Heavenly Father...In Jesus' Name

thoughts about drowning, breathing, and praying

Recalibrate: Part 1- Start with Gratitude

I woke up late this morning because I had stayed up all night trying to distract my mind from work by watching TV, practicing my French, doing homework assignments, and scrolling YouTube, but all of my efforts were pointless. I ended up back on the computer, obsessing over my grading queue, even though I knew I needed to obey the boundary I had set for myself this semester; no work after dinner.

That’s what anxiety does. It causes me to fixate on things that really should be set aside, like grading papers that can wait until morning or a problem that can’t be fixed in the middle of the night. Although I have had my issues with worrying, anxiety is different from worry because anxiety doesn’t always come with fear for me. Instead, it may come with obsessive thoughts. Whatever I’m fixated on, I have to think about it over and over and over. Often it comes with my need to work out a problem, a minor problem that may not even need fixing in the moment. Other times, I’m trying to avoid…