If you feel stuck in worry or your mind won’t slow down, this conversation will meet you right there.

I’m joined by Melissa Fisher to talk about anxiety in a way that’s both practical and grounded in faith. We walk through how anxiety actually works in your body and mind, and how you can respond differently using simple, daily tools.

We talk about her book, Jesus for the Anxious, and the habits that help you move from constant worry to real peace. This includes breathing techniques, renewing your thoughts with truth, and creating space for rest in a culture that keeps pushing you to do more.

We also get honest about isolation and why trying to handle anxiety alone often makes it worse.

If you’ve been feeling overwhelmed, restless, or mentally exhausted, this episode will give you clear next steps to calm your mind and reconnect with peace.

Takeaways

• Anxiety is not just spiritual. It’s physical and mental too, so you need to address all three.
• Deep breathing is one of the fastest ways to calm your nervous system in the moment.
• What you repeatedly think shapes how you feel. Truth has to be practiced, not just known.
• Constant pressure and busyness fuel anxiety more than most people realize.
• Rest is not optional. It is part of staying mentally and spiritually healthy.
• Isolation makes anxiety worse. Safe, supportive relationships help regulate it.
• You don’t need complicated strategies. Small daily habits create real change.

Connect with Melissa at MelissaFisherCounseling.com or read her substack here

Grab the Rewire Your Mind: From Negativity to Joy- download here.

Grab the Joy Rising- Daily Gratitude & Joy Journal here.

Download My Free Joyful Living Devotional: https://kristinfitch.com/devotional

Ready to take your first step towards a more joyful, faith-filled life? Download our Reignite Your Passion Workbook and start living with purpose today!

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Hi.

I'd like to welcome our guest to the show.

Melissa Fisher is a licensed mental health counselor from Vancouver, Washington, working with trauma and anxiety.

She has two decades of experience in Christian youth, women's military, and young adult ministries, as well as personal work and spiritual formation.

She and her husband, a retired military officer, enjoy traveling with her adult children and hiking in the mountains.

Melissa's new book is called Jesus for the Anxious eight weeks of practicing Peace to calm your worry and fear.

Welcome to Faith Fueled Living, the podcast that equips you to live well spiritually, emotionally, physically, and purposefully.

Each week, we'll dive into conversations and biblical truths to help you strengthen your faith, pursue meaningful work, care for your whole self, and live in line with what matters most.

Hi.

Today on the podcast, I'd like to welcome our guest, Melissa Fisher.

I'm excited because we're going to have a conversation around how do we overcome anxiety?

And we're going to talk about how do we add techniques and.

And daily habits to help us navigate life and add these things to our toolbox to help us find more peace and calm and let go of the anxiety or the worry or fear or when it does come in, how do we navigate that so that we can release that and actually not let it consume us so much?

So, welcome to the show, Melissa.

Thank you, Kristen.

Thank you for having me.

Yeah, absolutely.

And so one of the things we're going to talk about today is Melissa has a new book coming out called Jesus for the Anxious eight Weeks of Practicing Peace to calm your worry and Fear.

And I've gone through the book, and I'm excited because she has so many practices and techniques, and she really integrates the intersection of scripture and neuroscience and psychology.

And so she's going to bring all that wisdom to this conversation day.

So I know all of us are going to benefit from us from it.

Whether you're someone that really is battling anxiety or worry or fear, or whether you're somebody that it just comes to during some seasons.

This is going to be powerful and I know you can take.

There'll be actionable steps for you to apply to your life starting today.

So, Melissa, can you start off with just telling us what does life look like and why did you write the book?

So I started years ago with my own anxiety.

I had often had symptoms of just feeling like I was overwhelmed and I was panicked and I was.

I would wake up in the middle of the night and worry about anything and everything and nothing at the same time.

And my body felt a lot of Tension pretty frequently.

And then I also noticed that it caused me to have difficulty in focus and in concentration and eventually some disconnect between others and even from God.

And so that was some flags that I had.

And so I wanted to deal with it personally.

And it happened to coincide with me going through my mixer's program for counseling.

And so I really felt conflicted about this, of how can I feel like I can help people if I can really help myself?

And so I started my own therapy journey and then, of course, doing my own training.

Both of those really informed my understanding of anxiety and my understanding of myself.

And then, of course, helping me to help others in the future.

Yeah.

So good.

So I guess the first thing I ask you is, you know, obviously I know some of the statistics on people dealing with anxiety or anxiety disorders or people that have just felt symptoms of anxiety in the last, you know, when they've done surveys, two weeks.

But what would you just share with us about what are we dealing.

Dealing with as a whole here?

Like, what are we experiencing as far as anxiety and fear and worry?

So why don't we start there?

So the question is, what is anxiety?

Yeah, what is it?

Like, how many of us are dealing with this?

You know what I mean?

So I don't know the actual statistics around that, but I think what I can say is that we all deal with anxiety at some point in our life because anxiety on a number one science level is an activation of the nervous system.

It is really important for us to have that activation in order to keep ourselves safe.

And so if a car goes past you really fast and you jump, that's your nervous system reacting before you even have a chance to think about it.

And that's necessary for your safety.

And so when life gets stressful, that activation can come in, and it's a sign.

When life gets stressful, we need to do more things.

We need to be more alert.

We need to pay attention, and it causes us to be motivated in order to make those changes.

And so we've all experienced that at times with the stress and the stressors coming in.

And as I mentioned in the book, even Jesus experiences that situational anxiety that comes as he's about to go to the cross in that garden of Gethsemane.

And so recognizing that, it's our body's way of telling us that things are overwhelming and we need to pay attention.

Yeah, absolutely.

So I guess what would we just start with?

Where do we start?

If we're going through either a day or a season or we Just feel like anxiety's taken over more of our thoughts than we want it to.

So where do we start?

Yes, great question.

So you're right.

Anxiety can take over our thoughts.

For some people, that means that they're going to have 10,000 thoughts and they can't pick one to focus on.

And for some people, it means they're ruminating it, ruminating on the same thought over and over.

And really, it's about stepping back.

And the first thing I teach people is deep breathing.

And there's so much science behind this, but really it's the very first thing that God introduced into Adam to bring him life.

And so I think understanding how much breath is a gift to us from God is helpful because we can recognize that every inhale and then every exhale is quite literally God's giving us the oxygen and helping us to release the toxins that we can't have in order to survive.

And so taking that deep breath isn't just a biological thing.

It's also a gift from God.

So the first thing I tell people is to take a deep breath.

And it's not just a deep, shallow breath in your chest.

Because if we do that, we're going to stay in some hypervigilance and we're going to stay in this method, in this mode of panic.

But it's to get that breath super deep into your body, down into your belly.

And that's what we refer to as diaphragmatic breathing.

And so getting that belly to expand, contrary to popular opinion, we do want the belly to expand at times and then getting it to deflate as we do that exhale.

So good.

Yeah.

And for somebody that maybe hasn't heard this idea before, when we do that deep breathing, along with other techniques, that helps us shift, but it turns off the vagus nerve, right.

Or that stress response, and it lets us go into the calm part of us.

And so there's actually a physiological thing that's happening when we breathe deeply like that.

So that's the first thing.

I think I just interviewed someone yesterday, and, you know, it's a little different than what we're talking about.

But it was interesting when you're saying about, you know, like, you know, God's giving us that gift of breath, right?

And like breathing more life into our body when we breathe deeply like that and fill our bodies with that oxygen.

And he said we were talking more about doing good in the world, but he said when we breathe in, right, that's kind of God giving us, you know, keeping us living and when we breathe out, it's sort of like us going into the world to do Right.

With, like, what God's given us.

So I just thought that was interesting when you're talking about.

Yeah.

You know, and it just reminded me, Linds, again, it's when we focus on we, you know, have this gift, but then how do we go and use it?

Even though that's not specifically our conversation today, I do think it's interesting because, of course, it's that more focused on not just, like, how we feel and we'll get into later, but also what we're doing, you know, so.

Yeah, yeah, right.

Yes.

I love that because I think that it's one other way to recognize that these, we might call little things that God has given us, these basics of life, really are beneficial for us.

And God's asked us to do great things with them.

And so whether you're referring to doing something into the world, going into the world with that exhale, or simply just recognizing that that is us releasing these toxins that we shouldn't have, both are ways of understanding that God has given us with so much right here sitting in any room in this earth.

On this earth.

And.

Right.

You know, that is his gift, us.

Oh, absolutely.

So let's.

A little bit about.

So many of us have possibly come up, right, over decades where our culture is breeding anxiety, right.

The way that especially in the United States, you're not saying other places don't have this, but this whole hustle culture, or like, we have to do more, we have to work at night, you know, And I'm not saying everyone lives that way, but a lot of people do.

Right.

And so what would you just say to us, to say to the audience about that?

I love this conversation.

I think it's really important for us to be aware where our culture has influenced our faith.

And there has been a long, long, long history where that was not the case, where we did not have this active culture, do more with less culture.

And so really only over the past hundred years, roughly, has that come into play.

And as that's merged with the largely Christian faith in the US at least 100 years ago, those two things got intertwined pretty closely.

And so it's really hard, I think, even as believers breath, to separate out the work aspect of our culture, of the way that we interact here in the US and then recognizing that Jesus was also balanced and he was also about taking that time away.

And so as we look at this, the speed of which we do things in this world, I think it's worth recognizing that we weren't created for all of this.

We actually were not created to consume the amount of information that we consume.

The.

I am very conscious of how much time I spend reading the news.

I. I don't even read it every day.

I try to read it every other day.

You keep in touch with, you know, a pulse on what's going on.

We really weren't designed to have that type of detail about things so far away from us.

And it's caused us to.

To our world, or I shouldn't even say our worldview.

It's caused our momentary, minute by minute view to be outside of us as opposed to right around us.

And what happens is that causes us to disconnect from the people in the same room often.

And that disconnect is isolation emotionally.

And that can cause anxiety and depression.

And so when you're talking about this busy, busy culture, a part of it is just recognizing, okay, am I doing this because I feel like I need to in order to gain my purpose, in order to feel like other people appreciate me or that I'm, you know, pleasing to them, or is it because God's action actually asked me to do this?

So stepping back and recognizing that oftentimes it comes from our human nature and not what God's asked us to do.

Oh, absolutely.

I mean, I talk to people so often and they.

They are.

They're so stuck in this performance, right?

Like, we have to perform first.

We can't rest because God gave us that gift.

Like, they start with, if I haven't done everything, I can't do.

Right?

And that is obviously not how God designed us for what he's trying to give us.

But like you said, even some of the people I know that are, you know, longest, strongest Christians, they somehow do.

It's so interwoven that they don't even see it, right?

It just become how.

How a lot of us maybe were raised in our homes or like you said, just the culture, the messages that we get bombarded with.

And I'm like you, though.

I.

For at least five or six years, probably longer than that.

I do not watch TV news ever.

Like, of course I see the headlines or I'll go, you know, to a couple sites and just get the updates.

But I have to be careful of that, too.

I mean, I never was watching the news all the time, but every time you turn it on, it's just so upsetting.

And like you said, we feel like, how can we help all these things?

But we can't fix everything and we can't be part of everything doesn't mean we shouldn't be informed.

But to your point, we don't want it to overwhelm us, which it's easy to do if we're not careful, especially how much we go online and all the messages that are getting pushed to us, especially the more we look at something, they push more of it right towards us.

Correct.

So one of the guides that I use with clients is asking the question, what's mine to hold?

And so if I'm spending significant amount of time on things that are not mine to hold, I'm wasting time where I could be spending on things that would be.

And that's what I was referencing earlier of the people in the very room are actual next door neighbors.

And how little we spend our mental effort connecting with them versus worrying about something that's so far outside of us that we really will probably never actually need to know or help with.

And so I absolutely agree.

I think it's really helpful to step back and recognize.

Oh, this is probably not helping me.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

So let's talk about.

I mean obviously there's a lot, there's lots whole areas about relationships and everything we can do around that.

Right.

Because that also ties into what we're experiencing.

Right.

As far as anxiety or how we feel.

So two things.

One is, I know today more than ever, more people feel isolated or lonely.

Right.

And one is, well, anyway, so I would like to hear what you have to say about that.

And then two is what was maybe your top tip on relationally?

What can we do to make sure we are connected and that we are engaged?

That's going to help us our mental health.

I'm so glad you brought this up because I think that the idea of relationships sometimes gets left out of the conversations about depression and anxiety and a lot of disorders and anxiety in particular.

So with relationships and that connection, we are hardwired, meaning our brains for connection.

And so if all of us are made in the image of God and God is somehow this triune God.

Right.

So he's by nature relational.

I truly don't understand it.

I just know that it is because that's what his word tells me.

And that means if we're created in his image, we are created to be in relation to what there's.

And so what that means is that we have to have personal connection with other human beings in order for our brains to develop appropriately.

And so if we don't get that the neurons that need to fire in Certain directions, they don't.

And it causes anxiety.

And so when the pandemic shutdowns first happened, many of us therapists realized right away that there was going to be a huge increase in depression and anxiety.

We just knew.

We said, well, this isn't going to go very well in terms of disorders.

We're going to see an increase.

And sure enough, six to eight months later, there were reports of the highest number of SSRIs ever being prescribed.

Lots of reports of depression and anxiety.

And so as people started to reconnect, they noted the awkwardness of that connection and how they had to relearn how to connect.

But we also saw a decrease in anxiety.

And so recognizing that when a person is isolated, they will naturally have symptoms of anxiety because their body and their brain rely on those connections in order to regulate their nervous system.

Yeah.

And I find with some friends of mine or people I talk to that they, they seem to think, well, all these other things are priorities.

And not saying their friendships aren't, but they sort of say, well, when this is done, when my kids are older, when, then I'll make more time.

Right.

Instead of like, well, and I'm not saying they don't make some time for their friendships and things or their family, but I do see a pattern, Right.

That.

That's emerged with some people, you know, that the overachieving performance focused friends of mine.

But then, two, I think the data says that one of the indicators of someone living a long life is actually having deep relationships, at least one or more.

Right.

Real connection to someone else.

And so I think a lot of us underestimate the value and importance.

Like you just told us why it's important of having these deeper connections with someone.

Correct?

Yes.

So I read similar research about the longevity.

Longevity of somebody who has those connectomes.

And it makes me think of other research that I've read about.

When a spouse passes away, the other spouse typically passes away within six months if they've been really close and especially if they're older.

And so I think, you know, having more friendships, that's obviously an extreme, extreme example.

But having those friendships throughout life is really important.

So that as we get to those phases where maybe we aren't as busy and work or we retire or our kids, you know, leave the home, we aren't stuck in that position of, well, now who am I?

Because our connections and our friendships really do help us sort out who we are.

It's not that they're defining us, it's that we're figuring out who we are in Christ as a person, as a friend, and even in our just personality and characteristics through those connections.

And that can get really lost, which is why I think we have a lot of people that.

To those phases where the kids move away and they maybe retire or switch careers and they.

They come in with all of this anxiety saying, I don't know who I am.

And those connections are really important to me.

And I will argue that for, for as a therapist, when part of our intake assessment is to look at a person's support system, because we instinctively know that when their support system is stronger, their therapy process is strong, so much easier.

I mean, I don't usually like to phrase things as easy or hard, but it really is.

And they're able to overcome their emotional struggles much faster and with much more ease because they have those connections.

Yeah, I mean, even several years ago, I had a head injury.

I mean, it was.

It was fine, but I had some symptoms.

And when I went to see the neurologist, I think it was the first time he said, and I was telling him some of them, they were, we'll just say minor because they all were temporary and went away.

And he said, oh, well, most people that have had, you know, things.

He said, they're usually all fine if they already have.

And it was the same like if you already had.

He didn't use the word purpose of purpose.

If you already have relationships, you know, I was married, I have kids, I had friends.

If you already work, you know, you have meaning.

He said, most of those people are absolutely fine.

You know, I mean, obviously there's extreme situations where someone hurt their head.

But my point is, is it came back to that connection of if things in your life, like you said, that support is there, then those people have better outcomes physically with their physical health as well.

And so it makes so much sense what you just said.

I did want to jump into that, though, about the mind, body connection, or really mind, body, spirit, because it's so tied together.

And I think there's so much more conversations about this today.

But I do feel like there's a lot of people that still don't realize that their thoughts Right.

Or the anxiousness they're feeling actually is part of the reason why they're having more physical symptoms.

And so what can you share with us about that?

Right.

So I read some research years ago about how emotions are chemical, electrical reactants in the brain.

And so if there was some research where the researchers would put an image in front of the patient, that would Trigger a particular emotion.

Let's say it was anger or frustration or maybe even happiness.

And then they would scan the brain, and they could see particular parts of the brain light up.

And so there were obviously consistencies.

When a patient reported, oh, that made me feel happy, they say they saw the same parts of the brain light up as they did for other patients also reporting happiness, and then different parts of the brain for anger and anxiety.

And so recognizing that thoughts.

So the thought of, you know, bringing this image up and they would have these particular thoughts related to this image would then connect with that emotion.

And so if you and I were to sit here for the next five minutes and in silence, think about all the things that we did wrong in life, we would not feel so good in five minutes, and our bodies would react accordingly.

And then if you and I spent the next five minutes thinking about all the things we can't control in life, we would both sense some symptoms.

They might vary slightly between us, but some of the common ones are usually an increased heart rate, maybe some cold and clammy hands.

We would start to sense the tension come into our bodies.

It does vary a little bit, but for most of us, it's somewhere in our torso.

And so those physical symptoms can come in simply from thinking about things that causing that cause anxiety.

They're anxious thoughts.

Anxious thoughts are typically around things that are outside of our control, such as future things that we're uncertain about.

They're occasionally about the past.

If it's something that we did or that we're questioning, did we do the right thing?

But they're more often than not focused on the future.

Yeah, I mean, and there's also so much data on when we have.

And when I say positive, I'm not trying to say fake positive thoughts, but when we have positive thoughts or like thoughts of hopeful thoughts, you know, especially if you have a diagnosis or a chronic illness or whatever it might be, those patients have better outcomes.

Right.

Like, so if they're prayerful about it, they're hopeful that, you know, they can be.

They can have improvement or healing.

Right.

Versus the people that all of a sudden they let the anxious thoughts take over them about the diagnosis and they identify as the diagnosis those people tend to not have as the healing or their health does not improve, either as quickly or as much.

And so it's that same thing about we don't want to become the word that's used to describe the medical right thing or even the mental health word that someone might use because of the group of symptoms.

We don't want to let that become who we are.

It's just what, what we're going through.

Yes.

So there's in.

Paul talks about this, he mentions it in Romans 12, about being transformed by the renewing of our mind because he knows how much our thoughts impact us.

But really in Philippians 4, he references, he references anxiety.

He talks about how if, if he says don't be anxious, but not in the sense of like repentance.

He says don't be anxious.

And he says, pray, you know, with Thanksgiving and you'll present your petitions to God.

But then he goes into this whole list of things to focus on and they aren't.

It's not necessarily positive psychology.

I'm not a huge believer in positive psychology because like you said earlier, it can't really be fake.

Right.

We have to believe it.

And so I'm more along the lines of realism psychology where it's got to be hopeful and positive or at least neutral.

It's got to be something that puts us in the state of like, I can handle this, this does suck, but I can handle this.

And so it isn't necessarily if somebody's sitting in front of me and they're struggling with a lot of body image issues and I tell them, well, put a sticky note on your meal that says I'm the most beautiful person in the world.

First of all, it's not true.

It's not true.

So they're not going to believe it in that moment.

And they're.

And all of us are going to look at that statement on our meals mirror and say, well, that's not true.

So we're not, it's not going to help us at all.

But if they put a sticky note on their mirror that says this is the way God made me, well, he finds me beautiful because he doesn't find any of his creation not beautiful.

You know, and we use more realistic statements of recognizing our deeper proofs and our deeper identity.

Those things are more helpful.

And that's.

It gets into what talks about with focusing on things that are true, he says through lovely, noble, trustworthy.

And so those are the thoughts that I have people focus on because if they are going to spend five minutes in the spiral, they're not going to feel good.

But if they can pause and interrupt that anxiety spiral with some more helpful thoughts that will help them come out of it.

Oh, 100.

That makes.

Yeah, I absolutely agree with you.

Yeah.

And yeah, even when I've done little worksheets and things on certain episodes, I've done, you know, same.

Like, if.

So a lot of people write, we struggle with saying something, especially women saying something positive about yourself, maybe physically, if you're not where you want to be in some ways.

But it's the same thing.

Like, yeah, but what can you say about your body?

Right?

Like, I am.

My body's so strong.

Like I can pick up the whatever or my body created these beautiful humans if you've had children, right?

Like, so we can shift the ideas we're having, but like you said, we're not trying to make it pretend or not believable.

It's.

But what can we say, right, that we can remind ourselves of something.

And you gave some great examples there.

So thank you.

So there's so many things in the.

Book and of course we're not going.

To be able to cover, but only a tiny bit.

But what would you say?

You told me where, where should we start?

But now I guess what would be maybe the top one to three practices?

Because obviously you have a lot of techniques and a lot of habits that we can apply and learn in the book.

And then like the weekly kind of questions and reflection.

But what would be in this conversation?

Maybe what do you want to share about that?

So I think the first thing I, like I said earlier, is the deep reading.

And so I don't mention the word breath prayers in the book, but it's essentially what, what I'm walking people through.

And that is an inhale of some sort of truth and an exhale of some sort of truth, right?

And so breath prayers can come from scripture or they can just be a truth, you know, either about yourself or directly first person to God.

And so we could even just do a diaphragmatic breath on Psalm 23, the first verse, right?

And so the way that someone would practice that is to inhale for about four seconds.

And if you put your hand on your chest and your hand on your belly, you'll notice that they do move a bit as you're breathing.

And the idea is to get your chest, chest to move a little less with each breath and the belly to move a little bit more with each breath.

And so person can just inhale.

The Lord is my shepherd.

And so they would just inhale for about four seconds.

And they're just thinking it, it's not out loud.

And then you would hold for about five seconds.

And as you exhale, the important thing is to exhale for as long as you possibly can.

But I usually use a 4, 5, 6 method of inhale.

4 Hold for 5, exhale for 6, and you're breathing out.

Iowac method.

When you're pursing your lips and you're trying to get that last bit of air out of your belly, and what that does is when you're getting to the very end and you're pushing out all the air, it just increases the chance that you'll get the next breath deeper into your belly.

That's really why we do that.

The reason we make the exhales longer than the inhales, and pretty much any deep breathing exercise does this is because you're actually activating two different parts of your nervous system as you do this.

When you're inhaling, you're slightly activating your sympathetic, which is the fight or flight.

And when you're exhaling, you're really leaning into that parasympathetic, which is the rest and digest.

And your heart rate is actually different.

Your heart rate is slightly faster on an inhale than it is on an exhale.

Exhale.

So naturally, if we're trying to be calm, we want to focus on that exhale.

And so just breathing in the Lord of my shepherd and breathing out, I lack nothing.

Doing four to six of those in a row can really help calm the nervous system.

Yeah, absolutely.

So good.

I'm glad you went into more detail about that.

So one of the things you talk about in the book is, or I'm sorry, one of the things you say is that it's more about practicing or doing right, like learning the techniques or the habits and doing them than about just gaining more information or learning.

Right.

We want to apply things.

In other words, right.

We want to take action.

So what would you tell us about that?

Like just habits and why the repetition is important.

Like, we might do a day one and be like, this isn't working.

Right.

But what can you share with us about why do we keep going?

I think that our culture is quite of that problem.

And we want to believe that we can do things one time and everything should be fine.

And I get that.

I want to feel better right away, too.

If I could wave the bed to blonde, I would.

But the reality is, is we have come to these spaces of anxiety oftentimes out of habit.

And so we have to learn a new.

We have dug these ruts in this path over here of like, well, I'm just going to default to having these anxious thoughts.

I'm going to default to shallow breathing.

And we don't think about it, we just do it.

Because that is the path that we've been walking for so long in this field.

And so whenever we're going to make a new path in a field, it's going to be really easy to walk up to that path the next day and pick or to the field the next day and pick the one we've always been on.

And so we have to intentionally move over here and walk this new path of calm over and over and over again before we start to default there in more anxious times is like when we see the Detour and we naturally want to go to this.

This place over here and we drive to the one we've been to every day, or we accidentally drive to work on a Saturday, right?

Because we're just used to going that way.

And so it requires a lot of intention, focused and attention.

That's what intention is, focused attention on doing these calm skills.

And what happens is if we haven't been practicing them and we get to a really stressful time or something semi traumatic happens or semi stressful happens, we won't go to things that we just learned.

No one shows up at the super bowl having just learned football yesterday, right?

They're not going to do very well if they do.

And so with that practice, it builds.

It's muscle memory.

It's the same concept.

And so they build that muscle memory so that when something really big does happen in life, they can now default to something they've been using.

I remember having a conversation with a pastor I interviewed that did a book on, like.

But it was like the fourth things that he learned that kind of helped him as he walked through severe depression decades ago.

But he said, like, yeah, I didn't want to get out of bed, but because I had made a plan, right?

And I had the intention, I, like, I would.

I got out of bed because, like, that's what I made myself do.

But it's that habit of getting, doing it allowed him to eventually get to a place, right, where he was able to get better.

I mean, he did other things obviously, like he, he did go to therapy and things.

The point though is like, he didn't want to get out of bed, but he did get out of bed because he had a plan for himself as to how to address it.

And it was to build that habit, you know.

And so like you said, it was.

And I'm not saying every time, like, if someone doesn't want to get a bed and like, if somebody, they just lost somebody, I'm not saying obviously, like, don't ever do whatever.

The point is, like, it's that Building the habit even when we don't feel like it.

Right Is the point.

Correct?

Correct.

And with depression, we want to activate the nervous system, actually.

And with anxiety, we're trying to calm it down.

So with depress action, we're putting coping skills.

That plan is get out of bed, brush your teeth.

Because they've gotten into the habit of not getting out of bed.

So notice how it's the same concept.

We're breaking that habit that they have with anxiety.

We're breaking the habits of an activated nervous system and shallow breathing and anxious thoughts and even some relational habits.

That's what we're trying to break with this.

Right?

Right.

Yeah.

So, okay, let me ask you this.

So obviously throughout the book you give people, you know, prompts or questions to answer.

And of course there's a lot of work we do, you know, after reading the area, you know, you give them things, you know.

And one of the things I think you ask in the book is something like you ask people to kind of do a self reflection and say something that they're learning about themselves or about anxiety.

So what would you just tell us about?

Because I think a lot of us get the whole busy culture and the whole we're staying anxious.

We don't stop and slow down enough to do that self reflection or like personal introspection.

So what would you share with us and why is that so important?

Yes, so self awareness is a huge part of not just understanding who you are and who.

And it actually involves understanding who God is and how he views you.

But it plays significantly into to our emotions.

And so if I'm just constantly, constantly reacting with a particular emotion, but I never stop to ask why, I will continue to react with that emotion.

And so by stopping to ask why, we can look into what are the things that have led me to this place.

Because if we can learn a little bit about that, we can change how we feel about those things.

And it's just a little bit of, or a lot of reframing and rewriting some narrative of what we've been telling ourselves all these years, whether that be relationally or just in who we are.

And so as we self reflect and get a better understanding of who we are, we actually change how we interact with others.

And that's really important because our interactions with others can and do impact our emotions.

If I'm constantly reacting with fear towards others, I actually increase my own anxiety.

And so by changing my reaction, I can decrease my anxiety even if that person never changes.

Yeah, I mean, I've had conversations where one particular one someone was saying, like at work, this coworker.

Right.

I'm sure this is very common theme, right?

Or story.

This coworker was always driving them a little crazy, getting under their skin.

Like, it was always like a daily sort of like anxiousness or frustration with them.

But it wasn't until they started journaling about it.

Right.

Or like kind of writing down, like, why is this bothering me?

That they started seeing a pattern, that it was.

They were part of it.

Right.

In other words, before, it was always about it's this circumstance or this person in that case, but never really realizing, like, why is this getting to me?

So it was once they started seeing, like, wait, every day these same things are bothering me.

But when you get.

When you, like you said, when you dig in a little deeper, when you actually start asking, but why, like, why is this circumstance or this person, like, just causing my day to kind of be like, just all out of sorts.

Right.

Or really upset or whatever it might be.

You're anxious.

But I think it's when we start doing that, right?

When you start taking that time and you start really uncovering, like you said, what's behind it, or at least what can we gathers behind it.

We might not always know.

And that's obviously one of the reasons you might go, you know, work with somebody else.

But so I think it's just so important that we do do those things.

Yeah, I think, you know, what you're referencing is this is the looking the plank in our own eye.

And sometimes it is a plank, sometimes it's us going, oh, wow, I really have contributed to this.

You know, I put my own things into this that I need to reassess and maybe apologize also.

It's recognizing that sometimes, okay, I've assessed, I look for that plank.

There is no plank.

This is something that the other person is just doing continuously or something about me maybe that's triggering that in them, but it's really not mine to hold.

And so then we can start to release that and not hold on to all of the anxiety that we've been having based on their reactions.

Yeah, got it.

Okay, so I'm just going to bring up a couple of the things you talk about in the book, and then I just want you to maybe pick one or two that you want to talk about.

So you have so many great things in there, right.

You have about the importance of rest and Sabbath meditation, visualization, but even art.

And then, I don't know, there's just all these things.

So, like what would maybe be one of those, at least one or two that you want to just talk about.

And as far as, like, how does this tie into helping us, you know, calm ourselves and be less anxious and less worried?

Yes.

So I give a lot because we're all so different.

Our personalities are so different.

And so, for example, if somebody has aphantasia, which is the inability to see visions in their mind, visualization is not going to be for them.

But the mindfulness that I teach might be.

And so my favorite is the five senses mindfulness, mainly because I get the most feedback from clients about it and it's the most tangible one.

And so even if you're lacking one of your, you know, one or two of your senses, you can still do it.

And so it really, it comes down to being present.

Mindfulness is about being present.

And I think we've got.

It's not kind of a bad rap on the spiritual, on the Christian side of things, because it feels, I've heard clients say it's very woo woo, but it's actually just recognizing, acknowledging what God has put right in front of us and the fact that he's present with us.

And so if we just for a moment even you and I sitting here acknowledge that God is in the presence of us somehow, I don't get it.

He's with you and he's with me even in this conversation.

And then you and I pause and we take a moment to address, even if we just start with sight or touch.

And I say, okay, I'm sitting in this room and I can see you on the screen and you're wearing a pink sweater and I can see my laptop in front of me and it's silver.

I start to feel like I'm actually in this room.

And I start to be more present with just my surroundings.

And that's calming to my nervous system.

And so, Kristin, for you, what are three things that you see or can touch right now?

Absolutely.

Well, I have a handful of plants in here.

So I see different shaped and sized plants in my office.

So that's one of the things I see life.

Another is I have a. Oops, sorry, a chase, you know, across my office from me.

And so I see that, you know, it looks relaxing, right?

Like somewhere I can go and sit and read a book.

I see that.

And then the third thing is I have windows in here so I can see outside to, you know, the lawn and the blue skies.

Okay, great.

So during that, as you're recognizing these things that are in your space, how Much did your mind wander?

It didn't.

It didn't.

It's really hard for the mind to wander during this particular exercise.

So for people who have the wandering thoughts, the rumination, and even adhd, I use this with those clients as well.

It's a really helpful tool because it, it is a very practical way to get us back into our space and to rein those thoughts into what's happening right now.

And my suggestion with it is that if you're doing it on your own and you're not doing it out loud, your mind's going to be a little bit more likely to wander.

So try to do out loud.

But if you do have those thoughts come in that are more disturbing and they're the anxious thoughts that are trying to take you away, let them float by like leaves on a river and go back to whatever you were just doing.

It's normal.

The mind likes to wander.

But practicing this particular exercise over and over can become a part of your daily life, where you can pet your cat while using mindfulness, you can talk to your kids and realize, oh, wow, you have really smooth, shiny hair.

Or, wow, you smell so good, or maybe you don't smell good, you know, and so you can use mindfulness in every aspect of life.

And I really like it for that reason.

I love that.

Yes.

So sometimes it wasn't necessarily I was doing it for this reason, but sometimes on my walks, if I'm not walking with a friend or listening to music or a podcast, I will do.

I.

One of the things I say is like, creative detours, but basically it is kind of a mindfulness walk, meaning that if I see, oh, look, that leaf is a heart shaped, oh, what other shapes can I find in nature?

Or I'll say, like, oh, that purple flower is beautiful.

This is all in my head.

I'm not saying it out loud.

Then I'll be like, oh, what other flowers am I going to see that are purple?

Right.

But I'm focusing in on something and part of it is to tap into that creativity or God's creation.

Right.

Like, how can there be 600 types of purple or whatever.

But it is also making me very focused right.

On what I'm seeing, not just on my walk, oblivious to everything around me,.

You know, so, yeah, wandering.

Yeah.

So good.

Love that.

And I always, I also tell people, like, actually do stop and smell roses.

If I am on a walk and I see a rose that's within, you know, reach where I can smell it, I will stop, smell everywhere as I can.

Yeah.

So Good.

Absolutely.

I love it.

So good.

Okay, maybe the last one of the last things you want to leave us with is first to just encourage us with our health, our mental health, finding more calm and peace in our lives.

What would you just want to share with us that we haven't covered?

So, sure.

I think just recognizing, you know, anxiety creates so much unrest in us.

And we're going to see the lack.

We're going to see the lack of focus and concentration.

We're going to have those moments where we're just overly fatigued because it's causing us so much unrest, and we're going to start to sense that disconnect.

And that doesn't mean that you haven't worked on it.

Sometimes life throws things in there that are just naturally overwhelming.

But if you've been practicing these tools and these skills and the relationship skills that I talk about, and you start making changes in those various areas of your cognitive, your behavioral, what you're physically doing in your relationships and even in your spiritual walk, those changes are lasting and you'll be able to change, to fall back on them in those more difficult times.

And so I'll go back to what you referenced earlier, which is habit.

Build these habits of calm in your life.

Replace your anxious habits with calm habits.

So one last question I want to ask you before the final question.

So you obviously talk about Sabbath in the book.

I definitely have had some episodes about Sabbath.

But what would you just.

Okay, let me say this first.

One thing that I've read over and over in a more recent time is that when we don't take a Sabbath for a really long time, meaning we don't take a day to rest, right?

To get renewed, to get filled back up with the spirit, all the things to delight in what God's already given us, that we can eventually get worn out, like our soul, our spirit, our bodies.

Because we overdid it, right?

We overworked, we over toiled and whatnot.

So what would you just share with us about that?

Because I think a lot of us, the same thing.

Our culture doesn't actually encourage this biblical gift.

Right.

Of the Sabbath.

And if we're not careful, we end up, you know, to a point where we're just kind of spent, we're burned out and even more anxious, right?

Yes.

So it comes back to God's design.

He didn't design us to have seven days of work followed by seven days of work followed by seven days more.

He designed us to have that day of Sabbath.

And he commands it for a Reason, if we fall back on the realization that his commands are for our benefit, we have to realize that that means he knows that we need that more than we know that we need that.

And so to continue to do the seven days after seven days, it's essentially mock trust that he can do in six what we think we can do in seven.

And we all will admit that seventh day, we have not crossed everything.

And so it's a.

It's a practice of trust.

It's a practice of acknowledgment that he actually does do better than we do, and he does accomplish more in six than we do in seven.

And then it's a surrender to.

To this idea that we are not superhuman.

Super means to literally be outside of right means to be extra.

And the only true super human was Jesus, right?

And he.

And he was still tempted in the same ways we were, but he was the only one who actually did it, you know, and made it through.

So the rest of us are simply human.

Therefore, we quite literally need that day of rest and we will suffer when we don't get it.

Yeah, I mean, I've talked to people where they.

They eventually, you know, took on clients that wanted to do Friday night, they wanted to go into Saturday.

They worked every day of the week, and their business did fine, but it didn't do better.

But when they finally said, you know what, I'm going to set boundaries around this, like, I'm not going to do that anymore, their business actually in some cases did better because they finally said, maybe that's not the right client aligned for me, or maybe I don't need this, because they weren't any.

Anyways, my point is when they actually realize, like, you know what?

I don't want to live like that because it's exhausting.

And because it didn't actually benefit me, they actually saw an improvement.

And the other thing is, that's the thing about Sabbath is I think some people think it's like.

Means like you have to be at church all day.

No, it's.

It's supposed to be delighting.

I mean, yes, connecting to God, connecting to the people around you, but it's also to delight in what he's already given us.

So it's supposed to be a day that renews us and refreshes us so that when the next day comes, we're actually more productive and we're more inspired than had we worked through.

Yes, it always.

It humors me when we get surprised that following God's ways benefits us.

Right, exactly.

So true.

That's really what's happening is we're following God's ways and suddenly we're like, oh, that's actually really good.

And it's, I mean, I hate to say it's that simple, but.

And you know, it's not easy.

In some ways it is.

That's right, it's not easy.

I remember when my kids were playing sports and a lot of times it would be both days on the weekend, but that was my husband, right.

And so obviously I had friends that they didn't do one day, the weekend or whatever, but he was the coach too, so it kind of made it hard to be like that kind of.

But my point is, so yes, I've walked that I've been there.

You know what I mean, where.

And yet it wasn't work.

But you know what I mean?

It was still other things.

Okay, so let me ask you this.

What is fueling you right now?

Okay, so I, I have this productivity planner because we kind of a weird answer.

I feel it's one of those full cheat.

I'll show you since we're on video.

But like it's a full T, you know, one that you write in.

And there is something about this that is so helpful to me because I can put things down.

It has a top priority, has a low priority and a follow up section.

And for me having history of anxiety, knowing I can put something down and then not feel like I'm gonna forget it and that I get to have what I really need to do, what I want to do, and what I need to make sure I check in on is super helpful because it actually relieves my anxiety of needing to think about it all the time.

So oddly enough, it's this very of course, practical thing because that's who I am.

And I get to have it all down there and then I get to just change for a new week and start all over again.

Oh, I love that.

Yeah.

Well, you know what?

It's just another tool, right?

For any of us is what system or daily thing just helps us release some of that.

Just like sometimes when I've worked with people, they, let's say it's about a business.

They just have like 60 things in their heads, like, well, I could do this and I want to do this and.

And I'm like, just write them all down.

Like write every single one of them down.

And what's the one thing you can do now that's not.

Isn't.

Doesn't have to wait on the other things and what Things can you just come back to later?

Because you're not going to do them all.

But if they don't get them out of their head.

Right.

It's the same thing.

It's.

Then we just sit here and they're swirling.

But it's like if you have some place to look at it, you can be like, oh, okay, now I've documented.

It, I've recorded it.

I don't have to let them all be there.

I can now identify what's the one or two things that I can actually do.

Right.

So whether that's our personal life or for a business, it's that same idea.

Right.

Whereas when you get it on the paper and I'm the same way, I.

Even though I have electric everything, I also have.

I write everything down too, like on physical paper.

So I'm with you there.

For me, that's.

It's more like my day in my week, I want to see right on my desk.

But then I also have the whole year month right on my electronic calendars and stuff.

So I love that.

Okay.

Yeah.

So any last thoughts you want to share before you tell everybody kind of where they can find out about your book and everything else?

I think, you know, going back to the idea of connectivity and rest, I mean, I joke that my planner is stealing me.

Really what fuels me is my family.

So.

So I would say, you know, making sure people are connecting, making sure you're connecting with others.

It's been.

There's been a lot going on in my personal life.

And so I took a weekend away last weekend.

I had the ability to.

I recognize that everybody does.

I went and saw my kids because they're in college.

And so even just connecting with people that I love so dearly in that and that fail me.

It totally changed my.

My demeanor.

I came back much more refreshed.

And so the Sabbath is important.

An occasional longer period of rest is important, whether that be away like I did, or even just in your home or in your town.

And so making sure that you take time to that rest time doesn't have to be alone.

That rest time can mean being with people that fill you and that encourage you.

And that's really important.

I love that and I absolutely agree.

I was out of town last weekend too with some friends.

So, yeah, it's always renewing.

I agree.

Okay, so, Melissa, share with us.

Where can people find out about your book and, you know, everything else that you're up to?

Yes.

So my website is melissafisher counseling.com.

I'm a pretty basic person.

And then my sub stack is five minutes with Melissa.

Five, the numeral five minutes with Melissa.

I realize that's technically social media.

I don't have other social media, but those are the ways.

I have a monthly newsletter that I send out via either one.

It's the same newsletter and then my book is on all the major outlets, so Baker Publishing Group and then through Amazon and and some of the others as well.

So love it.

Okay, well, thank you so much for coming on and sharing with us.

Just tips and ideas and just encouraging us as we try to find more calm and peace in our days and just, you know, learn how to tackle this, you know, the anxiety or the worry that we might be dealing with.

Thank you, Kristin.

As I wrap up today's episode, I did want to let you know I have two awesome free downloads for you that you can grab right now, both connected to this episode.

The idea of today's episode one is called Rewire your mind and it's a workbook with some simple techniques that you can learn to start shifting your thoughts from worry or anxiousness or negativity to moving them so that they'll serve you and they align better with God's truth.

And then the other one is called Start with rest and it's basically a a reflection worksheet on rest and Sabbath to really help you sort of reflect on your thoughts on rest.

And how can we really step into experiencing more of that rest that God wants for us and he doesn't want us to overwork and just overextend ourselves.

So both of Those go to KristenFitch.com and go to my workbooks page and you can grab either one of those right now.

So I'd love for you to join me and my community, get my weekly Faith Friday emails and grab one of those workbooks to help you on your path to feel more calm and peace, less anxious, and just to experience God's goodness, His, the rest he wants for us and the joy and peace he promises us.

If you enjoyed today's episode, if you could leave a rating review on Apple Podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts, it helps the show get discovered by more people so that we can continue to uplift and encourage people in their faith journey as well as all of the other parts of their lives.