Whatever Is Excellent with Leanne Tuggle
Encouragement and Inspiration for women choosing to rise above the “just survive” mentality and instead set their mind on thriving in all that they say and do. The ultimate goal is to equip you to pursue whatever is excellent in the midst of your ordinary life and in all that you say and do.
Whatever Is Excellent with Leanne Tuggle
25: Recognizing Negative Thought Patterns & Choosing Peace
Can your thoughts influence the way you handle things like anxiety?
This episode dives deep into the complexities of women's mental health, especially concerning anxiety and worry that many face due to societal pressures and expectations. We unravel the science behind why women are more prone to anxiety, considering research by notable figures like Jonathan Haidt and Leonard Sax that highlights the alarming trends affecting adolescent girls.
Our discussion shifts to the importance of recognizing negative thought patterns, such as catastrophizing and overgeneralizing, which can contribute significantly to anxiety. Discover practical strategies for rewiring your mind for positivity, along with the transformative role faith plays in our emotional lives. Ultimately, we emphasize the need for community support and encourage open conversations about mental health struggles. Let this episode serve as a reminder that just as the sea otter glides above the crashing waves, we too can learn to navigate life’s storms with grace and resilience.
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Recommended Reading:
Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt
Girls on the Edge by Leonard Sax
Raising Worry Free Girls by Sissy Goff
Braver, Stronger, Smarter: A Girl's Guide to Overcoming Worry & Anxiety by Sissy Goff
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You can find me on Instagram @mrs.leannetuggle or you can email me at leanne.tuggle@gmail.com. I love hearing from you!
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It was a particularly windy day and I was walking along the trail that outlines the Monterey Peninsula here on the central coast of California, when I noticed a sea otter rolling on the waves. Now I walk along this trail every week, and some days the ocean is pretty calm, with gentle waves lapping along the shore. Calm with gentle waves lapping along the shore. These are the kind of waves that show up on sound machines and sleep apps, because they are peaceful and soothing. Today, however, the wind and the high tide meant that the waves were literally crashing against the rocks. Sprays of water drenched the path I walked on, causing me to have to jump out of the way, like just in time. And then here was this sea otter just floating along, munching on an abalone, like he didn't have a care in the world, nevermind that the huge wave was headed his way or that there was another one right after that. He just kept on floating right over the top of these waves, taking each one in stride. As I watched this otter, I couldn't help but think about how often my fight against the storm is the very thing that rips me off course. Storm is the very thing that rips me off course. My anxious thoughts are more hindering than the storm itself. If I could just learn to roll with the waves like this sea otter, perhaps I wouldn't feel so worried, and yet that feels easier said than done, right?
Leanne:This topic of anxiety and worry, and even depression, has been on my heart and mind a lot lately. Partly this is a result of becoming more involved with mentoring women and engaging in more and more conversations about anxiety and the mental load that women carry. I've also noticed my daughter wrestling with more worries as she enters those preteen years. All of this has prompted me to do what I do best, and that is read more books, starting with what the Bible has to say about things like anxiety and worry, and then moving on to other nonfiction books full of research on this topic. One book that I am currently reading is the Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt. I have read another book of his, the Coddling of the American Mind, and so I was intrigued by this book. It is a heavily researched book. Haidt discusses the alarming spike in anxiety among children and adolescents since 2010, which is before my kids were born, but still, and while this trend affects both genders, women and girls do seem to be more adversely affected, based on the research, it seems as though the rise in popularity of social media is one very prominent contributing factors, as is the greater access to smartphones in general. While I personally find all of this research fascinating, discussing whether or not you should give your teen a smartphone isn't the point of this episode. Perhaps it will be a future episode.
Leanne:The thing that really captures my attention is the fact that women and girls tend to be more prone to anxiety and worry. Why is that? Statistics show that women are twice as likely to be diagnosed with an anxiety disorder compared to men. Some of this is due to the hormonal fluctuations that women experience, which explains the increase of anxiety in preteen and teenage girls, as well as why there are things like postpartum depression. It makes sense. Those are major times of hormonal fluctuation. Women also tend to have higher cortisol responses and a more active amygdala, which is the part of your brain that is the fear center. This is the part that I want to lean into for the purpose of this episode.
Leanne:The human brain is incredible. The more I learn about it, the more in awe I am of our creator, and I have only barely begun to scratch the surface of all there is to know about the brain. Now, make no mistake, I am no researcher. I am simply intrigued and curious, and I love to read all the things I also recognizing I am not a researcher. I like to listen to the actual researchers, especially those who have a biblical worldview in mind when they are presenting their findings, and one of these researchers that I have recently been listening to.
Leanne:His name is Lenard Sachs, and he is someone who has a lot of knowledge in this area, and I recently listened to a conversation that he participated in on the topic of girls and anxiety and depression, and one of the things that he said is that girls today are afraid of being normal or typical. Is that's considered boring? There is a desire to seek attention and be noticed, and the more I think about it and the more it makes sense, especially with TikTok stars and influencers on social media. The problem is is that these girls are not necessarily seeking good and healthy attention. In fact, leonard Sachs says it is becoming more popular to have some sort of a disorder as a way of getting attention, something that makes you not normal, which means not boring. He says that girls are deciding. They are more likely to fit in if they have, maybe like an anxiety disorder, or maybe they have depression, and, as a result, these adolescents are more or less thinking themselves into depression, and that's sobering to consider, isn't it? Now, I know I feel like I need to say this because I know that there are very real anxiety and depression disorders. Those exist, and that's not what I'm speaking about right now. This is almost like. The thing I want to talk about here is the mental, the thinking, how our thoughts can affect us and how that can go in both a good direction and in a negative direction. If you look at the definition of the word decide, it means to cut off all other options, and when girls are deciding that the only way that they can fit in or be considered cool or interesting is to have some sort of a disorder, with this decision they're cutting off all other options or possibilities.
Leanne:Earl Nightingale, who is an author and a radio speaker whose prime was really in the 1950s, he's quoted as saying this, and you may have heard this quote before the mind moves in the direction of our currently dominant thoughts. As you likely know, women tend to be very proficient at overthinking and dwelling on problems which can fuel anxiety. This is referred to as rumination or repeated negative thinking. I mean, I cannot tell you how many times I have overthought a conversation with someone and gone over and over and over. Oh, what could I have said differently? How could I have handled that in a better way? We do this all the time. We ruminate and we overthink things all the time. The neuroplasticity of our brains means that the brain adapts to repeated thoughts, strengthening neural pathways associated with worry, fear or sadness, whatever those thoughts are that we keep repeating, and over time, these reinforced patterns make negative thinking feel automatic, contributing to anxiety and depression. So when he says girls are thinking their way into depression, this is what he's referring to. They are rewiring their brains to feel more anxious or more depressed. I know this to be true from personal experience.
Leanne:We moved to Japan in July of 2020, and I'm going to let that day and time kind of sink in a little bit. I had just endured five months of solo parenting in the middle of a pandemic, only to find out that I would then be moving across the world on my own with a five-year-old and two-year-old twins. My husband was already in Japan and, as a result of the pandemic, was out to sea and deployed and was not able to come back to help us move. He wasn't available to help me make this trip and yet, by the grace of God, I did it. It wasn't pretty that 13 hour flight was as terrible as it sounds with toddler twins but we made it. We completed our required quarantine. We, when we got to Japan, we had to quarantine for two weeks and I was again alone with my three kids for that time. And then, at the end of that, we were reunited with my husband and all was well. Our family was whole and complete and it was like a huge weight and relief until four weeks later my husband had to leave again to go back out to sea for another two months.
Leanne:That broke me, months that broke me. I decided it was impossible. This was unfair. I couldn't do this. How could anyone expect me to do more time in this environment with these sweet babies? I couldn't do it. It was more than I could handle. The thoughts that were swirling around in my head continued to spiral from there, putting me in a very unhealthy place mentally and emotionally, that whole season of my life.
Leanne:When I look back on it now, it reminds me of the story from the Bible that's found in Matthew 14, when Jesus is walking on the water toward his disciples. So he has sent them ahead of him so he could have some alone time to pray. And then, as they are already halfway across the lake, he decides to join them by just walking across the water, which is amazing. And they see him. The disciples see him from afar and they immediately start freaking out. And I get it, because that's crazy. It's not something you see all the time somebody walking on water or ever. And then Peter, peter, this disciple, he, he is like all of us, I think. He says and thinks the things that we would do. He yells, he sees him and he says Jesus, if it is you, command me to come out to you on the water. I would have never asked that, but I love that Peter did because we get this. So Peter gets out of the boat and he starts walking on the water. It's an impossibility made possible because of Jesus. And yet the second he took his eyes off of Jesus and looks instead at the storm and at the waves. He starts to sink, and at the waves he starts to sink.
Leanne:That's what was happening to me. I was able to do those five months of solo parenting and make that trek across the world with my children, because my eyes were fixed on Jesus. I was looking at him and I knew I could not do it in my own strength. I needed his help. So every day it was fixing my eyes on him to survive through that day. But in that moment, when I took my eyes off of Jesus and I started to focus on the storm swirling around me, my thoughts spiraled because I was no longer thinking about him. Thoughts spiraled because I was no longer thinking about him. I was thinking about my fear and the unfairness of the situation and how much I knew I couldn't handle it, which was true, I couldn't. My fear was greater and the storm impossible to withstand. So for at least two months I struggled inside this personal storm. I struggled with depression and then finally, just like Peter in this Bible story, I cried out to Jesus, and I don't remember exactly what was the trigger that led me back, but I was sinking and then he reached for me.
Leanne:And here's the good news in all of this Just as negative thoughts can contribute to anxiety or depression, intentional positive thinking, gratitude and choosing to abide in the only one who can truly save you has the power to rewire your brain for peace and joy. Philippians 4, 6, and 7 says do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God, and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. The peace of Christ doesn't make sense by human standards, and yet abiding in Him can literally change the trajectory of your mind. That neuroplasticity of the brain can be a good thing. After all, it works both ways you can think yourself in depression and you can think yourself out of it. Which brings me back to the conversation about adolescent girls struggling to fit in and make sense of all of the overwhelming thoughts that so easily consume.
Leanne:For girls, and for women for that matter, there is a tendency towards three negative thought patterns. There are others, but these are the main three Catastrophizing, which is assuming that the worst will happen. Black and white thinking, seeing situations as either all good or all bad. And overgeneralization, believing one bad experience means all future experiences will be the same. How many of those ring true for you? I know I have personally struggled with all three of those at some point in time, and I see my daughter falling into these traps as well, even at 10 years old. Okay, the good news is is that, while this does tend to be the case for women, women and girls also tend to express their anxiety more openly and are more willing to seek help, which is huge because I think once we recognize that we are having these anxious thoughts or we are spiraling or we are feeling depressed, being able to seek help is a huge step in the right direction. We may not be able to think ourselves out of depression on our own, but recognizing that and then being able to seek that help is the best first step being able to call out and say I need help.
Leanne:So, as I've been learning all of these different things and especially watching my daughter start to struggle with those same tendencies, I read this book called Raising Worry-Free Girls by Sissy Goff, and after reading the book, I decided to purchase the companion book for girls called Braver, stronger, smarter a girl's guide to overcoming worry and anxiety. My daughter and I have just started working through the exercises and already I can see positive results, as we name the worry monster and refuse to give into the cycle of negative thought patterns. Being able to identify that this thought pattern is something like catastrophizing is the first step, and then being able to go through some exercises to counter that negative thinking. That's what's in this book. And yet I do have to say that no amount of positive affirmations can compare to the hope and the love and the peace that comes from Jesus. It is much easier to work through these thoughts and to overcome things like anxiety and depression with Jesus and oppression with Jesus.
Leanne:Romans 12, 2 says Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind. That by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. It is my hope and prayer that by teaching my daughter to not be like everyone else and to not think like everyone else, she can see how special and unique and incredible she is as a child of God. She can be faithfully different and not allow the storms of this world to cause her to sink. Allow the storms of this world to cause her to sink. And even if she does start to sink, which will inevitably happen at some point, god is faithful. Even when we are not, he stands in the gap for us and lifts us up out of the storm exactly when we need Him most, even if we forget to call out for Him, so that we can be like that sea otter and trust that he's got us, no matter what thoughts or circumstances try to crash against us. To close this episode, I am going to read this beautiful passage from Matthew 6.
Leanne:In verses 25 through 33, jesus speaks specifically about anxiety and worry and provides this uplifting perspective for us to consider. Jesus says Therefore, I tell you, do not be anxious about your life or what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body and what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air. They neither sow nor reap, nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not more valuable than they? And which of you, by being anxious, can add a single hour to his span of life? And which of you, by being anxious, can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing?
Leanne:Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They neither toil nor spin. Yet I tell you, even Solomon, in all of his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field which is alive today and tomorrow thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, o you of little faith? Therefore, do not be anxious saying what will we eat or what will we drink, or what will we wear. For the Gentiles, seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all, but seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. I pray these words wash over you like the waves of the sea. May you feel encouraged as you go about your week, and may you feel inspired to think about anything that is excellent or praiseworthy.