Disclaimer: In my experience I have had two different kinds of anxiety – one that I describe below that I have learned (am learning) to control and the second that I needed anxiety medication to help. I had planned to write about them both in this article; but it was too much to include, and the two were very different for me. In this post, I will talk about how I learned to take captive my thoughts. In a separate post, I will discuss in detail, my experiences that required anxiety medication and the ways it helped me.

We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

2 Corinthians 10:5

Background

Since my early discipleship, I have read this verse and others have read it to me. It makes perfect sense. Our thoughts determine so much about our daily lives, so learning to take captive those thoughts will have a daily impact. But HOW??? How do we take captive our thoughts, especially those that swim around our minds at an alarming, inescapable rate?

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 4:6-7

The command not to be anxious about anything ties in very closely with the need to take captive my thoughts. Anxiety dwells in my mind but quickly pervades my actions and my speech. During my first two pregnancies when I lived in Denver, my anxiety had become so severe that I found it difficult to drive or complete other basic life tasks. However, it was not until I moved to San Francisco that I became serious about addressing my anxiety according to the Bible. In the first few months of living in SF, Jason Dimitry shared multiple times in his sermons that he had been told years earlier that his mind was “feral.” Every time he said it, I thought, “Yep, that describes my mind perfectly.” But it took months of hearing the same thing and having the same response before making a decision to repent. He preached a sermon entitled “Fear,” and as the sermon progressed, I realized that he was describing every single day of my life. I lived in a state of constant fear, not of anything specific, but just a fear that followed me around and weighed on my mind like heavy rain clouds ready to open in a downpour at any moment.

My Decision and Process

After that sermon, I made a decision that fear would not rule my life or my thoughts any longer, but in order to do this, I had to take captive my thoughts. And so I began to the slow, deliberative battle over my thought life. The following morning I reread all the Scriptures from the sermon the day before and prayed that God would give me the strength to take captive every thought. The first step in taking them captive was to know what they were, so I had to consciously acknowledge what I was thinking instead of allowing my thoughts to be feral. I began to notice physical signs that I was anxious – clenched jaws, tensed shoulders, weary eyes. I used these as initial indicators that I needed to be more aware of my thoughts and whatever was making me anxious. The second step was to put the thought into one of two mental buckets: things I could do something about and things I couldn’t do anything about.

Bucket #1

There were some things that made me anxious that I could actually change including upcoming work deadlines, laundry, dinner, evening plans that seemed like they were scheduled too close to all work out. Each of these things had a solution:

• If I was anxious about a work assignment, I could just do it.
• I could make a plan for laundry or for dinner. If I was working from home, I could simply do the laundry or put dinner in the crock pot.
• If our evening plans were stressful, I could send texts to let people we were on tight times that night and we may be a few minutes late.

Once the problem had a solution attached, I could exhale, and the anxiety went with it.

Bucket #2

This is by far the harder one. Here are some examples of things that I cannot control that cause me anxiety:

• My husband will die in a train crash and leave me alone with three children, or vice versa
• One of my children will get an incurable disease
• I’ve sinned against someone in a way that I don’t know and I’m causing them to struggle every day
• I will lose my job and my family will be homeless
• Mistakes I made decades ago, like lying to a teacher in second grade about being able to deliver a letter to another classroom and then throwing the letter out instead (this is a real example from my life that causes me stress to this day)

When I acknowledged that I was anxious about something that I couldn’t control, I stopped, prayed, and gave that worry to God. Again, I was able to exhale. There were times when I couldn’t hand it over that easily, so the third step is to carry the concern to its completion. For example, the fear that Afa might die while our children are young is one that creeps in my mind almost daily, so I have learned to follow this one through. If Afa dies, I will have three kids and no husband, but I won’t be alone. God will never forsake me. I have my family, his family, and our church family. They would be walking with me every step of the way. Without Afa, maybe we lose our home, but again, we have so many people who will help take care of us. Without Afa, my children lose the most amazing dad, but God will also ensure their needs are met even if I cannot see how. While this is one of my deepest fears, I can see that God would take care of me, even through this. 

The Result

Due to the fact that I lived in fear, I quickly realized that almost every thought I had was an anxious one. So I mentally went through this process all day long. It was EXHAUSTING. I remember Afa asking me how my day was after the first day actively fighting this battle, and I told him I was so tired. I couldn’t believe how hard I had been fighting all day long to take captive my thoughts. I continued to fight my battle, hour by hour and day by day. I would like to say that it became easier with each day, but that’s not entirely true. It became easier eventually, but not immediately.

I’m about six months out from the beginning, and my process has become more automatic than it was at first. I have far fewer anxiety attacks, which allowed me to have more freedom in life. I don’t have to meltdown when we are late somewhere because I could take captive the thoughts that told me the world was ending because we were 15 minutes behind schedule. (I know that logically sounds ridiculous, but it is not an exaggeration.) I no longer give into the thoughts that Afa would leave me because dinner wasn’t ready. (And let me be EXTREMELY clear, those thoughts were always from my internal fears. My husband is one of the most gracious people.) I’m learning that taking captive my thoughts is necessary to having peace that passes all understanding. While I have not mastered my anxiety, I have learned how to intercept it before it continues on its feral journey to take over my thoughts and my life.