Dr. Cristina Sevadjian

Covenant Friends,

I am happy to be writing to you today and hope these few paragraphs will feel like we are sitting in my cozy office over coffee. I want to talk about fear, worry, anxiety, and anxiety disorders as they exist on a spectrum. I think we hear these words being used interchangeably in our current culture, but they are very different and have different needs. I have noticed we often use clinical language for all emotions including worry instead of understanding that emotions are natural, normal, and helpful in providing wisdom and insight when addressed appropriately.

Let’s talk about fear, fear is a natural and normal emotion that serves to keep us safe. We should be afraid if we see a huge bear running towards us; that fear activates our body into a high-performance mode to help ensure our physical safety.

Worry is also a normal emotion that may occur when we have a big test, project due, playing in a big game, or are giving an important presentation. The feeling of worry kicks us into a performance mode that actually makes us intellectually sharper and faster and enhances our physical abilities.

I often talk to people about anxiety as a prolonged state of worry, and it typically means the volume of our worry is too loud. Scripture often talks about anxiety and worry and encourages us to use strategies to help us turn down the volume. The more extreme end of the anxiety spectrum is called an “anxiety disorder” which is a prolonged state of worry that causes functional disruptions in our lives. For children and teenagers, that can look like avoiding social events, frequent headaches/stomachaches, worries that will not stop, distraction, and prolonged feelings of dread. Anxiety disorders left untreated are problematic and can result in poor social relationships, decreased academic performance, difficulties with attention, substance misuse, and can lead to depression. Anxiety disorders require professional attention to learn how to turn down the volume on that excessive worry and return to normal functioning in life.

Now that we are on the same page about the worry spectrum, let’s talk about how this is impacting us on a daily basis. I could go into a lot of facts and figures, but let’s be honest here, we know that children are more anxious, and parents are a WHOLE lot more anxious than in previous generations; research even shows this to be so. Since this letter is to parents, I want to give you a couple of recommendations to help.

First of all, let’s collectively take a deep breath, as talking about worry makes us all feel a bit more worried. The first grounding statement I want to use is that we have Jesus loving us and speaking into our lives and the lives of our children. Secondly, we are a community of parents that love and want the best for our children. These two statements alone put us and our children in a much better place.

Next, to really help our children we need to address our own needs on the worry spectrum because fear, worry, and anxiety are contagious. The first question I ask myself is: where am I on the spectrum, because my children are directly impacted by that. I can at times find myself in a place where I am feeling overwhelmed, and the worry is just too loud.  I then evaluate my life and determine what I may need to help myself. I often need more sleep/rest, time with friends (friendship is a major factor in preserving good emotional health), and movement (Pilates, walks, and tennis). Sometimes I need to talk through something hard, so I book an appointment with my therapist. Additionally, I try to evaluate my spiritual wellbeing because I often find that I am trying to take everything on and not ask the Lord in prayer to take some of my burdens.

You may also find the following helpful: deep breathing, breath prayers, making attendance at church a priority, a shower, evaluating the family schedule, attending your own doctor appointments, reading an encouraging devotional/book, allowing some things in life to be good enough vs perfect, date night with your spouse, slowing down in life, working to be in the moment more, more laughter, your own therapy, and/or a break from social media.

With these things considered, addressing where you are on the spectrum and taking good care of yourself leads to more gracious, loving, and attuned parenting. The goal is our children sharing their worries and feeling more loved, heard, validated, and understood. Isn’t that what we all want when we are feeling fearful, worried, anxious, or unsure?

I am hopeful that this has given you some things to think about in your own home on the topics of worry and anxiety. I would love for you to join me in Mid-November for a more in-depth discussion on anxiety at Covenant. Please keep a lookout in the Covenant Copy for more details.