My Mind, My Mind, Why Does My Mind Do That??

My overthinking face in 2010

Do you have some coping mechanisms you used as a child?
Do you find yourself still using them also as an adult? I do too.

My coping mechanism is my own mind. There were several things I did with my mind in order to cope with my reality... But let me first talk about why I needed a coping mechanism:

Ideally, a child would grow up in a home where he/she is affirmed. That means that their parents would understand who the child is, and they'd speak into their traits and attributes in a positive way. They would value their feelings, thoughts, ideas and even their decisions at times. My parents, however, had no grid to understand that, let alone offer it to me. It wasn't something they grew up with or watched anyone in their environment do. And that is okay. However, this hurt me deeply.

I had things said to me that were very damaging and hurtful. Everything from not being good enough to comments about my body were made on a regular basis. To make matters worse, I was also bullied at school physically, mentally and emotionally. When you put all of these things together, you begin to understand why a ten year old child would see suicide as their only option. Thankfully, God didn't allow me to commit suicide.

What would I then do when these things were said to me? I began to tune out. I cannot tell you how much I would daydream. I would daydream so much, that by the time I got to High School this became my favorite past time. If I heard something I didn't like in class, I would automatically go into a daydream. I would get home from school, sit in my room, think and daydream for hours. I would do this until night time. I hated my reality, so I would invent an alternate one. I fantasized about writing all of the fantastic ideas I was having; and I would dream about producing a book out of them someday. 

My favorite thing to do was to go away in my thoughts. What I didn't realize is that I was so good at it, I became detached from the world. I didn't know how to have normal conversations with people. My conversations were too deep, and at times just too angry. Anything that was unfair in this world would make me angry.

I would also stage all different kinds of scenarios. I would think in my head the words I would say to people before I'd say them. I would plan out in my head their different responses so that I would know how to reply to them. I could have 7 different scenarios planned out in my head about a 2 minute conversation. I didn't know it at the time, but the thought of unpredictable conversations or scenarios would give me anxiety.

I loved to protect myself in this way. Living in anxiety, constant thinking, planning and daydreaming was my ticket to a safe life. I wanted to control every aspect of my life. But that is virtually impossible. I cannot worry my way through life.

In college, I realized I had a real problem with living in the moment. I didn't know how to do that, not at all. I didn't know how to have fun conversations. I didn't know how to be carefree. It took a lot on my part to begin to heal those areas; and then some more effort when I would encounter triggers.

In 2010, I began to come out a little bit out of my shell. But then there was someone who was a father figure to me who was extremely unpredictable; sometimes happy and sometimes hostile. This person triggered the highest level of anxiety I had ever had since I was young. It was so bad, I was essentially paralyzed and could hardly complete any task. 

In 2013, after a lot of inner healing, I had an impossible-to-please-professor who triggered my anxiety through the roof. In addition to this, I had a very hostile manager that sent several of us to therapy, as I learned later. This is when the anxiety and fear was the absolute worst. I fully believe that if someone would've checked the constant pounding of my heart, I would have been admitted to the hospital. I was terrified of my own shadow. I finally decided to get some professional counseling my school offered for free. I was then diagnosed with two anxiety disorders. One of them was Panic Disorder and the other was Generalized Anxiety Disorder. I discovered the latter one before I was diagnosed because I read it in a book for my Abnormal Psychology class. I wrote a 10 page research paper on it. (Actually, I wrote 20 pages, became extremely anxious while attempting to cut it down, and my professor allowed me to turn it in with 16 pages, after a discussion.) 

Now I knew what the problem was and I could give myself some grace. I stopped being anxious about being anxious. In therapy, I learned about Cognitive Behavioral Theory. Understanding what the problem was along with some solutions worked to an extent... but the mind cannot heal itself.

The Spirit of the Living God is the only one that can heal.

That year -2013- the Lord called me into a Daniel fast for the year. It was a year of wholesome consecration, identity and Sabbath rest. It was also the year in which the Lord began to take me on out-of-body experiences. It was eye-opening to see how persistent my mind could be in trying to understand the mysterious things the Spirit of the Living God was doing. The Lord told me to be fully present in these experiences and He would later bring them to remembrance so that I could write them down. 

During that time is when I experienced the overwhelming and supernatural peace of the Lord all over again. This is also when I went back to my First Love. That's when I discovered and trusted that God was completely safe again. He is not partly safe. He is 100% safe. 

Shortly after my fast began, the enemy began to attack my closest friends. All of them were struggling with different things and had no grid to understand my season. I care very deeply about the people in my life, so I came out of my season in hopes I could help my friends. But can you guess what happened afterwards? I couldn't help them, and I went back to relying on the anxiety and overthinking. I ultimately gave up on my friends and I tried to go back into my season as best as I could. I had lost momentum, yet I still took hold of some great heavenly things between 2014 and this year.

Where am I now? I am right in between. I am having extremely rich and amazing experiences with the Lord, but my mind wants to kick back in. I am incredibly in tune with the Spirit realm, seeing angels, miracles and experiencing the power and goodness of God on a regular basis. It's almost as if my mind thinks that it could out-think Holy Spirit. It thinks that it could do a better job. I am so used to having my mind in control that it wants to override the levels in which Holy Spirit is taking me 

It takes everything within me to just. let. go. I cannot out-think my way out of thinking. Like I said, my mind cannot heal my mind. I have to let go so that Holy Spirit can guide my mind completely. When I let Holy Spirit do that, it is so quiet up there. I am not thinking about a million things that will never happen. I think about what is important in the moment. I am more present. I am more joyful. I am carefree. I am more loving. I am more Anel.

My coping habit has damaged so many things over the course of my life. I truly had no idea how much damage I was doing to my own self, and how much satan used my weaknesses to withhold blessings from me. The enemy used my mind to not only say lies to me, but to bring panic and suspicion. My mind, my dear friend, instead of working for me, began to work against me.

The same lady I mentioned on the picture of last week's post also said: "The Lord says that you're very smart-and that's good, He has given you your intelligence- but He also says that sometimes your thinking gets in the way of what He wants to do, so He is putting that away for a while." Wow! That was such a timely word.

Where am I now? I am so much better than I used to be. My friends can attest to say that who I am is a 180 degree difference than who I used to be. But the Lord is calling me to another level. So I have to let go completely. I am letting go of my dear coping mechanism. I am choosing to let the Spirit of the Living God guide me. He is the only one who can keep me safe. 

My mind belongs to Jesus. He is the Truth. He sets me free, and I am free. 

If you want to read some more about exposing fear and anxiety, you can read my Odyssey article

Fear Almost killed me...

So, what about you? Do you want to journey into mental, emotional and spiritual freedom with me?                                             Stay tuned...