When Anxiety Great Within – God’s Consolation Brought Joy and Stress Relief

Are You Carrying Too Much Stress?

Have you ever felt like the weight of the world is on your shoulders, leaving you drained and disconnected from what truly matters? Maybe you’ve caught yourself snapping at loved ones, stress eating, or relying on caffeine just to get through the day. It’s exhausting, isn’t it?

Stress, anxiety, and worry can feel like relentless waves, pulling us under with their intensity. For many of us, these destructive thought patterns are hard to lay at the cross, leaving us feeling drained and disconnected. If this resonates with you, know that you’re not alone—and there is hope. 

The good news? You don’t have to stay stuck in the cycle of overwhelm. You can start reclaiming your peace with one small step at a time—and it begins with a tiny habit grounded in faith and reflection. The steps below can help you pause, reflect, and realign your focus, guiding you toward a calmer, more centered place.

A Simple Practice for Stress Relief

Stress, anxiety and worry were some of the circling, destructive thought patterns that I used to have the most difficulty laying at the cross and seekign God's consolation. Try this 4-step process to pause, reflect, and invite peace into your day. It’s a technique that combines self-awareness with the power of faith to create a lasting sense of calm. It's taken a lot of practice to consistently:

PAUSE

The first step is recognizing when you’re overwhelmed or in the early stages of a stress response. Tight shoulders, a clenched jaw, racing thoughts—these are your body’s signals that it’s time to pause. Instead of letting your mind spiral into worst-case scenarios or crafting lengthy contingency plans, take a moment to stop. Here’s what to do:

• Stop and take three deep breaths, focusing on how your body feels in the moment as the air enters and leaves your body.
• Stretch gently, shake it off or loosen your muscles to relieve physical tension.
• Ask yourself: What is my body trying to tell me right now? What is the real need here?

BE PRESENT

Acknowledging your feelings is essential. Avoid shoving them aside or masking them with distractions. Bringing awareness to your emotions helps break the cycle of stress. Instead, try journaling to bring clarity to your emotions and triggers. Consider:

• What thoughts are running through your mind?
• What emotions are you feeling? Name them.
• What situation or pattern might be triggering these responses?
• How might this situation look if I approached it calmly and objectively as a third party observer?

Continue to slow and calm breathing and stretching a little to loosen the knots. 

INVITE PRESENCE

When anxiety builds, turn to prayer. When you can't, God can, if you let Him! Faith transforms. This simple act of inviting God into your moment of stress can transform your perspective:

“Lord, I feel overwhelmed and unsure. Help me lay this burden at Your feet. Replace my worry with Your peace and guide me to what truly matters. Lead my heart and mind to focus on Your strength and grace, not the noise of the world. I appreciate how you support me even when I falter. Thank you for this opportunity to bring me closer to you. Amen.”

RELATED: Be Silent & Listen

Inviting God into the moment isn’t just an act of surrender—it’s a way to regain perspective and connect with His peace. Also, as you focus on His love, and not on yourself or the stressful situation, you'll find that you physically relax, which leads us to ....

ENJOY PRESENTS (GOD'S CONSOLATION)

As you pause and pray, notice how God’s peace begins to fill the spaces once occupied by worry and soothes frayed nerves and nervous tension. Your thoughts may slow, your breath deepen, and your heart feel lighter. This is His unfailing love and joy at work. This is how He fulfills His promise to support and console you.

RELATED: Prayer & Intuition

It's Not Always Easy - But It's Worth It

Let’s be honest: this process isn’t always smooth. Let me tell you sometime ... it was a struggle even to pause. There were times in my own journey when I didn’t realize I was spiraling until my body was in pain or my emotions spilled over. Other times it was as I was stress eating, pounding yet another coffee or snapping at loved ones that would bring me to the awareness that I my foot was slipping and needed to pause.

For years, I thought stress relief and reduction could be found just with the first two steps. (Accompanied with a diet of mainly clean, real foods and other stress reduction activities.) It wasn’t until I fully surrendered to God that I found consistent relief.

Inviting God into these moments has been the only thing that has allowed me to consistently maintain an even keel through turbulent storms. Especially the storms of my own making where I amplified the situation or accelerated the circling thoughts.

Turn This Practice into a Tiny Habit

Consistency is key to lasting change. To make this practice a part of your daily life, start small:

• Choose a trigger, like feeling tension in your shoulders, starting your workday or coming out of a meeting.
• Commit to just one part of the process—perhaps taking a deep breath and saying a quick prayer.
• Build from there, adding steps as it becomes natural.

Maybe you are like I was, already applying a version of the first two steps and finding you aren't getting enough stress relief or it is not consistent enough. For you, maybe starting small is adding prayer or capturing the trigger in a stress journal.

Prayer and Journal Prompts for Deeper Insights

Stress journaling can help you become more aware of your triggers and develop habits to manage them. Use the following prompts to help you better recognize when "your foot is slipping:"

• What signs do I notice when I’m becoming too busy or overwhelmed?
• How do I typically respond to stress, and how can I pause sooner?
• In what ways can I remind myself to invite God’s presence during challenging moments?
• What benefits have I experienced (or could I experience) by turning to God for peace?
• What has held me back from reaching out to Him in the past?

Set aside time to reflect on these questions. Over time, patterns will emerge that reveal practical steps to break cycles of stress or to identify healthier coping behaviors.

Any of these small habits can grow into a powerful tool for managing stress and inviting peace into your life. For more information see my free guide on building faith-driven tiny habits for stress relief.

My hope for you...

I hope that these words (or what you experience through these exercises) can serve to inspire and energize changes in lifestyle that help you to imporve work-life balance and reduce stress. Through prayer, journaling, and intentional practice, I’ve seen not only my own transformation but also the growth of others I’ve mentored. Even small steps, like inviting God into the moment, can make a profound difference. When you stop striving so hard, you start thriving and flourishing.

Transforming stress into peace doesn’t have to feel overwhelming. My free guide, "Build Faith-Driven Tiny Habits for Stress Relief," walks you through creating small, actionable habits like these to help you restore your energy and regain your clarity and focus.

Download Your Free Guide Here!

You’re not alone in this journey. Let’s start small and grow together—one step at a time, grounded in God’s grace.