Joyce Meyer - The Answer To Anxiety with Love McPherson
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Ginger Stache: Hey, everyone. We are so glad, friends, that you are with us here, today, because a very special episode of Talk It Out with all my friends, with Joyce, and with another special guest that you're going to love. And this comes from our girls' night in event, with Joyce, that we had not too long ago. The Talk It Out portion of this show is so powerful. We're talking about anxiety, and we are fighting anxiety with everything that we have inside of us. At the girls' night in event that we actually had: we had a lot of wonderful worship. And we learned that worship is a great way to fight against anxiety. Something about praising the Lord just really makes the difference. It brings peace. And so, as we began this conversation, we were just coming out of some music and there was a beautiful sense of peace in that studio. I think you're gonna love being part of this discussion.
Ginger Stache: Well, I was just looking at this audience and thinking how beautiful you all look. You're all dabbing tears. And worshiping. And it's just like, there is nothing more beautiful than sincere worship. And I hope that you're all doing that at home, too. Whether you're by yourself or you're with some girls. Worshiping by yourself can be a wonderful thing. And it's just a way that God really speaks to our hearts. So, we are going to dig more into this topic and tackle your questions. And I'm so glad that we have our friends, Joyce, and Jai, and Erin Cluley here, with us, and also, our special guest, Love McPherson.
Jai Williams: Oh, yeah!
Erin Cluley: Yay!
Love McPherson: Such a pleasure. Such a pleasure.
Ginger Stache: We're so glad. Now, Love is a relationship expert and she's a voice of hope. She is definitely an encourager. She's an author and a speaker who is on a mission to impact generations by teaching individuals how to love better. So, she is aptly named, tonight.
Jai Williams: Love, yes.
Ginger Stache: As always, you're one of the girls, too. And this time because we're live, you get to share your questions with us, right now, right in the chat. And we've already got a lot of questions coming in. So, shall we jump right in?
Jai Williams: Let's go.
Ginger Stache: All right. This is a great question to start with. This is talking about something that you said earlier, Joyce. You said, if we should do something at the first sign of anxiety, "What thing should we do"?
Joyce Meyer: Have a talk with yourself.
Erin Cluley: Yeah, that's good.
Ginger Stache: Yeah.
Joyce Meyer: You know, I actually, and this is kinda funny. But I remember, when Dave and I would be in a heated, stressful conversation, and I had really committed to God that I was gonna stop talking back to him.
Erin Cluley: Mmm.
Joyce Meyer: And you hear that? Stop talking back.
Erin Cluley: Yeah, are you sure?
Joyce Meyer: I can remember, one time I... You can feel it coming. And it's, I thought, "I gotta get out of here before it gets to my mouth".
Jai Williams: "It's coming"!
Joyce Meyer: "It's coming. Here it comes". And i, literally, ran down the hall, locked myself in the bathroom and stuffed a towel in my mouth. And went... I thought, "Well, at least God knows my heart. I wanted to do it right bad enough".
Ginger Stache: You were being obedient to what God asked you to do.
Joyce Meyer: Yeah, I was tryin' to be obedient to God. And I do believe that you can feel anger coming. You can feel that stress and worry getting to the point where it's not just a thought anymore, but you're about to really, really get upset. And I do think that, that's the best time, start praying. Start right then. I mean, Philippians 4:6 and 7 is really my go-to scripture. The minute that I start to worry about something, I will quote Philippians 4:6 and 7, and I'll do what it says, instead of worrying, I'll pray. And I believe when you have enough experience with God that you really trust him, and it does take experience. You know, you have to go through situations with God, see that he's faithful, see that he'll meet your need. And every time you go through something, you get a little bit stronger. And so, you pray, you give it to him, and you act like you really believe that he is gonna take care of it. And, you know, I think a lot of people don't realize that they can enjoy their life while they have a problem.
Erin Cluley: That's a huge lesson to learn.
Jai Williams: It's hard, it's hard. It's really hard. I just had a whole little situation. I talked about it the other day. I had a situation where something really gave me a bit of anxiety. And all of the negative stuff that could come when Satan throws stuff at you, he hit me with it. And it's not easy always to think about, "Oh, I'm supposed to pray, right here," you know? I would say, I was like, I melted. And I went into like, this little, "I'm sad and I'm anxious". And I told my daughter, I was like, "I'm having a moment". And I got in the bed. But then, here's the thing, though. As I was lying there, I realized, "I don't like feeling like this. And God has given me the authority to pivot this situation and to change this atmosphere". So, you know, what I say, you know, I was like, "I'm just gonna take a nap". And I was like, "No, forget that, ugh"! I started praying. I turned on a teaching. And I started declaring, in the room, I was like, "Uh-uh, this gotta go"! You know? So, we have the authority. And it can last as long or as short as we actually allow it. And that's something that you have to train yourself to do.
Ginger Stache: Well, let's talk about some of the guilt that we, as Christians, feel sometimes. Because we do have that authority, and it makes a huge difference. But sometimes, we feel like, "Because of that, because I'm a Christian, I shouldn't have that feeling to begin with". And it really doesn't work that way. And Love, are you seeing that in some of the people that you talk to, as well?
Love McPherson: For sure, I'm seeing that, because what happens is the accuser of the brethren is gonna come and tell you how bad you are. And this is the thing, what, you know, when Joyce just answered that question, that was really important, because a lot of times in our relationships, we don't understand that there's two things that are operating. One, in your head and you're thinking, but also, in your body. Notice how she said she felt it rising up. When you see anger, anger will show up in your lower back. You'll see fear show up in your intestines and in your stomach. It'll be stored in different places. Your head, when you start getting headaches, sometimes, it's because you're overwhelmed. So, it's different places where trauma and memories are dumped out in overflow. And so, if I was in a relationship, and I know that's been many years for you, Joyce, but in a relationship, I would want to know what about what Dave said would trigger such a response. And this could be it. It wouldn't necessarily be something that he said bad to you, but a childhood saying, "Nobody is going to control me in that area, again".
Joyce Meyer: Amen.
Love McPherson: Nobody is...
Jai Williams: You see her? She said, "Amen".
Love McPherson: And so, your body, unless you go back and you tell your body, "This", because trauma won't tell you, "This is not your dad," or, "This is not your mom," or, "This is not somebody who traumatized you," "Your ex". It will tell you, "Dave is this person". It will not give you a distinction. So, you're, literally, being lied to. Your body is an indicator of something else happening, right now. So, what we do, is we do the same thing, when you gave the testimony about the sweetener. It was pain that caused you to go to the doctor. But otherwise, you just kept on taking the sweetener. Once you start seeking the answer, God revealed it. The same thing for when you feel anxiety, in your body. The feelings, that's an alarm system.
Joyce Meyer: That's exactly right.
Love McPherson: When you see the alarm system happen, what you need to do is say, "I'm not gonna be led by the alarm, but this is an indicator. What does this mean next"? And so now...
Ginger Stache: It doesn't mean you're weak or that you're bad because of that, a bad Christian.
Love McPherson: Exactly. And so, what ends up happening. We believe that we are, you know, Satan will tell you, "You shouldn't be feeling this way". No. What God is doing, I believe, is that he is saying, "Guess what"? You have the ability of storage, of memory, of the entire internet can be stored in a human. We have like, 2.5 billion gigabytes of memory. With all that storage, we store things, and we don't know that there are lies inside of us. God is all about the truth. When he can dig up, and he says, "There's some lies that's stopping you. There are some lies that are halting you". When he takes those lies and he says, "No, no, no, this is not the same". So, he'll make you feel sensations in your body. And what do you do? The same thing you do when you feel physical. If a stomachache, you go and check it out, and say, "What is this? What am I feeling"? And God does that so that he can continue to bring the truth out of us. So, we can walk as one, so we don't have limitation. It's so important that we don't feel condemned, but we feel thankful that God has shown us and given us Revelations for it.
Joyce Meyer: That's exactly right. You know, the Bible says, "Be angry and sin not". It doesn't tell you to never get angry, to never feel anger. And Ginger talked about the guilt. And I used to feel so guilty. One day, I was going to teach, and I had, had a situation where I had felt all that anger, and I managed to control it. And God said, you know, "It's not a sin to be tempted". The sin is when you come in, to the temptation. And so.
Erin Cluley: I love what you're saying 'cause I feel that so much. I struggle with anxiety. It started when I had my first kid, and it just missed me all up. And i, apparently, probably, had these things like hiding underneath things, this like, desire to control. But I didn't have anybody to push back on that. So, I could. And then, I had kids, and all of a sudden, I can't control my situations. I can't control what's gonna happen to them. And so, I feel out of control. Then I feel guilty because, "I am a Christian," and like, "I work at Joyce Meyer Ministries: I shouldn't have anxiety".
Ginger Stache: No other mother ever does...
Erin Cluley: I am the only one, right? No, I'm the only one who has anxiety. But what that has done for me is it truly has pushed me to Jesus because I am now seeing like, "What is in my heart that makes me feel anxious when I can't control"? Like, if I have to pick between a sick kid or a work thing, "What is happening in my heart that, that's causing me such anxiety"? And that's like me feeling, "I'm not good enough," or, "I won't measure up because of that decision". So, it did. It pushed me to Jesus.
Love McPherson: And Satan always comes for our identity. Because he knows we're made in the image and likeness of Almighty God. So, he starts off as children. Snatching us away from our identity. And those messages tell us, "I'm not enough, I'm not worthy. I can't". Put all these stipulations. And then, like if we are, our parents are dysfunctional and we've become parentified children, where we're parenting our parents, or parenting our siblings, what ends up happening, when the guilt is available, the reason why Satan can come to us with the guilt is because we are on performance-based relationships with our parents and become performance-based with God. So, when we're not performing, "Oh, no. I should, the joy of the Lord is my strength". And then, the church does not offer a book like this, with five great steps, to tell you the process. So, we'll spiritually bypass people and just say, "Oh, the joy of the Lord, you should just, and give him," and you're like, "But how"? And here's a book saying, "Here's five great steps that you can do it". So, we have to teach people the process, practical processes of how, and then they can get to the other side of this.
Ginger Stache: Yeah, I think there's a really important thing that Joyce says in the book, right in the introduction, right away. She's talking about, "Anxiety and worry are a common human response". So, we all deal with these things, and we have to realize this is how God created us for a purpose. But then she goes on to say, "That there are times when it becomes larger than we can deal with on our own". And she says, "When therapy or medication is warranted, we should not feel ashamed of getting the help we need".
Joyce Meyer: Right.
Ginger Stache: And I think that, that's important, that there are steps that we take spiritually. And as that begins to affect our body, there are things that we need to do physically, as well. God made us a whole person. It goes hand in hand.
Love McPherson: Ginger, do you mind me...? Joyce said something which was profound. She said that "Worry is pride". Let me tell you something. That was...
Ginger Stache: I didn't like it when she said that.
Erin Cluley: I read that part of the book fast.
Love McPherson: The truth of the matter is this. This is what happens. When we worry... This is what science tells us. When we worry, and we spend that time worrying, a lot, because 85% of what we worry about will not happen. But when it doesn't happen, dopamine is dropped into our system. Dopamine is a happy chemical. So, what it does is, it says, "Ha, see, all that worry paid off". So, it rewards us for worry.
Ginger Stache: Everybody's like, "Ooh"!
Love McPherson: And now, we feel like because we worried, "Look at us, look, I avoided that catastrophe that was going to happen". So, we become prideful, and we worry more and more for the reward of the dopamine being dropped in our system.
Jai Williams: Wow.
Joyce Meyer: You know, since we have a relationship expert, here...
Erin Cluley: Whew, do it Joyce.
Joyce Meyer: There's just something that's really strong on my heart. One of the things that caused me the most stress and anxiety was people.
Jai Williams: My Lord.
Ginger Stache: They're everywhere.
Jai Williams: Myyy Lord! Myyy Lord!
Joyce Meyer: And they are absolutely everywhere.
Erin Cluley: Everywhere, can't get away from 'em.
Joyce Meyer: You need 'em. You can't do without 'em. But they drive you crazy. And here's what set me free. I mean, if God wouldn't have shown me this, I think I would have gone absolutely nuts. We're all different. And the worst thing that we do, that stresses us out, is try to change other people. So, there you go. You can have it.
Love McPherson: You know what? And I heard you allude to this when you were talking, and I said, this is what happens. The biggest stress that we will ever deal with, is we try to do what God does not do, control people's soul.
Joyce Meyer: That's right.
Love McPherson: And this is the fear of relationships that, "I can't trust that every single day of my life they are going to desire me, choose me, pick me, do me right, meet my emotional needs". We don't trust. Why? Because in our childhood, the people that had roles that were supposed to protect us, love us, they chose not to. It might have been conditional. It might have been self-centered, a lot of different things. And when we are, even just a past, even if it's not childhood, it could be the past relationship. And so, what happens is we learn not to trust people. And so, we fear dating, we fear marriage, we fear connecting and bonding. And one psychotherapist said, you know, "All anxiety is separation anxiety". Now, I tend to believe that, and this is why. Separation from God, separation from ourselves, and separation from others. If he can get us to separate from God because we believe that God is not pleased with us, and put guilt in front of us, if he can get us to separate from ourselves because we are not worthy. People have told us from covert messages and overt messages that we are not lovable and not worthy of love, if he can get us to separate from people, and God, says, "It's not good that man be alone".
Joyce Meyer: Well, you know, the reason why we try to change people is because we think they should be like us.
Love McPherson: Exactly.
Joyce Meyer: And that's the worst kind of pride, right there, is "Everybody should do it the way I do it. They should think the way I think. They should react the way I act". I remember, looking at Dave and thinking, "How could you possibly like that"? I mean, us trying to decorate together was like a total nightmare. "How could you possibly like that"? And I believe that a humbling has to come for us to realize that "God created us all to be different. And I do not have the right to try to make you be like me or think like me. I need to love who you are, not who I want you to be".
Love McPherson: Yes, yeah. And allow people the free will, 'cause that's what God does. Everyone sitting here, on this stage, and in the audience, is different. And a lot of times, though, we get into our segments, we get into our cliques, we get into negativity bias, where we're biased against people who don't believe the same way as us, and don't look the same way as us. And we take that into our relationships. And this is the problem with it. If we already don't feel it's enough, we feel like somebody has to follow and do exactly like us to confirm stuff that we don't even like about ourselves.
Joyce Meyer: That's exactly right.
Love McPherson: We want them to confirm areas of, "I am enough," that we have not, ourselves, confirmed.
Joyce Meyer: I wanted everybody to be like me, and I didn't even like me.
Love McPherson: Exactly. We want our mate to do more than what we do for our own selves.
Jai Williams: Yeah, like post-divorce. Like, I'm almost two years now, divorced. I remember going through a lot of anxiety, and a lot of just pressure, and worry. And all of you all, all of you all, on this stage, have played a part in helping me get over that. I would call Love and be like, "Heeelp". She'd be like, "Let me zoom you, right now"! But here's the thing. This is what I'm gonna say. I had to humble myself because one of the main things when you're going through not feeling enough or having anxiety, you have times when you want to isolate. You don't want to be around people. You don't want, you don't, you just, because I remember not feeling seen, not feeling heard. Like, "Does anybody out here see what's happening? And no one's saying anything. No one", and it would just cause me to have, I couldn't sleep. I would have night sweats. I would just be almost, like, paralyzed. And so, one of the things that's helped me come through, and I still have moments y'all. I said, I just had somethin' Sunday. But when I was really going through it, I really had to humble myself and say, "I need help".
Ginger Stache: And that's okay.
Jai Williams: "I need help. And I need a counselor". But I also, because I wanted to break any kinda, if there's a generational curse of people not expressing that they need help, I wanted my daughter's help. Like, even on Sunday, I told my daughter, "I need you to pray for me," like, "I'm having a moment". So, it's things like that, like, things that give me anxiety also are like bills now, post-divorce. Like, things that are still kind of tethered to my ex-husband and things like that. Like, it gives me... I don't wanna touch it. And it's not doing anything but making things worse by avoiding it. But I had to ask a friend, just this week, I was like, "I need you to hold me accountable with this list of things". So, worry is pride. Not asking for help, it's all pride. And you have to learn how to humble yourself when you're in those moments. And no matter if you're sitting on a platform, like this, if you're serving at your church, if you're a CEO of a company, if you're a pastor, it doesn't matter. It's okay to say, "I need help". Because that guilt, I don't want my daughter to feel the guilt that, if she ever needs help, I don't ever want her to feel like she can't ask for help. So, I need to lead by example, and I want that for her, 'cause I'm learning it, now.
Love McPherson: That's vulnerable. When you've had people who haven't stepped up in other areas of your life, if you have a history of like, asking for, or needing, and people didn't step in, you start not trusting that people will intervene like you need 'em to. And so, the vulnerability...
Ginger Stache: That makes sense.
Love McPherson: Yeah.
Ginger Stache: When you've been hurt like that, you have the experience that tells you, "This hurts, and I don't wanna go through it again. What do I do to avoid it"? And sometimes, the only thing you can do is to step into it more to deal with it. Leah, from Oregon, is asking this: "After a number of bad things have happened, how do you stop always expecting another bad thing to happen"? Ladies: ooh...
Joyce Meyer: Proverbs 15:15.
Jai Williams: Preach to me, tell me. Because that's my question. Whatever her name is, come on, tell me.
Joyce Meyer: I used to have that so bad because I had, had so many bad things happen in my life. And one morning, after I was filled with the Holy Spirit, and I was starting to learn the word, I was in the bathroom getting ready to go, wherever I was going, and I felt this thing in my atmosphere that seemed to always be with me, like, threatening me. Like this low-level fear, you know, "What's gonna be the next thing"? And I just said to God, "What is this?"! And he spoke, in my heart, "Evil forebodings," and I didn't even know what that was. And then, I found it in Proverbs 15:15 that it's evil forebodings that cause all this anxiousness, and worry, and stress that we have. That's why I am so excited about hope. Because hope is the aggressive expectation that something good is about to happen to me, at any moment.
Ginger Stache: Yeah.
Erin Cluley: I think that's so good. I think, as you're saying all that, I think I've had that, and I don't even think I realized it. Like, this journey of getting over anxiety is a journey. And so, I think, I've been having those evil forebodings. Even like, silly things, but, I have become a procrastinator in some areas, which I'm not normally, because I think that "Good things aren't actually going to happen, so why would I even bother planning for it? Because that's a waste of my time and I'll get my expectations too high". So, I'll procrastinate. But that's... I don't wanna be like that. I've lost the hope in some of that.
Joyce Meyer: I was negative, and I was afraid to believe that something good would happen because I didn't wanna be disappointed...
Erin Cluley: I'm afraid.
Joyce Meyer: When it didn't.
Love McPherson: It's a defense mechanism. It absolutely is.
Joyce Meyer: The devil wants you to expect something bad. And God wants the exact opposite. He wants you to expect something good because we do get what we expect and what we believe for.
Erin Cluley: It feels really vulnerable, though, to expect the good part because it feels safer to say, "It's probably not gonna happen, so I'll just not worry about it".
Jai Williams: Defense mechanism.
Erin Cluley: It is. So, it feels kind of raw to say that.
Love McPherson: But one of the things that you have to remember also is that's why it's so good to do journals, prayer lists, gratefulness, like, grateful journals, because it takes us, our brains, 10 to 20 seconds to remember, to hear a compliment or to know that something good has happened to us. Ten. Like, think... If I keep counting. That's a lot of airtime, right? But it takes us a quarter of a second, a split, a quarter of a second to hear something negative. So, you will remember with, all the bad things your spouse said or all the bad things that, the things that God didn't, "Well, I was praying for my mama, and she still died. And I was praying for this". "I did things right in my marriage and I still ended up in divorce". We will remember that. But how many good things did God do?
Joyce Meyer: Yes!
Love McPherson: We have to keep our memory fresh with the goodness of God so that we can expect goodness from him.
Ginger Stache: A great example of that. And I was telling people this earlier. As Bryan and katie were singing the song, "Same God," that was a song that our family was standing on for the healing of my brother-in-law, who we lost this year. And so, just hearing that song, I was like, "It's too hard. It's too hard to hear this song". And because those things come up and you feel that disappointment again, and the grief. And I'm so glad they kept singing, you know, they didn't stop when I wanted them to. And God does something miraculous when you keep praising, when you don't even want to, when we worship because of who he is, not because of how we feel. And, you know, I could begin to feel God breaking some of that off. And it doesn't happen quickly 'cause grief is a terrible, long thing. But you begin to see glimmers of hope, and you begin to see those things that were bringing up those bad memories, God's gonna turn it and bring it together for our good.
Jai Williams: The exact same thing happened to me with "Way maker". Like, I remember...
Ginger Stache: I wondered about that.
Jai Williams: 'cause I told you guy...
Ginger Stache: Yeah.
Jai Williams: Like, that was the song right after, because I found out about everything that was going on with my marriage right before I was going on the platform to lead worship. And that was the song that I had, that was the first bout of like real anxiety I got on stage, doing what I know I'm called to do, which is lead worship. I'm like, "Way maker, miracle worker", and I'm singing it and singing it. And all of a sudden, it's like, "Even when I don't see it, are you working"? Like, I almost like, stopped sing, so, when they were singing that tonight, I was just kind of like, "Whew". And I had to kinda like, just power through it and sing it. I was like, "This is a good time for a bathroom break". But then I powered through it and kept worshiping through it, you know.
Ginger Stache: What were you going to say, Joyce?
Joyce Meyer: I was just gonna say, in Zechariah, it says that if we will be "A prisoner of hope".
Erin Cluley: I love it when you talk about that.
Joyce Meyer: That he'll give us double everything we lost. And so, when you think about a prisoner, they're in a place they cannot get out of. And God wants us to be so convinced of hope, and to have hope so deeply embedded in our soul that we're like in prison with it. We cannot get away from it. "I cannot help myself. I have to hope".
Jai Williams: I wanna go to hope jail. How do I get there? What do I need to do? Help me!
Joyce Meyer: Every day you get up and the first thing you say, before your feet hit the floor, is, "Something good is going to happen to me, today, and", not just that, but, "Something good is gonna happen through me, today". We can't just want good stuff for ourself.
Love McPherson: Yes, yes.
Joyce Meyer: We gotta reach out.
Erin Cluley: So, when you say that in the morning, and then the day goes by, and then something not great happens that you're anxious about or whatever, what then, do you do?
Joyce Meyer: I get up the next day and say, "Something good is gonna happen".
Erin Cluley: You do it again! Okay. So, we just keep going.
Joyce Meyer: See, that's what really defeats the devil is when you refuse to give up.
Erin Cluley: That's good.
Ginger Stache: Yeah, here's a question that I think is very, very practical. And I think this will help a lot of people, 'cause sometimes, we don't understand the trigger. We don't understand, "Why do all of a sudden, I feel like this"? So, pamela, from California says, "What do I do when I wake up in the middle of the night from my heart racing and my body drenched in sweat, and I feel wide awake just in seconds"? You know, when you have that instant trigger of, "Whoa, there's something happening," what do we do? How do we deal with moments like that?
Love McPherson: First, I would look at my body because she described her chest area and things like that. And that is a place of hurt and pain. If it's body sweats and things like that, that's trauma. And so, I would look to see, you know, "What are my sources? What am I thinking about"? You know, associate all of those things that have not been treated. If you followed joyce's ministry, you'll see she's had some horrific traumas, but she went back and dealt with those things. And when we don't go back and deal with those traumas and we just keep breezing along, those traumas will still follow us. So, we have to say, "God, show me the things because the heart is deceitful. I don't know what's in my heart". But see, out of the abundance of the heart, the amygdala, which is your fear center, the mouth will speak. "As a man thinketh in his heart," not as his frontal cortex, not your thinking brain, but your fear-based brain, your unconscious. Out of that abundance, whether it was the abundance covertly or overtly, that's what's going to come out of your mouth. That's what's going to come out of your body. So, there is something that God is trying to heal in you and use it as indicators, not guides, not sources of guilt, but indicators that "God, show me and tell me". And just like he showed her the sweetener, Joyce, the sweetener. He'll show her what the, "You remember the trauma? It will suppress. You don't even remember that. This is what happened".
Joyce Meyer: You know, we're always trying to avoid facing things. Avoidance. And the only way out is through.
Love McPherson: Yes, it is!
Joyce Meyer: You have to go through. And if I can take just a second, there's a little story in that book that I thought was so cute, as I was rereading my book, today. I said there was a mouse that saw a cat and it was afraid of the cat. So, it wished that it could become a cat. So, it became a cat. And then, the cat saw a dog and was afraid of the dog. So, it wished it could become a dog. So, it became a dog. And then, the dog saw a lion and he was afraid of the lion. So, he wished he could be a lion. So, he became a lion. Then he saw a man with a gun pointed at him and he wished he could become a man. He became a man. And then, the man saw a mouse and was frightened of the mouse.
Ginger Stache: It is a cycle.
Joyce Meyer: So, the thing that I thought is, "You gotta face it". You cannot run away from it. You'll just be going in circles, like I always say, going around and around the same stupid mountain your whole life. You have to face things and deal with them. And many times, that involves facing, not just what's wrong with everybody else, not just what my mom and dad did to me, or not just what my husband did to me, but, "Why am I still dealing with this the way that I am"?
Jai Williams: Yeah, just one of those practical things that I would do, if I was awakened in the middle of the night, cuz like, I was, sometimes, it felt like, tortured in my slee, you know, like especially going through some of the real tough times. One of the practices I made, like, I would just, you know, touch myself and be like, "I'm okay. God is with me. I'm okay". I would take those breaths like, what was on the screen, I would take those breaths, like deep breaths, and calm myself down. I would get up and walk around, maybe get some, make some tea. You know, I'll keep like, chamomile tea and things around, things like that. But then that would be the time, if I couldn't fall back asleep, I use that time to write. You know, I use that time to either write a song, or journal, or write out a list of gratitude. Things that made, you know, that I was grateful for, like collecting those stones, like the children of Israel, like collecting those, remembering what God did and what God's done. And that would always, and I would turn on music, too. I can't listen to worship music, a lot with words, because I'm a musician. And so, hearing those words, I'll be like... I'll get distracted. I'm like, "Squirrel". I'll start singing. So, I would turn on instrumental music. There's stuff that like even has like, binaural beats on there. Like, that helped me just calm down and just remember that, "I'm okay". Like, "Nobody's coming after me. Nothing else is happening. God's with me. And Jesus, please let me get back to sleep, I have a meeting in a few hours," you know, and he would end up doing that, you know?
Ginger Stache: Yeah, I think, sometimes, we forget what peace is even like, you know, just...
Jai Williams: Comfortable in the chaos.
Ginger Stache: Exactly, exactly. And God is saying that he is the God of peace that passes all understanding. So, there is peace available to us that does not even make sense. When everything seems a little crazy around us, God is still a God of peace. So, I love something you said in the book. And it really hit me, when we're talking about this pride thing, you say that you value peace so much that you're willing to give up being anxious, worried, angry, unforgiving, offended or upset in order to have it, and that you're even willing to give up being right.
Joyce Meyer: Yes.
Erin Cluley: That means you really want it.
Joyce Meyer: That was the one that killed me, right there. "Yes, honey".
Erin Cluley: "Thank you".
Joyce Meyer: "Thank you". "Thank you". "Thank you". See, our husbands like to tell us what to do, and they mean well, but it's like, "Now, hold on to the banister when you go down the stairs, Joyce". "Now, be careful when you get out of that bathtub". And that kinda stuff would drive me nuts. Well, we've all learned, we have this thing going on here, the Talk It Out show, "Thank you".
Erin Cluley: You'd be so proud, love.
Ginger Stache: Instead of saying, "Don't you think I know that?"!
Joyce Meyer: "What do you think, I'm stupid, that I don't know how to go down the steps?"!
Jai Williams: And that's even with my ex-husband. You know, I've told you all. I said, "I'm gonna try it," cuz he wrong most the time. But I've been saying, "You're...Okay".
Erin Cluley: I love what you say, when you say that, Joyce, that you'll do anything for peace. Because i, in the past few years, I feel that to my core. Like, I don't care what I have to do, I'll move where you tell me to move. I will do, I will say, I will not say whatever you want me to say, 'cause I will not go back to that place of that of that constant fear.
Joyce Meyer: People will never have peace until they want it bad enough...
Erin Cluley: Yeah, it's so true.
Joyce Meyer: To do whatever God tells 'em to do to get it.
Erin Cluley: Like a desperation almost, yeah.
Joyce Meyer: And I had, had so much turmoil in my life. Honestly, when I first started getting peaceful, I was bored.
Erin Cluley: You're so used to the turmoil.
Joyce Meyer: I was.
Jai Williams: "Peace is borrring"!
Joyce Meyer: I was like, "Why am I like, you know..."?
Love McPherson: But you learn to master chaos.
Erin Cluley: We do.
Love McPherson: You really like, develop masterful skills for it.
Joyce Meyer: Now, I love it! It's like...
Love McPherson: It's the peace that's the unknown place, you know, and so you have to learn how to... You know what, Joyce? People see that, they do that in dating. You'll see girls say, "He's too nice". As opposed to what? And so, you have to challenge them because some say, they get to the point where, "I really don't know how to love," or give or receive love. And when it's a foreign place that they have to go to in order to connect with somebody, a lot of times they will avoid it, sabotage it, give reasons for not to...
Ginger Stache: Without even realizing it.
Love McPherson: But if Satan can convince you to not love, because God is love, so, he would love for you to close off that love portion of you. You gotta stay open to love. And love of... And I say, you know, you hear me say all the time, you know, 40 years in may coming up, okay? But I say that, "Love is not the hardest part it's staying 'in like' with tony McPherson".
Joyce Meyer: Well, I have to tell you, before we're out of time, I know that coveting is a sin, but I covet your name. Oh, I wish my name was Love. I got it right there on my foot.
Love McPherson: You know what? I didn't appreciate it when I was younger, but I do love it. My mother named me Love because of her love for my dad, 60-year relationship and they really get it, too. But let me tell you something. Joyce, this came with a price. Because my mother was like, "Okay, you gonna learn 1 Corinthians 13th chapter," the whole chapter, not the verses, the whole chapter!
Joyce Meyer: I'll have to say that I put it on my foot because of how much I love Dave. I'm making it up, but it sounds good.
Jai Williams: It ain't true, but...
Erin Cluley: We will spread that for you.
Joyce Meyer: Can you spread that around for me?
Love McPherson: That is testimony, right there, though. Because Satan came in your life so hard as a child to try to make you distrust love, and not feel loved in the right way. For you to have that as, this is the outcome of that, you are a symbol of what trauma can be healed and worked through, and what has always attracted me to this ministry is that you always told the truth. You were vulnerable.
Joyce Meyer: About anybody.
Love McPherson: And the vulnerability allow people to say, "Me too". They didn't have to hide behind themselves. They were free to come out. And I just think that, that's what we need.
Ginger Stache: Yeah, well, there are so many, just real quick, easy things. For me, one of the things is to slow down. Because I can be in such a hurry all the time that, you know, you get more and more stressed because you're just buzzing around all the time. Sometimes, breathing and slowing down. Perfectionism. Fight, perfectionism, and that will help relieve a lot of stress and anxiety in your life. Anything else that just comes to mind, just single words, things that will help?
Erin Cluley: I yell, "Stop". Oh, yeah, that was mine.
Ginger Stache: What'd you say?
Joyce Meyer: Quiet.
Ginger Stache: Ah, yes.
Joyce Meyer: Just having quiet.
Ginger Stache: Give yourself that.
Joyce Meyer: Being still. Get where it's quiet.
Erin Cluley: I have tell myself to be quiet. Like, "Stop," because of the reasoning, the racing in my mind. So, I will say, "Stop".
Jai Williams: My new thing is fun. Find more fun. Like, play. Like, when we were kids, we played. But the older we get it pivots from play to games, which becomes competitive. And now that we're adults, games, are now, like, everything's just a cat race and it makes you stressed. Play, have fun. Find fun again.
Ginger Stache: Keep that sense of wonder about...
Jai Williams: Childlike faith.
Ginger Stache: There's so much there that God is giving us all the time that we miss it when our lives are just pushed down by all the anxiety and everything going on.
Love McPherson: And mine is breathe. What you've been talking about all the time. I think we underestimate the power of the breath of God, that healing breath of God that is resonating through us. And I believe we need to tap in more.
Joyce Meyer: Yeah, because when you're stressed, you hold your breath. And it really does do a lot of damage to your body.
Love McPherson: It really does.
Ginger Stache: Well, thank you all very much. Such good stuff. You know, we do love to offer you resources to help you continue in your journey in the Bible. And tonight, we encourage you to check out Joyce's free Bible study called, "The answer to anxiety". It's free, like I said. It's great to dig into the word. There's so much power there. Go to: joycemeyer.org/anxietystudy or click the button on your screen. And remember, that we release a new episode of the Talk It Out Podcast every other Tuesday, with Joyce, and Jai, and Erin, and wonderful guests, just like, Love. So, join us as we study the word together and talk about real life. You can check it out at: joycemeyer.org/talkitout, or wherever you like to get your podcasts.