Isolating the Problem – Stress and Anxiety Management

Isolating the Problem – Stress and Anxiety Management

When leaving Pentecostalism, you will have a ton of problems to work through – which obviously is the reason for these forums. Often we get in a state of stress and anxiety because we know in our heart that something is wrong, but we cannot quite understand what is producing these feelings. Remember, our feelings are like thermometers to tell us that something is wrong. Often, these feelings come from unresolved issues that we have not worked through in our minds. Not knowing what is causing something is usually most of the reason for the anxieties and fears.

A good technique is to sit down at the computer and describe the feelings. Start writing about these things that are bothering you that you cannot get a grip on. Begin to describe it in detail. Then try to understand when these feelings come upon you. Think back to the last time this happened to you and the time before. What were you doing? What were you thinking? Where were you? Who were you talking to? What were you watching? Describe this is as much detail as you can. Then, try to understand the trigger of these emotions. Was it a sound? Was it a memory while walking through a place that gave you déjà vu? Was it a smell? And keep on as long as you can.

If these problems are religious problems, you might discover to your amazement that a particular event within your religious history is triggering these anxiety attacks or extreme stress. When you get to the point where you can connect your present distress with a particular even in the past that conditioned this stress, you have solved much of the problem. These stresses and anxiety attacks are internal mechanisms telling you that something within you is not resolved – you have not received closure.

Thus, once you isolate these feelings, connect them to the particular time you last had the stress attack, then further connect this with the conditioning religious event, you have resolved the issue for the most part. Once you have gotten to this point, you may start to remember things for days that will fill in all the cracks of the picture to the point that the events and the emotions make perfect sense to you. You have finally isolated the problem and reintegrated it into your psyche in an archived and orderly fashion, instead of the previous unordered terror and stress that would pounce upon you when you least expected it and least welcomed it.

This process should be repeated for all stresses you experience regularly. Often, you might find that religious stresses are connected to social and family stresses. The connections you discover and the problems you isolate will accelerate your path to recovery.

Nathaniel Branden describes some of these techniques very well in his book, “Honoring the Self,” which can be found at Amazon.

JPI