How to Deal with Stress
The power of relaxation is so real. Now I am a believer.
I hadn’t paid much attention to the idea of learning relaxation techniques before, because it sounded lazy and whimpy. However, the fact was I didn’t realize how stressed I was most of the time. I didn’t know how normal feel like, because my default stress level was pretty high to begin with.
As a result, I didn’t notice how I failed at many things simply because of what the stress had been doing to my spirit, soul, and body—it was constantly surpassing my learning ability, cognitive ability, motor skill, social skill, mood, and many other areas as well.
I have been slowly starting to become aware of my condition, and as a result, I was able to intervene my condition with the Holy Spirit, and became better and better slowly. I learn better, focus better, do sport better, and it gradually produces a ripple effect to my overall wellbeing as I discover how to apply Spirit inspired relaxation to every area.
We Christians don’t have to let the New Agers to monopolize the relaxation niches. They added so much mysterious, pseudo spirituality into everything that works, and made it part of their occultic teaching. Meditation doesn’t have to be new agey. In fact, there are scientific way that work so much like meditation, but better and more efficient. It’s simply controlling your thoughts and breathing to improve the stress level. A biofeedback machine can help you cut the cost for yoga lessons, and replace the need for the New-Aged meditation. It’s much more cost and time effective too.
In fact, what we have are much better than the Old Babylonian/New Age relaxation techniques. We have biblical meditation, and Spirit-inspired life saving technology on our side. Do you realize that Christians nations always have better culture, prosperity, and freedom than nations with mysterious or false religions?
Now going back to the topic. Every since I started to actively intervene my stressful pattern, I realized that I can do things faster, do more, and become more flexible. It is truly powerful to be able to relax on an as needed basis.
In my opinion the most useful kind of relaxation is to be able to relax when you work, or when unpleasant flashback, and mental oppression that comes with negative conditioning suddenly pop up. Everyone can relax when they are engaging in pleasant activities as escape, but the key is to make stressful activities that we have to do fun and pleasant, such as school, career, or finance.
I believe many people are over-stressed, and they use different methods to cope with it, but unfortunately, most coping mechanisms are harmful. We tend to use foods, drugs, shopping, TV, porn, and etc to medicate our pains, and stress is pain.
This makes us unhealthy. For example, people with a fat belly usually don’t know how to deal with stress, or they don’t care enough to actively deal with stress, and thus allowing the stress to drive them to foods, sugars, sleeplessness, TV, premature aging, and other issues. You can almost read the level of stress for each person based on their look.
Demonic Stronghold, Bad Habit, and Stress
Satan knows our weakness. He knew that when we go through enough pains, then we will need to do something to alleviate the pains. This is why we tend to procrastinate important things, and went to watch TV, play World of Warcraft, or whatever indulgence we had.We thought we liked those things, but in fact they were demonic strongholds in our life that were built around traumas. For some people, work is tramuatic. Maybe they have had repeated unpleasant experiences with work, and whenever they want to start working, they would suddenly snap and go to play Starcraft 2 (or other guilty pleasure) instead of work.
I often snapped. Many times I tried and double tried to make myself to do something I knew I had to do, but instead I procrastinated and went to “play”. The guilts made me even more stressful, and so I often spent prolonged time—more than 10 hours at a time—to hide behind my sinful indulgence, instead of doing what I had to do.
This is a deliberate, Satanic structure that he forced upon us. It is a spiritual prison that he built through the worldly system, our family, and demons. Through years of public educations, ungodly parenting, and social conditioning, he succeeded in making most people everything but child-like. Instead, we become fearful, stressful, disabled, robotic, sheep-like…
Look at the kids. They are naturally stressless, curious, playful, active, and happy. In my opinion, this is the best condition for learning and achieving things. Children are the best learners (adults are supposed to be better learners because we have more knowledge and experience Proverbs 14:6, but unfortunately, people tend to grow old and stubborn than to grow wise). Adults need to go back to the child-like form to rediscover how to learn and work effectively. Children are happy. They do what they love. If we all learn how to properly harness this child-like, inborn ability to have fun and curiosity, then we will not procrastinate. There will be no pain that associates with work.
This is just a tip of the iceberg. We all need to rediscover that child-likeness, to unlearn all the trauma based conditioning, and to become Christ-like, before we can become what God calls us to be, and fulfill our God-given potential.
Managing Our Fear with Biblical Meditation
The words of God can be the best thing ever to relieve our stress, if we use it properly. Ask the Holy Spirit to give you his divine encouragment, and show you the passages or verses that you need to read at the moment, and it will give you a very pleasant spiritual experience.
Of course it usually won’t be as easy as it sounds like, especially if you don’t have a habit of prayers. It is an act of faith, as well as a spiritual warfare. Satanic force will try to stop you from doing it, but once you breakthrough the blockage, you will discover that indeed the Holy Spirit is talking to you and guiding you through biblical meditation.
Don’t let the negative thoughts to sway you. In the beginning of the fight, they could be very oppressing, and convincing too, you won’t outlast them by ignoring them, or by resisting the thoughts on your own, because Satan is a master of deceptions. He can project any reality into your mind and make you feel hopeless, self-hatred, hatred against God, angry, and etc.
Simply by actively intervening our thoughts with a healthy dose of God’s words, we would become better—maybe not instantly, but when you have faith, it would be quick enough.
Whatever spiritual attacks that come our way, they tend to come in waves, so it is more effective to deal with them instantly as they come, than to try to deal with it once and for all. There is no once and for all when it comes to resisting Satan, he will come back again and again, but we can punish him for trying to torment us each time. As long as we remember to do it, he will stay away.
Each day, try to have a time when you can fully engage in spiritual battle, and plead the blood of Christ over yourself and your loved ones. I would speak blessing over myself and others each day, to activate the divine protection and ministry of God for myself and others.
Talk to Your Heart
I find that we do have an inner child. The child respond to negative thoughts with the typical signs of stresses, and positive thoughts with good signs such as joy, energy, and so on. Recently I was able to remember the child more in my daily routine, and tell her “it’s okay, everything is going well” or other words of healing.
Proverbs 12:8
Reckless words pierce like a sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.
Proverbs 4:23
Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.
Proverbs 18:21
The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit.
Our subconscious is also like a child. It responds well to direct commands, but it also listens in when we analyze our situations and think a bunch of stuff. It will program itself to adopt to our values and statements we have made. Be very careful of what you wish for, because your subconscious will follow through.
I used to be unaware of why I do certain things under certains situation. For examples, I would get angry when someone says certain things; I would take a long walk whenever certain thoughts come to my mind; I would pay attention to certain things when some triggers take place. Little did I know that I did what I did because I had programmed myself to do so.
Tell yourself that attractive member of the opposite sex isn’t important to you now, and make sure you convince yourself why, and soon you will subconsciously ignore them when they walk by, and focus on what you are doing at the time. It works. Tell yourself the next time you feel stressed you are going to get a cup of green tea, and make sure you talk to yourself like you are a child—do it with love, and next time you are stressed, you will automatically go for a cup of green tea.
Our subconscious take care of most of the tasks. Our consciousness is only in control of a small part of our day. As you go about your routine, such as washing your face, brushing your teeth, making breakfast, and leaving for work, you don’t exactly remember them after you did them, right? When you drive to work, or from work to home, it’s almost automatic. The subconscious takes care of most parts of the routine. What you are conditioned to do, it will do it for you.
It is important to have regular meeting with our subconscious and inner child, to tell them the words of God, and to make sure they become effective in what they do.
Breathing and Walking
We need to incorporate breathing and other relaxation techniques into our activities. We shouldn’t just do it when we have relaxation sessions. For example, when you are doing vision intensive work, keeping the stress low by doing eyes and breathing exercise can protect your vision from deteriorating. It keeps your mind clear, because it makes sure your brain gets enough oxygen.
The difference it makes is noticable. You can work longer hours and have better quality by doing simple relaxation exercises.
Don’t forget to take a long walk at least a couple of times each day. An adult needs to take 10,000 steps on average to be healthy. We may as well make it a prayer walk by praying as we walk. During my prayer walk, I would wage spiritual battles against all forces of darkness, and intercedes for my loved ones, including you, my reader. Sometimes, I use the long walk to think about the work I have to do, and when I do so great ideas would come and help me solve problems I encounter during work.
We can only achieve so much if we sit all the time and read the monitor or paper with a wandering mind. It is more effective to program your subconscious to work effectively, and handle stress with ease, by speaking to your heart, taking a long walk now and then, and doing breathing exercise (with a biofeedback device for best result).
Our Mental Movies
I am only starting to discover the power of imagination. As kids, it comes naturally, but as adults, we mostly lost it. I have to say that visualization works. It helps me in sport and martial arts. By visualizing certain situation and certain moves, I can physically recreate what I visualized in my mind with ease. Perhaps this is why God created imagination for us. He wants us to use it to achieve.
In “What Is Witchcraft?“, I wrote about the occult power of movies and evil entertainment. The enemies are using our minds to create evils, by contaminating our minds with graphic images and scenarios. It is important for us to think about godly things instead of evils things.
Philippians 4:8
Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.
Genesis 6:5-6
The LORD saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. The LORD regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled
The battles begin with our minds and words. Only if we take responsibility of our thought life and words can we finally start serving God for real, and stop being part of the evil world system.
I began to give myself more freedom to just close my eyes and make a mental movie. I would visualize myself approaching a stranger and tell him or her about Jesus Christ. This kind of imagination alone made me nervious and hold my breath. I have to consciously relax each time and pray for the Holy Spirit to fill me and give me courage.
It is only just a beginning. I can definitely do more. Based on past experiences, most of what I imagined came true in some ways or another. You can think about your past imagination and confession too. Have they came true? I bet they did.
Good imagination helps us overcome procrastination, and give us motivation to do what we dreaded to do. Don’t force it. Just consciously relax as you imagine yourself doing it. Adding prayers to the mix is important too, as Holy Spirit protects your thoughts and make sure it won’t wander toward darkness and evil. Soon, your Spirit-filled imagination will dissolve the stress associated with the activity you are imaging, and you will eventually have the power to do it. The secular world also happens to use it and they call it Cognitive Therapy. Cognitive therapy is one of the few therapies that truly work.
It is not easy though. I often drift off while trying to imagine godly things, such as planting a new church. It really increased my stress even when I was just imaging it. Soon the mundane and routine of daily life would interrupt and make me follow the old path.
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So, these are the easy and convenient methods that I found to help me deal with stress. Be patient, because most challenges in life aren’t really so urgent. Most difficulties are illusion-based. They are not even real half the times! Manage your imagination and words, and you will win most of the battles. You will find that overall you will achieve a lot, and do so a lot quicker and sooner than when you are constantly under stress. Be patient, and you will actually find it to be faster this way. I used to be very nervous and push myself to pick up speed, and end up burning out shortly after. Stress will eventually catch up. We can’t surpass it forever. Most of our abilities and talents will only be effective when we are relaxed.
