Rise and Lead
Rise and Lead
Overcoming Anxiety: Letting Go of What You Can't Control with Benjamin Lundquist - RAL 95
On this episode, Overcoming Anxiety: Letting Go of What You Can't Control, Benjamin talks about what is feels like to battle anxiety - those moments when you’re sitting in your car, frozen by fear, feeling unseen, overwhelmed, and unsure how to move forward. He unpacks how to re-frame anxiety, anchor your identity in God, clarify control, and find hope by simply doing the next right thing. You’ll learn how to stop obsessing over what you can’t control, take responsibility for what you can, and walk by faith even when it’s hard. This episode is a reminder that you are not alone, God is with you in the middle of your struggle. And with a perspective shift and few tools things can and will get better. Anxiety is not your identity and not your future.
Episode Quote:
"Every ounce of energy you pour into things outside your control is energy stolen from what God actually put in your hands - your habits, your faith, your assignment. That's the heart of this teaching - you need to surrender what is out of your control and give your full focus and attention to the assignment in front of you. If you can't do anything about it, why are you wasting time obsessing about it. “Your time is too valuable and your calling too sacred to waste it on what you can’t change.”
This episode, like all Rise and Lead Podcast episodes, is highly practical and motivating. Don't forget to subscribe to the Rise and Lead Podcast to ensure you get notified when new episodes release every month. When you share about the podcast, make sure and tag @benjaminlundquist, and he'll always try and give you a re-post. Remember, the best time to rise and lead is now!
You are not your anxiety. You are not your mistakes. You are not the worst thought in your head. You are who God says you are, chosen, called, equipped, and loved. Anxiety will whisper, you're not enough. You're not in control. You can't handle this. But faith speaks louder. God has not given you a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and a sound mind. Stop replaying lies. Stop beating yourself up. You are already enough. Welcome to Rise and Lead. I'm Benjamin Lundquist, and this podcast is all about personal growth and leadership. Thank you for listening and for being a part of our Rise and Lead community. We are a community of leaders who are passionate about growth, leadership, and expanding our impact on the world. This episode is a big one. We are talking about anxiety and what it feels like to battle anxiety. Those moments when you're sitting in the car, frozen by fear, feeling unseen, overwhelmed, and unsure of how you are supposed to move forward. Together we unpack how to reframe anxiety, anchor your identity in God, clarify control, and find hope by simply doing the next right thing. You'll learn how to stop obsessing over what you can't control and take responsibility for what you can. And we're going to talk about how do you walk by faith even when it's hard. This episode is a reminder that you are not alone. God is with you in the middle of your struggle and with a perspective shift and a few tools, things can and will get better. The Rise and Lead Podcast is designed specifically to motivate and equip you to live your greatest life with maximum impact. We are going to find out what makes great leaders great and how you can start growing yourself, rise, expanding your impact, lead, and living the life you have been created to live. We are stronger together. That's something I'm always coming back to. And I want to personally invite you to be a rise and lead partner in spreading the word about this podcast and all the episodes that will follow so together we can reach more people. Remember to subscribe so you can get all the episodes that release every month. Rate the podcast. I'm always going for a five-star rating. If you think Rise and Lee deserves five stars, I would greatly appreciate that. Leave a written review. Your reviews, they make a huge difference. And finally, share about Rise and Lee with your family, your friends, and your social media network. Screenshot this episode and send it to someone or text someone the episode link. You are helping people rise to their next level by connecting them to an episode. And when you share about the podcast as a social media post or story, make sure you tag me and I'll always try and give you a repost. Your input, ratings, reviews, and shares help our team to continue creating a better podcast experience to serve great leaders like you. If this is your first time listening, I'm so glad you're here. I know your time is valuable, and I hope this episode arrives right on time for you. I like to start each episode with prayers, so let's pray together. God, we come to you in the middle of our anxiety, knowing that you are our peace when everything inside of us feels unsettled. Remind us that you have not abandoned us. You are right here. Teach us to cast our cares on you, not because we're weak, but because you're strong. Calm our racing minds, steady our hearts, and fill us with the kind of hope that anchors us no matter what storms may come our way. In your name we pray, amen. Overcoming anxiety, letting go of what you can't control. My goal with this episode isn't to fix you because you're not something that needs fixing. My goal is to help you reframe what might be happening inside you, to understand anxiety in a new way, and to give you some practical tools and truth that can help you walk through it differently with more strength, more grace, more faith, and more intentionality. Let me ask you this have you ever found yourself just sitting in the car because you're not ready to go inside, not ready to walk into that meeting, that house, or that opportunity. You're rehearsing conversations in your head, imagining everything that could go wrong, feeling the weight of expectations you're not sure you can meet. It feels like you're fighting a battle no one else can see. You tell yourself to just get out and go, but something inside of you hesitates. That moment, sitting in silence, isn't weakness. You're not lazy, you're not broken, you're just human. And even in that pause, God is with you, whispering, you don't have to do this alone. Take a breath. I'm already in the room you're afraid to walk into. You already know this. Anxiety is the most common mental health challenge of our time. And there are biological challenges that can cause anxiety. Things in your body are not balanced and high functioning. If that's you, you need to address those challenges. What you don't deal with will eventually deal with you. But for many of us, anxiety is rooted in the way we process and perceive life. You live in the constant tension between what you can't control and what you wish you could. The constant sense of what if is playing on repeat in your brain. And it can feel debilitating and crippling. You wonder why you can't get control of your thoughts and pull your life together. But here's the truth anxiety doesn't have to define you. You don't have to live stuck, overwhelmed, or paralyzed by fear. For most, anxiety is a battle for control. When you don't feel like you have control, you don't feel safe and secure. When you don't feel safe and secure, you constantly scramble. And when you scramble, you're emotionally exhausted and you tend to worry about everything. Like the door of your mind is swung wide open to all the lies, doubts, and insecurities you know aren't even true. We get locked in on things we were never designed to carry. We replay conversations in our head as if worrying could rewrite the past. We lie awake at night, playing out every possible scenario, hoping that if we just think harder, if we just stress longer, somehow we'll feel safe and secure. We fixate on people's opinions, chasing their approval like it has the power to define us. Every time you try to control what belongs to God, you trade peace for pressure. Let me say that again. Every time you try to control what belongs to God, you trade peace for pressure. Peace is not found in control. Peace is found in surrender. And obsession never gives peace, it only multiplies fear. And I want to be clear: God isn't telling you to ignore responsibility. Tomorrow was never yours to carry. Don't let what you can't control rob you of what you can. Every ounce of energy you pour into things outside your control is energy stolen from what God actually put in your hands, your habits, your faith, and your assignment. That's the heart of this teaching. You need to surrender what is out of your control and give your full focus and attention to the assignment in front of you. If you can't do anything about it, why are you wasting time obsessing about it? Hear me on this. Your time is too valuable and your calling too sacred to waste it on what you can't change. Control drains you. Surrender restores you. Peace doesn't come from figuring it all out, it comes from trusting the one who already has it all figured out. The journey from control to surrender and from anxiety to peace, for me, it always begins with your identity. When you anchor your identity in Christ, the storm around you doesn't have the power to sink you. The ship doesn't sink because of the water around it. It sinks because of the water that gets in it. Don't keep focusing on the things outside of your control. If you can't control it, it's not yours to carry. When you stop obsessing over what you can't control, you free your mind and you free your heart to walk boldly into what you can. You've heard me say this before. Own this moment, crush this assignment, and walk in the confidence of who God already says you are. I think about the words of Jesus in Matthew chapter six, when he says, Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. Jesus wasn't minimizing our struggles. He was reminding us to release what's outside of our control and to be faithful in the moment God has given us. Scripture is filled with leaders who battled anxiety. Gideon in Judges chapter six was hiding in fear, doubting himself, overwhelmed with insecurity. Yet God called him mighty warrior. God didn't speak to his insecurity, he spoke to his identity. But Gideon craved control. He asked for signs, he demanded fleeces. He trusted in numbers. And what did God do? He reduced Gideon's army from 32,000 down to 300. Why? To remind him that victory was never about control. It was about trust. The size of your army doesn't matter when the size of your God is unmatched. Let me say that again. The size of your army doesn't matter when the size of your God is unmatched. I want to get practical and offer you three steps to help you move from control to surrender and from anxiety to peace. Step number one, anchor your identity. Step number two, clarify control. And finally, step number three, do the next right thing. Step number one, anchor your identity. Anchoring your identity in God means deciding that who He says you are matters more than what anyone else says or what you may feel in the moment. It's choosing to root your worth, purpose, and value in something eternal instead of something that is temporary. The world will always try and define you by performance, possessions, or even popularity, but God defines you by relationship. You are his child, his masterpiece, his image bearer, created with intention and loved without condition. When you anchor your identity in him, you stop chasing validation and start walking in confidence. You stop living for approval and start living from acceptance. You stop striving to earn love and start resting in the truth that you already have it. And in the storms of anxiety, failure, or uncertainty, that anchor holds, unshaken, unmoved, and deeply secure in the hands of the one who never changes. Walking through anxiety must be based on a foundation of identity. Go back to this truth again and again. When you're sitting in that car, not ready to go inside, remind yourself of who you are. The words you say about yourself matter. So speak life, speak truth, and speak often. Surround yourself with people who remind you of who you are and act like a person of great worth and value because that's who you are. Step number two, clarify control. With your identity anchored, you need to clarify what exactly is in your control and what you need to release through surrender. I use a tool I call the three buckets of control. So the idea here is to take all the things you're stressing about and worrying over and drop them into an appropriate bucket, which will help you clarify control. Bucket number one, full control. These are your choices, your effort, your habits, and your responses. Philippians 4 verse 6 says this do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. In other words, do what you can and give God the rest. If you can control it, then own it. If you can't, let it go. There may be somebody listening who's been putting responsibility on somebody else for too long for things that you should be carrying. If it's yours to carry, then carry it with attention, consistency, and integrity. Bucket number two, partial control. These are things you can impact, but not fully control, like encouraging others, showing up with integrity, and even casting vision. Proverbs sixteen nine reminds us in their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps. These things are not in your full control, but you can still have significant impact in these spaces. Like a relationship, you have to do your part. And bucket number three, no control. These are things you can't and should not carry. Other people's opinions, outcomes you can't change, or even world events, these things belong in his hands. I mentioned this earlier. Every time you try and control what belongs to God, you trade peace for pressure. Your time is too valuable, and your calling too sacred to get caught up in what you can't change. When you find yourself obsessing about things, start placing items in their appropriate bucket. The buckets are really about giving a name to recurring thoughts that are causing you anxiety, allowing you to take appropriate action, clarify what is going on, and then be a leader of action. That action might look like surrender, or it might look like rising up and leading. And finally, step number three: do the next right thing. Hope often returns when we choose to do the next right thing and take the next step of faith, even when we don't feel ready. Obsessing over everything that could go wrong keeps us stuck in fear. But small steps of faith break the power of anxiety. Let me say that again. Small steps of faith break the power of anxiety. You don't have to have it all figured out. You don't have to know the entire plan. Just take the next faithful step in front of you. Call that person, send that message, clean that space, pray that prayer. Each act of responsibility is a declaration that fear won't control your life. The Bible is clear, we walk by faith, not by sight. That means we move forward even when the path isn't clear, trusting that God will meet us as we move. Hope doesn't grow in hesitation, it grows in motion. When you take responsibility for what you can control and surrender what you can't, peace starts to return. One step of obedience at a time. When Jesus was in the Garden of Gethsemane, Scripture says he was in such anguish that he was sweating drops of blood. That's extreme anxiety. And this was his prayer. Not my will, but yours be done. Jesus shows us something crucial. It's okay to feel anxiety, but it's not okay to ignore it and do nothing. The way forward is the way of surrender and obedience. Faith doesn't remove the battle, but it definitely changes how we fight. Whatever you are going through, fight forward with faith. Remember who you are, clarify control, and do the next right thing. You are not your anxiety, you are not your mistakes, you are not the worst thought in your head. You are who God says you are, chosen, called, equipped, and loved. Anxiety will whisper, you're not enough, you're not in control, you can't handle this. But faith speaks louder. God has not given you a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and a sound mind. Stop replaying lies. Stop beating yourself up. You are already enough in Christ. Right now, right here, listening to this episode. Don't let what you can't control rob you of what you can. Don't let the storm outside silence the strength God already placed on the inside. God is with you in the storm. He is with you in the valley, and he is with you on the mountaintop. You're not stuck. You're being set up. This is not the end. It's the beginning of something new. When you let go of what you can't control, you make space for peace. And when peace rises, courage rises. And when courage rises, you can step boldly into your assignment. So rise up, lead strong, own this moment, crush this assignment, and never forget the world needs the confident, faith-filled leader you are becoming. You don't have to have it all figured out. You don't have to feel fearless. You just have to take one step of faith. God isn't asking you to be perfect. You are stronger than you think, and you are not walking into that moment alone. Open the door, step out, and walk like someone who knows heaven is backing you up. Your courage might not feel big, but it's enough to change everything. I hope this episode impacted and inspired you. Send me a DM and let me know. I read every message that comes in. Make sure you screenshot this episode. Share it with someone and post it to your social media accounts. Don't forget to tag me so I can give you a repost. I know there is someone who you know who needs to hear this episode. Thank you for sharing, subscribing, and rating the podcast. Seriously, that means the world to me. Look for new episodes to release every month. You won't want to miss those. Thank you for taking the time to invest in yourself. You are worth it. Remember, the best time to rise and lead is now.