel more exhausted, specifically

emotionally exhausted, like you can do something and then physically feel exhausted, but yet you're

energized by it. You know, so if you're physically exhausted after something and you're kind of

emotionally exhausted as well, like for me, you put me in a room with a bunch of five-year-old kids

and tell me I got two hours to try to play games with them. I'm ready to fall asleep five minutes

in. I just, that's not me. Yeah. But you put me in a room full of 50-year-olds and you tell them

that I need to share two hours of content with them. Now I'm going to be energized. Right. But other

people, it's the reverse. Right. So just figure out who you are. Okay. So that's nature. But then it's

nurture, like your family history. So you've got to know that if, one, if anxiety runs in your

family, you know, you're probably going to struggle with it. Yeah. But don't give into it. Oh, well,

you know, anxiety's always been in my family. I'm just going to know you can win. Right. You can

win this thing and be totally set free. You can, but you might have to fight a little harder than

somebody else. Right. Yeah. Or if you were raising a high stress environment. Yes. A high stress

home, you know, where maybe your parents wigged out about money all the time. You know, maybe

they screamed at each other. I don't know. Either way, you need to look at nature and nurture.

That's origin. Like how am I wired? Take some tests like Tori, you know, with the anyogram stuff.

It's so cool to take that. Take the disk profile. Yeah. Figure out who you are. Yeah.

Some self-awareness. Yeah. And then nurture. How were you raised? Think back to your family history.

Because that can totally wire you for some anxiety that you have to get over. So that's origin.

And then finally, P is products. What am I talking about products? I'm talking about anything

that you put into your body. Anything that's not already in your body. Yeah. But you put it there.

Well, how do we put it there? Well, you put it into your body by eating it,

by injecting it, by inhaling it, you know, sniffing it. Like what is it that you're putting into

your body by drinking it? Yeah. Because, well, one, we know that that a physical cause of anxiety

is inflammation. And so there are products that can cause inflammation. Yeah. If you don't do

well on dairy and that inflames you, that could get off your anxiety. If you are somebody who,

like yourself, caffeine, caffeine, he did an allergy test and he's very much sensitive to caffeine.

And when you have it, it makes me feel like I'm having a panic attack.

And so we know that there are things. And even our world has become very toxic too.

And we've the products that we, I know for me, I'm super sensitive to smells and cleaning

products and things like that that just give me a really bad headache. They make me really tired.

I can feel a difference in my body when like yesterday I was at Sherwin Williams.

Yeah. And they had some kind of scent that was awful.

It was just like very, like, you know, lots of chemicals. It was like a very chemical smell.

The smell of popery is the worst smell in the world.

Yeah. And it just made me feel awful. Like my head was hurting and I even feel it in my mood.

Like I'm just like more grumpy because I'm like, oh my gosh, I don't feel good.

So those things, you got to pay attention to those things.

You just mentioned that and it brings me back to childhood trauma that David and I both had

Mrs. Smith. We were five years old and she was our Sunday school teacher at Castle,

I think it was Casavue Baptist Church. And she smelled like a bottle of popery,

like roses caught in a lightning jar.

And I remember having such a big headache every time I was around her.

Yeah. I'm sorry. Well, she's probably dead now. God rest your soul, Mrs. Smith.

She sounds like I'm sorry, but I didn't even realize that was trauma until just now.

But products, it's like food, like food dies, processed foods, sugar, stop, like just don't,

like caffeine. And most everybody will tell you if you're struggling with anxiety,

first thing that you do is stop drinking caffeine. Stop drinking energy drinks.

Just quit. Don't do it because that revs you up. What anxiety does is it's revving you up.

Yes. You don't need a product to rev you up. Don't do it. I think what you learned,

because you were so sensitive during that season for those couple of months,

because you were so sensitive, you felt even heightened when you have caffeine. When you had one

time, you had a drink that had B12. Vitamin C had some B12. It just had some vitamins in it,

but they were just he was too sensitive to those things. And it's like because it was the over-sensitivity,

now you know, like you can handle a little bit of caffeine now. But you also, you'll take it now.

And you're like, I don't feel like the way it makes me feel. I don't feel like I did back then,

where I mean, I feel like terrible, but it actually doesn't make me feel great.

Because now I don't struggle with anxiety anymore. I actually won by God's grace. I'm not saying

it. I haven't had times where I'm like, okay, I feel something coming and I'm going to do the

three hours, recognize where I'm supposed to replace. But now if I drink caffeine,

back when I was struggling with anxiety, if I drink that caffeine on an empty stomach or whatever,

it would actually start to scare me, how jittery I got. And then I'd start thinking, oh no,

I got to drive in the car and I got the kids in the car. It would start turning into

projected powerlessness. Right. But now I can drink it. I can feel a little jitter and go,

oh, that's caffeine, right? Remember, recognize. Yeah. That's caffeine. My body is saying it didn't

like it. Yeah. And I'm going to renounce the lie that it's now a new anxiety attack. And I

never overcame this. And it's coming back again. Oh my gosh. I'm going to replace it with truth.

Yeah. I'm all good. You know what? I had a little bit too much caffeine. I'm not going to do that

again. A bunch of water flushes thing out of my sister system and move on. Yeah. But so it's

the products. But then you think about alcohol alcohol. It slows you down, but it actually

depletes your adrenals. So many people. And this isn't even a Christian argument for it. But so

many people are now very smart people saying alcohol is a killer. Yeah. It is killing you because

it causes so much inflammation. So much inflammation in sugar too. Sugar and alcohol because if you're

struggling with anxiety, that's Dr. Amen talks about it so much. Just the first thing that he tries

to do is say, no alcohol and let's lower the sugar and let's see how you're feeling. And then

the last would be medication. So Tori and I wanted to talk about medication. It doesn't,

it does not cause anxiety. At least not when you go get on anxiety meds. But we have a kind of a

thought on that. For Tori and I, we believe that medication should be a temporary fix. In the

same way that if you break your arm, you put a cast on it. Right. Not so that you can keep a cast

on it forever. Exactly. No, your arm is going to heal itself. The difference with anxiety in your

brain is that that's not going to heal itself. So you can get on medication, but you have to do

the work to, to free yourself, which is through the recognized renounce for place. But then ultimately

have a goal to get off of it. Yes. Because you do, listen, when it comes to healing anxiety,

it's not going to, your brain is not going to heal from anxiety in the way that your arm will.

Right. It requires your participation. Yes. So our thought process on medication is think about

participation more than medication. If you need to get on it real quick, okay, go.

But make it temporary. But participate with God in the healing process and you will win. I promise.

Yeah. I think just looking at it, like you would an injury, right? Like you're, or a sickness,

like there may be times where you need morphine, right? Like, yeah, morphine. Yeah.

But you wouldn't, you wouldn't stay on it, right? Yeah. Can you imagine? Or there's so many

different things like that. There are time for it if you're in a place of desperation. Yes.

But yeah, the goal is to get off of it and to get healed and to get whole. I think the problem

sometimes in the side effects come in and really alter your, your body when you stay on that

stuff for a long time. Yes. And let me give you one quick caveat. Tory and I are talking to the 99

percent of us that are actually like healthy normal people that struggle with anxiety. I'm not

talking about somebody who has like a mental condition or an emotional, like seriously, like

if you've got like some doctor prescribed issue, then stay on the medication. It's healthy for

everybody. We are not doctors and we are only sharing our opinions. Yeah. If you have the

letters P H and D after your name, then what we just said, you probably don't like. But we are

saying for the normal person, you can be free from anxiety. If somebody tells me I've been on

anxiety meds for 20 years and you're a relatively normal person, I would say, well, let's just

give it a shot to maybe taper off of it if you could. But you know, you got to be careful with that.

I've got a really good friend of mine that tried that and he went down into a spiral because his

body was so used to it. So you've got to be and you go to a doctor to figure that stuff out.

I think that's kind of where we kind of landed with this is because we have seen that when you are

on it for that long, it actually makes it very difficult to get off of it. Whereas if you are on

it for a few months and then you kind of wean yourself off, that is a little bit, your body can

handle that a lot better than trying to do it after 20 years. It's like all these dudes taking

testosterone. I had a buddy of mine tell me he said, I've been on testosterone for 20 years. He

said, I would never do it again. He said, because I can't stop. I have to. My body won't produce it

anymore. Yeah. So I mean, this is the approach that we took for you was because you even your

desperate, you are like looking at all the options, right? Like you know what that felt like. You

were like, what do I need to do? Yeah. I wanted to go on medication guys, but I felt like the Lord

told me not to. Well, that was for you. Yeah. For you, you felt like you you wanted to try some

things first and you did try those things and they by the grace of God helped and you didn't have

to go on the medicine. And those things were STOP. Those things were recognized for

place. Yeah. And and it worked. Sorry, I totally interrupted you. No, you're brain train going

somewhere really good and I just totally interrupted. You know, that's what you do.

This is a marriage podcast. I'm not going to edit any of this out. I'm sorry, I shouldn't

interrupt it to you. I really didn't interrupt you a couple of minutes ago. So you know what,

the funny thing is I didn't even notice. Hey, you know, it's really funny is I'm watching

Rocky scratch himself incessantly outside of our door. Listen, if you guys ever come to our house,

you're gonna love Rocky. Rocky was so good to me during my anxiety stuff.

Oh, there. Rocky was a therapy dog. He is a therapy dog. Okay. Because you know what, Rocky

always loves you no matter what. That is true. One of the saddest quotes that I've heard and it

just really makes me love my dog. He said, you know, to to you, he's a part of your life. But to him,

you're his whole life. I'm like, oh my gosh. Okay. Why do you tell me that? I look at him when

he's sitting beside me and I'm eating in his eyes or just and then I see that little piece of

drool drop on the ground. I'm like, oh, he deserves some food. All right. There you go.

Getting to the root of your anxiety. The source of your anxiety is STOP. Start with S. Sin.

Talk with God about what's going on. Then self talk. Then you're going to move into stress.

What's my stress levels looks like on the good side or the bad side? You know, and I'm doing

too much fun stuff without some rest. And on the bad side, what are my decisions look like?

Because your cortisol, whether it's good stress or bad stress, it's going up and down. So you

have to chill a little bit so that you can manage those cortisol levels. Yes. Or your body is going

to feel anxious. That's ST trauma. We're looking at physical trauma. And emotional trauma wounds

from the past. Oh, origin. We're looking at nature and nurture. Nature. How are you wired?

God, you wired you like a sports car or an RV or nurture. Think about how you were raised.

What was life like in your home? And lastly, products. What are you putting into your body

through what you eat, through what you drink, through what you take for medication?

God have mercy if you, you know, are shooting anything up. I don't think most people that are

listening to our podcast are doing that. And I do think that's actually a real thing right now

in our culture is to numb out with alcohol or marijuana or, you know, vapes that have different

things in them. Yeah, that's, that's a real, it's a real thing. And if you go that route, you are

robbing God of the opportunities that you free. And God wants you to work through this. He

wants you to operate through recognizing rounds, replace. He's going to set you free. Hold on to it.

And, uh, and, and you'll be a better person because of it. So there we go. S-T-O-P.

Thanks for joining us today. Sorry for interrupting you. See you guys.