Hi, I’m Tabitha and I’m a recovering perfectionist. I say recovering because it’s an ongoing process, sometimes a rather frustrating one if I’m being honest.

Perfectionism is sneaky. It disguises itself as high standards, as diligence, as caring deeply about doing things well. Before you freak out and say, “Hi, we need to have some standards here” let’s flesh out what I mean. High standards and care aren’t the issue; it’s what underlies those standards. There’s a relentless inner voice that keeps a running tally of every misstep, every shortcoming, every way you didn’t quite measure up today. That voice has a favorite word:

Should.

I should be further along. I should have handled that better. I should be more patient, more productive, more consistent, more spiritual, more everything. And underneath all of that shoulding is the unspoken belief that if you just judged yourself hard enough or tried harder, you’d finally become the person you’re supposed to be. And sometimes that shoulding is encouraged by environments we exist in—maybe our home or even our church community.

Here’s what I know after years of working with clients and walking this road myself: that belief is not true. And the connection between perfectionism and anxiety is far closer than most people realize.

What “Shoulding” Actually Does to You

In therapy, as you’ve seen above, I use this phrase: shoulding on yourself. And before you laugh — or wince — let me tell you why I use it deliberately. Because it captures something true about what harsh self-judgment actually does. It doesn’t clean things up, it actually just makes a mess.

When we should on ourselves, we are essentially telling ourselves that reality is wrong. That the way things are is unacceptable or not enough or wrong. And here’s the problem with that: saying something should or should not have happened doesn’t change the fact that it did. It also doesn’t mean whatever standard we’re applying is accurate. All it really does is add a layer of shame and self-condemnation on top of whatever already happened or whatever we’re trying to accomplish.

Perfectionism and anxiety are deeply linked because the perfectionist mindset is fundamentally future-focused and fear-driven. It’s not just I want to do well. It’s If I don’t do this perfectly, something bad will happen — I’ll be exposed, I’ll disappoint people, I’ll lose something important. It also indicates a standard, and we don’t always stop to explore where we got that standard from and whether it’s reasonable or not. That underlying fear keeps the anxiety engine running constantly, even when there’s nothing actually wrong.

And when we inevitably fall short of the impossible standard the negative self-judgment kicks in. And this, of course, fuels more anxiety. Which fuels more perfectionism. It’s a cycle that feeds itself, and it is exhausting. It’s for sure not a good time.

Has Harsh Self-Judgment Ever Actually Worked?

I want to ask you something directly: Has judging yourself harshly ever produced lasting change in your life?

I’m not asking whether it has ever motivated you temporarily. Sometimes shame and self-criticism do produce short bursts of behavior change. But lasting change, the kind that actually sticks and becomes part of who you are? I have never, in all my years of practice, seen harsh self-judgment produce that.

Think about it this way: if shoulding on yourself worked, I literally would not have a job. We would all just judge ourselves into excellence and go about our days. But that’s not what happens. What actually happens is that we judge ourselves, feel shame, either shut down or overcompensate, fall short again, judge ourselves again and the cycle continues.

The harsh inner voice isn’t making you better. It’s keeping you stuck. And the perfectionism and anxiety it fuels are not a sign of high standards, they’re a sign of rigidity and potentially past wounds that need some healing.

Pride Goes Both Ways

Here’s something that tends to surprise people: thinking too lowly of yourself is just as much a form of pride as thinking too highly of yourself. Both are a form of self-focus that pulls us out of the present moment and out of genuine connection, with others, with our work, and with God.

When we are deep in the perfectionism and self-judgment cycle, we are living on autopilot (if you’ve been reading along with these past blogs, you know that autopilot doesn’t help us get where we want to go). We reacti to an internal critic rather than responding to what’s actually in front of us. We are so consumed with measuring, evaluating, and finding ourselves lacking that we can’t be fully present in our own lives. We miss what’s actually happening because we’re too busy running the internal audit.

Romans 8:1 says it plainly: “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Not a little condemnation. Not condemnation except for the really big failures. No condemnation. The inner voice that keeps up the running tally of your shortcomings is not the voice of the Holy Spirit. It is not godly conviction. It is condemnation and it is not from God.

The Difference Between Conviction and Condemnation

I want to make an important distinction here, because I know this is an area where well-meaning Christians can get real confused at times. There is a difference between godly conviction and the shame spiral of perfectionism and self-judgment.

Conviction is specific. It points to a particular thought, action, or pattern and invites you toward something better. It is ultimately hopeful. It says, “This can change. You can grow. Come this way.” And then it moves on.

Condemnation is global. It doesn’t point to a behavior, it indicts your whole self. It says, “You are the problem. You are not enough. You will never be enough.” It doesn’t invite you toward growth. It pins you to the floor.

Perfectionism lives in the condemnation space. And it is worth learning to recognize the difference, not so you can ignore genuine growth opportunities, but so you can stop letting a voice that isn’t God’s (or even your own voice at times) run your internal life.

The Grace-filled Alternative to Perfectionism and Anxiety

So if harsh self-judgment doesn’t work, what does? This is the part I love, because the alternative is not lowering your standards or giving yourself a pass on everything. It is something much more powerful and far more nuanced than that.

There is an essential truth that I come back to again and again, both in my own life and in my work with clients. It holds two things together at the same time: I am doing the best I can in this moment, and I can do better. Both are true. Neither cancels out the other.

This is what theologians call sanctification—the ongoing process of being changed into the likeness of Christ. We are redeemed and we are being changed. We are accepted as we are and we are not yet who we will be. There is no room for condemnation in that process. This is the essence of the now and the not yet.

Practically, this means replacing the should with something more honest and more useful. Instead of “I should be further along,” try: “I wish I were further along, and I’m going to take one step today.” Instead of “I should have handled that better,” try: “I didn’t handle that the way I wanted to. What can I learn from it? Do I need to make a repair with someone?” The facts stay the same. The shame is removed. And the path forward opens up.

Mindful Connection: The Antidote to the Perfectionism Spiral

One of the most powerful tools for breaking the perfectionism and anxiety cycle is the practice of mindful connection. As a reminder, that’s being fully present in the moment rather than lost in the internal audit of everything you’re doing wrong. We keep our feet in this present moment instead of the shoulding of it all.

When we are present we’re able to observe what’s actually happening without layering judgment on top of it. We can notice: I made a mistake. Full stop. Not: I made a mistake, which means I’m a failure, which means I can’t be trusted, which means… Just the facts. Just the moment. Just what is.

This is not lowering the bar. This is seeing clearly. And seeing clearly, without the distortion of perfectionism and self-judgment, is actually what makes genuine growth possible. You can’t address what you can’t see accurately. And you can’t see accurately when shame is clouding the lens.

Progress, Not Perfection

I say it constantly: mindful connection, not mindful perfection. Progress, not perfection. And I say it constantly because people — especially perfectionists (including me) — need to hear it constantly. Because the inner critic is loud, and the grace-filled alternative feels unfamiliar at first.

But here’s a big take away I want you to understand: choosing progress over perfection is not giving up. It is not settling. It is not a spiritual or personal cop-out. It is the only framework in which real, lasting change actually happens. Because change requires trying, and trying requires the willingness to be imperfect in the process.

There is only one perfect person. His name is Jesus. And He didn’t come to give us a higher standard to fail at; He came to set us free. That freedom includes freedom from the tyranny of the should. Freedom from the perfectionism and anxiety cycle that keeps so many of us exhausted and stuck. Freedom to show up, imperfectly and fully, and to grow.

You are not a project to be managed. You are a person to be loved.

I invite you to stop shoulding on yourself. It isn’t working anyway. This week I invite you to take one of the more gracious positions I outlined in this blog and try it out for yourself. Notice whether it’s easier or harder depending on the topic or situation. Notice what you feel in your body as you get curious. And if you need a little support with it, reach out to us for a free, 15-minute consultation. One of our fantastic therapist or coaches would be happy to help you build these skills and those new neural pathways that go with them!

Ready to break the perfectionism and anxiety cycle and find a more grace-filled way forward? Visit tabithawestbrook.com/online-courses to learn more about the Taking Every Thought Captive course series. Use code RESET24 for 80% off.

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When I was a kid I had opinions. I know this is utterly shocking for those who actually know. Shocking. And I remember saying to another kid who wanted me to do something I did not want to do on the playground, “You’re not the boss of me!”

Our thoughts can for sure try to be the boss of us. And then… they try to hijack an entire day.

Ugh.

You wake up feeling okay-ish. And then a thought arrives before your feet even hit the floor. It might be about something you said yesterday, something you’re afraid of tomorrow, something that hasn’t happened yet and may never happen at all (see our last blog on that one). And before you’ve finished your first cup of coffee, you’re deep in a spiral. You’re anxious and discouraged. You’re convinced things are true knowing that, if someone said them out loud to you, you’d push back on immediately.

The problem isn’t that you have negative thoughts. Every person alive has negative thoughts. The problem really is what happens next — whether those thoughts get to drive, or whether you do. Interrupting negative thoughts and negative thought cycles is one of the most transformative skills I teach, and it is far more learnable than most people believe.

Your Mind on Autopilot

You might remember, as we talked about in a previous blog, research tells us that we are only truly present and aware about 5% of the time. The other 95%? We are living on autopilot. When we’re on autopilot, our thoughts run completely unchecked, like a conveyer belt just trucking along wreaking havoc in the background.

Here’s what that looks like in practice: a thought appears, and without any pause or examination, it triggers an emotion (or the emotion triggers the thought as we try to make meaning of it). That emotion triggers another thought. That thought triggers another emotion. And the spiral accelerates until you’re emotionally exhausted by something that began as a single, passing thought.

Living on autopilot means you never get the chance to ask the most important question: Is this thought actually true?

Darn it.

Here’s the thing, and I say this gently but directly to my clients all the time: your thoughts are not always facts. They feel like facts. They can feel overwhelmingly, undeniably true. But a thought is an experience, not a verdict. Interrupting negative thoughts starts with understanding that distinction.

What “Taking Every Thought Captive” Actually Means

The phrase from 2 Corinthians 10:5 — “taking every thought captive” — is one of the most practically powerful instructions in all of Scripture. But I think we often misunderstand what it’s actually asking us to do. I know I’ve sat in more than a few sermons and been like, “But how do I do it??? I need more than a concept!”

It is not a call to suppress your thoughts or pretend they aren’t there. It’s for sure not about spiritual white-knuckling or forcing yourself to “think positive.” It is an invitation to notice your thoughts, examine them, and choose what to do with them rather than being dragged along by them.

The original Greek word used for “set your mind” in Scripture describes an intentional, active process. Interrupting negative thoughts is not passive. It is a chosen, practiced skill. And the good news is that with regular practice, it becomes more natural.

Romans 12:2 pairs beautifully with this. The renewing of your mind is described as a transformation. Not a one-time event, but an ongoing process of change. That is exactly what we’re talking about here.

The 0-to-60 Problem

One of the things I describe often in my work is the “0 to 60” experience. This is the way our minds can go from a calm, neutral state to full emotional overwhelm in what feels like a nanosecond. One thought, and suddenly you’re flooded. It’s like a Porsche, except way less fun.

This happens most easily when we’re not practicing the skill of interrupting negative thoughts. And for many of us, especially those who have dealt with anxiety, depression, or trauma, the path of least resistance runs directly downhill into the spiral.

As I’ve heard my friend Matt Wenger, Clinical Executive Director of Begin Again Institute, say, “Water will run where the ditch is dug.”

The more we travel a path, the more worn it becomes – that’s how we dig the ditch. Neuroscience calls this the strengthening of neural pathways; the routes our brains most frequently travel become the routes they default to. If your brain has been spiraling for years, it has become very good at spiraling.

All that said, those pathways can be changed. We can dig a new ditch and the water will, in fact, move. And the tool for building them is exactly what we’re talking about here, the intentional, repeated practice of noticing thoughts and choosing how to respond to them, rather than reacting automatically. And then, once we notice, we can make a different choice.

How Interrupting Negative Thoughts Actually Works

So what does interrupting negative thoughts look like in practice? It begins with one deceptively simple skill: noticing. I know, you’re getting sick of hearing the noticing. But we really do have to start there and then really practice it.

We aren’t analyzing or fixing. – yet. And we also don’t judge ourselves for having the thought in the first place. We observe the thought as if we are watching it pass by on a conveyor belt — Oh, there’s that thought again. Or: I’m noticing a worried thought right now. That small act of observation creates a gap between the thought and your reaction. And in that gap is where your power lives.

Now, what do we do with said thought? Glad you asked. From that place of noticing, you can begin to ask: Is this thought accurate? Is it based on facts, or is it based on fear? Is it helping me move toward my goals, or is it pulling me away from them? You don’t have to fight the thought or argue with it. You just don’t have to automatically believe it either.

Imagine if we all walked around with a PowerPoint presentation above our heads showing every thought we had. Nobody would leave the house. We all have all kinds of thoughts — strange ones, dark ones, anxious ones, silly ones. Having a thought doesn’t make it true.

The Role of the Present Moment

Most negative thought spirals have one thing in common: they are almost never about right now. They are about the past — what went wrong, what was said, what you should have done differently. Or they are about the future — what might happen, what could go wrong, what you’re afraid of.

The present moment is almost always safer than either of those places and it’s also the only place you have power. The past is complete and the future has not yet come, so right now is where you have agency. Right now, in this moment, you are okay. You are breathing. You are here. Interrupting negative thoughts often means gently redirecting your mind back to what is actually true right now, rather than what your brain is projecting onto the past or the future.

This is a Skill. You Can Learn It.

Many folks believe that interrupting negative thoughts is not something they are capable of.

That’s not true. The brain is remarkably changeable — woot for neuroplasticity! As we’ve mentioned, research shows that practicing mindful awareness for as little as 10 minutes a day over 8 weeks literally changes the structure of the brain. Noticing is part of mindfulness. Practicing it increases your capacity to notice, pause, and choose.

So, let’s be practical here. You notice your thoughts. You fact check them. Cool. And then you get to decide whether it’s going to be the boss of you. I’ve literally said out loud to my thoughts, “This isn’t factual and you are not the boss of me.” Yes, sometimes you have to do this over and over and over as you’re learning the process. Remember, we have to tread a lot of ground to wear that new ditch. And if you’re struggling with whether or not a thought is true, this is a space to have a great therapist or coach help out. You also can ask yourself something like this, “Can I allow 1% of me to consider this might not be accurate?” Or you can try, “What would I do if I didn’t believe this?” Both of those help create interruption in that negative spiral.

Over time and with practice, you build that new, neural pathway. You dig a new ditch and the water can flow in a new direction more easily.

Your mind is not the boss of you.

If you’re reading and thinking, “I really need some help with this,” We’ve got your back. Connect with one of our amazing therapists or coaches and start building your new ditch and watch that water flow in new places! Reach out today for your free, 15-minute consultation call.

Ready to start interrupting negative thoughts and take back control of your mind? Click below to learn more about the Taking Every Thought Captive course series. Use code RESET24 for 80% off.

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I said this to a client once and it stopped them mid-sentence. We’d been talking about all the ways they were bracing for pain that hadn’t arrived yet — rehearsing it, pre-grieving it, building elaborate mental scenarios for how bad it might get.

They went quiet. And then she said, “Well crap. That’s exactly what I’ve been doing.”

Most of us have two default responses when it comes to suffering and pain. We either spend enormous energy dreading it before it arrives. We do things like catastrophizing, over-preparing, and white-knuckling the future. Or when it does arrive, we shut down and refuse to process it at all. We push it down, power through, and tell ourselves we’re fine. Also, sometimes it never arrives and we bought a ticket to nowhere.

Neither of those approaches works. And there is a better way to deal with suffering and pain, one that is both practical and rooted in faith.

Suffering Is Guaranteed. We Live on Actual Earth.

Let’s start with something the Church sometimes dances around: suffering is not a sign that something has gone wrong with your life or your faith. It is a guaranteed part of being human. Like, that is part of living here is that stuff gets real hard sometimes.

In John 16:33, Jesus said plainly: “In this world you will have trouble.” Not might. Not could. Will. He didn’t promise a pain-free life to those who follow Him. What He promised was this: “But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

Paul writes in Philippians 3:10 about knowing Christ and “the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings.” I used to really wonder what this meant, then the world became a giant dumpster fire and it’s now real obvious. So many folks have endured and are enduring deep suffering. Because Jesus suffered, we know He gets it. There is a companionship in suffering — both with Christ and with one another. And holding hope together helps us endure.

Knowing that suffering will come doesn’t have to be a dark or frightening thought. It can actually be freeing. When we stop being surprised by pain and start being equipped for it, everything changes in how we deal with suffering and pain when it shows up at our door. Please note, this does not make it easy. The concept may be simple, but suffering sucks. There is no way to sugarcoat that.

The Train Metaphor — Why Advanced Purchase is Unhelpful

When that train of suffering does arrive, God provides what we need to board it. He doesn’t empower us beforehand. He meets us in the moment, when we need it and how we need it.

This is what Lamentations 3:22-23 is pointing to: His mercies are new every morning. The grace for tomorrow’s pain is not available today, because you don’t need it today. You need today’s grace for today’s reality. And, quite honestly, we often are the worst prophets. We predict wrong and a whole other train shows up. And we need God’s provision for something else entirely.

When I was learning I was in a coercively controlling marriage, God led me to Hosea 6:1-3. Those verses basically say God is going to tear stuff down and rebuild it. I remember sitting on my bed as I read it. I can still see the deep plum wall of that room and the purple comforter on my bed. My Bible was in my lap as tears dripped onto the page. I was not a fan. In fact, my words to God were like, “Who reads Hosea anyway?!” (Look, I know plenty of people do, but in that moment I was not amused.) But there was a sweetness of God rebuilding in those verses. I could not have predicted what was coming. It was harrowing. I thought I was going to lose my life a couple times. There is no amount of worry or prognostication that could have made that season easier. But what I for sure had each step of the way was Jesus holding on to me. I obviously made it through, and it’s a rock of remembrance for me now.

This is one of the most practically helpful truths I know when it comes to dealing with anxiety about future suffering. You aren’t meant to carry what hasn’t been given to you yet. And you’re probably preparing for the wrong thing anyway. So spending your present-moment energy bracing for a train that isn’t at the station yet doesn’t protect you from the pain when it comes, it just steals your peace in the meantime.

The Other Extreme: Refusing to Process Pain That’s Already Here

The opposite problem is just as common, and just as costly. When suffering arrives many of us shut the door on it. We function. We cope. We keep moving. We exist. We do this because sitting with pain feels unbearable, or weak, or like we’re not trusting God enough.

But unprocessed pain doesn’t disappear. It relocates. It shows up as chronic anxiety, as numbness, as short fuses and sleepless nights and a low-grade sadness that never quite lifts. It shows up in our bodies (yes, we’d love it if the body stopped keeping the score, but here we are). It shows up in our closest relationships. The pain we refuse to feel doesn’t go away, it just goes underground. It doesn’t have to be that way.

The Psalms tell us that “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” Notice it’s not the ones who have it together or the ones who powered through. It’s the brokenhearted. God never minimizes our pain.

Being Present is What Keeps Pain from Getting Worse

One of the most important things I’ve learned, both as a counselor and as someone who has walked through deep grief myself, is that being in the present moment is one of the most powerful tools we have when it comes to how to deal with suffering and pain. We often say “name it to tame it.” When we accurately name what is happening and are present with it, it loses some of its oomph. That doesn’t mean it’s not awful, it’s just not as awful.

When we are living on autopilot with our minds racing ahead to worst-case futures or stuck rehearsing the past we add to our suffering. We take pain that exists in the present and we layer it with fear about tomorrow and regret about yesterday. And the weight becomes almost unbearable. As mentioned in the last blog, we begin to spiral.

But when we’re able to be fully in the present moment — just this moment, just this breath, just what is actually happening right now — we deal with only what is actually in front of us. Not the imagined future pain. Not the replayed past. Just this moment. And this moment is the only where we happen to have real agency.

That is not denial. Nor is it a spiritual bypass. We aren’t pretending everything is fine. It is the radical, countercultural practice of refusing to make your suffering worse by adding to it what isn’t even here yet or flatly ignoring what’s actually happening.

Two weeks after my mother went home to be with Jesus, I went to a concert. A song came on that I had played on repeat during her illness because it reminded me of God’s faithfulness. I stood there — no phone out, no recording, no pretending okay-ness to make the people next to me feel comfortable. I just let myself be fully present with that song and with Jesus. Tears ran down my face. I didn’t care. In that moment, being present with my grief and with God was the most healing thing I could have done. I wasn’t ahead of the pain. I wasn’t behind it. I was in it, and He was there too. And side note, no one at the concert said anything to me.

Practical Skills for Walking Through Pain

Learning how to deal with suffering and pain well is not something most of us were ever taught. We were taught to be strong. To push through. To “give it to God” without really being shown what that looks like in practice. But there are concrete, learnable skills that can help you walk through suffering without being destroyed by it.

These skills include learning to observe and describe what you’re actually experiencing — naming your emotions without being overwhelmed by them. Learning to stay in the present moment rather than projecting into feared futures. Learning to let thoughts and feelings pass through without latching onto them and fueling the spiral. Learning to problem-solve when problem-solving is possible, and to grieve fully when it isn’t.

None of this eliminates pain. I will never promise you that. But it does keep pain from compounding. It keeps suffering from becoming a prison sentence. And it keeps you connected — to yourself, to the people you love, and to the God who promised to be near. And it really does let others come alongside you to bring comfort. We aren’t supposed to do this life alone.

You Were Not Meant to White-knuckle This Alone

One of the greatest lies that suffering tells us is that we have to manage it alone. That needing help is weakness. That if our faith were stronger, we’d be handling this better. Ick for the toxic individualism many of us were taught.

We were created for community. This means asking for help is not a failure of faith nor is being authentic when things, frankly, are awful.

Whether that help comes from a trusted friend, a counselor, a pastor, or a structured set of skills you practice on your own (or all of these), receiving support when you are in pain is not weakness. Or dumb. Or shameful. It’s being gentle to yourself and seeing yourself as God sees you.

The trains will occasionally come. You don’t need to buy the ticket before it arrives. But when it does you can walk through it. It won’t be because you’ve braced hard enough or worried enough or prepared enough. It’ll be because you’ve built the skills, built authentic community, cultivated presence, and anchored yourself to the One who has already overcome. Darkness never wins; Light is always overcomes.

Ready to build the skills to walk through pain without being undone by it? We have an online course just for you. Visit tabithawestbrook.com/online-courses to learn more about the Taking Every Thought Captive course series and start practicing today. Use code RESET24 for 80% off.

Need support from a therapist or coach to help build the skills into your life? Reach out for your free, 15-minute consultation call. We can walk with you to healing.

The post How to Deal with Suffering and Pain: Stop Making an Advanced Purchase appeared first on Tabitha Westbrook.

One of my supervisees said something to me once that I haven’t stopped repeating since: “nice girls end up in trunks.”

She wasn’t being dramatic. She was naming something super real; something a lot of us learned the hard way. We learned the habit of being endlessly accommodating, sweet, and easy. That habit is straight up exhausting and it can actually put you in danger.

Here’s what trauma therapy has taught me: chronic niceness can be a habituated fawn response that becomes a nervous system strategy. Until we name it for what it is, we can’t change it (which is true of literally everything).

When Niceness is the Fawn Response in Disguise

Most people have heard of fight, flight, and freeze. But there’s a fourth trauma response that doesn’t get as much airtime: the fawn response. Fawning is what happens when your nervous system learns that conflict brings danger, so you default to appeasing, accommodating, and making yourself easy to be around. Essentially you learn that if you’re confronted with a bear, you make it a steak to keep it from eating you.

The fawn response can look polite on the outside while you quietly abandon yourself on the inside. It shows up as saying yes when you mean no, over-explaining your needs (oh, the things trauma teaches us), tolerating disrespect in relationships, staying silent when you should speak up, and smiling through things that are actually not okay.

This pattern shows up everywhere — in marriages, workplaces, churches, and even medical appointments. And in communities that reward being sweet, quiet, and easy (especially Christian spaces where niceness gets equated with godliness) the fawn response can go completely undetected for decades.

The cost is real: resentment, anxiety, eroded self-trust, and boundaries so weak they leave you vulnerable to coercive control.

Niceness and Kindness Are Not the Same Thing

This is one of the most important distinctions I teach, and I really want you to hear it: niceness and kindness are not the same thing.

Niceness is other-regulated, driven by the need for approval, fear of consequences, or the desperate hope that if you just keep things pleasant, nothing bad will happen. Niceness stays quiet. Niceness goes along and it smiles sweet when it should speak.

Kindness is self-sourced. It comes out of genuine care, not fear. Here’s what makes it real different: kindness is willing to tell the truth. If I am being kind to you, I might say something hard, not because I don’t love you, but precisely because I do.

Think about Jesus in John 2, flipping tables in the temple (personal fave story). In that moment, He is as much kindness and love as He is justice. He’s giving people the opportunity to see something different. That was kind. What they were doing was not. And there are a myriad of other Bible stories that model kindness that way, minus the table flipping part.

In faith-centered spaces, love without truth becomes enabling. Truth without love becomes noise (and honestly can also become spiritually abusive). Mature, healthy relationships hold both — warmth and directness, care and clarity, grace and honesty. Hmmm, sounds like dialectics (two opposite things that can be synthesized). When we stop confusing niceness with kindness, we can finally become both warm and direct at the same time. We become boundaried.

What Healthy Boundaries Actually Are (and What They’re Not)

Let’s talk about boundaries for a second, because most of us were taught them wrong.

A boundary is not an ultimatum. It is not a punishment. It is not a tool to control another person’s behavior. A boundary is simply information about what you will allow and not allow, and what you will do if a line is crossed.

Here’s the difference: “You can’t talk to me that way” is not a boundary — that’s trying to control what someone else does. “If you keep talking to me that way, I’m going to leave the room” is a boundary. You’re managing your own behavior, not theirs. That person can still talk to you however they want, you’re just not going to stick around for it.

I love to think about boundaries as fences versus walls. Sometimes you need a solid wall — a firm, non-negotiable limit with someone who has proven themselves unsafe. Oftentimes you need a fence with a gate you can open and close, depending on what’s needed in the moment. Neither is wrong, it just really depends on what’s appropriate for that relationship. Both can be wise, and sometimes in different seasons.

For survivors of domestic abuse, spiritual abuse, and coercive control, guilt around boundaries can feel overwhelming. You were trained to prioritize everyone else’s feelings above your own. But guilt is not a reliable moral compass (also, sometimes it’s false guilt, but that’s another blog). Safety matters. With safe people, healthy boundaries don’t damage relationship, they deepen it, because you are showing up more authentically.

A Practical Tool: DEAR MAN for Assertiveness

If you’re trying to find your voice and don’t know where to start, my favorite DBT interpersonal effectiveness skill, called DEAR MAN, is worth learning. It gives you a clean structure for hard conversations without overexplaining, over-apologizing, or shutting down.

Here’s how it works:

Describe the facts of the situation briefly and without judgment.

Express your emotion in a few clear words.

Assert a clear, specific ask.

Find the reward, the win-win, and explain what’s in it for both of you.

The MAN part is staying Mindful, appear Assertive, and be willing to Negotiate when that’s appropriate. And sometimes negotiation is not appropriate. We do not negotiate with terrorists (and coercive controllers or abusers are terrorists in this example).

This approach helps you regulate before you speak, keeps your ask clear and understandable (because people are not mind readers), and reduces the spiral of overexplaining that so many of us with the fawn response know all too well.

You Don’t Have to Keep Performing

Healing from the fawn response is a process, and it’s okay to need practice (as I say, “practice makes proficient”). Be kind to yourself as you learn (go back and brush up on self-compassion, if needed). The goal isn’t to become harsh or hard; it’s to trade performative niceness for honest, grounded, safe connection.

You are allowed to be both warm and direct. You are allowed to say no and still be a good person. You are allowed to set a boundary and still love someone deeply.

The trunk is not your destiny.

Ready to Go Deeper?

If this resonated with you and you recognized yourself in the fawn response and you’ve spent years being nice at the expense of being safe, you don’t have to keep figuring it out alone.

Working with a trauma-informed therapist or coach can help you identify your patterns, find your voice, and build the kind of boundaries that actually protect you, without making you someone you’re not.

If you’re ready to work with one our amazing trauma-specialized professionals and explore therapy or coaching options, reach out to us today. We’re happy to help you build skills and live a healthy, boundaried life.

The post The Fawn Response and the Difference Between Niceness and Kindness appeared first on Tabitha Westbrook.

If you’ve ever been told to “just stop worrying” or to “choose joy,” you already know how unhelpful that advice is. Anxiety and depression are not character flaws. Nor are they signs that your faith is weak. They are not things you can simply decide your way out of – if that were the case millions of people would do exactly that! And if you’ve been carrying either — or both — I want to start by saying this: I see how exhausting that is. You are not alone.

I also want to share something that I have seen help create some shift in my years of working as a licensed counselor — something that doesn’t require you to pretend everything is fine, doesn’t ask you to suppress what you’re feeling, and isn’t about masking your symptoms with a smile and a scripture verse. If you’ve been around at all, you know we aren’t “take two verses and call us in the morning.”

There is a cycle happening in your mind that may be quietly making your anxiety and depression worse. And once you understand it, you can begin to interrupt it.

First, Let’s Talk About What You’re Actually Carrying

Anxiety and depression are exhausting in a way that is genuinely hard to describe to someone who hasn’t experienced them. It’s not just feeling sad or feeling worried. It’s the weight of it. The relentlessness. The way it colors everything — your mornings, your relationships, your ability to enjoy things that used to bring you life.

Anxiety can feel like your brain is running a threat-detection program on a continuous loop, even when there’s no actual threat in front of you. Depression can feel like being trapped behind glass or under water — you can see your life happening, but you can’t quite reach it or feel it the way you used to. You feel like you’re drowning.

And for many Christians, there’s an added layer of confusion or shame: Shouldn’t my faith be enough? If I really trusted God, would I still feel this way? That shame spiral can make everything harder. I want to be so clear: anxiety and depression are not a faith problem. They are a whole-person experience — mind, body, and spirit — and they deserve to be addressed as such.

The Thought-Emotion Cycle (And Why It Matters)

Here’s something that most people don’t realize: your thoughts and your emotions are in a constant conversation with each other. And that conversation can either calm the storm — or feed it.

It works like this: a thought appears. Maybe it’s “Something is wrong with me,” or “This is never going to get better,” or even something as simple as noticing that a friend didn’t text back and thinking “They must be upset with me.” (As an aside, so many people assume the worst when someone reacts or doesn’t react in a way we expect, but that deserves its own blog.) That thought and the meaning we give it triggers an emotion (or a whole bunch of emotions) like fear, sadness, or shame. And those emotions? They trigger more thoughts. Which trigger more emotions. Which trigger more thoughts.

Before you know it, you’ve gone from a single unanswered text to a full spiral about your worth, your relationships, and your future — in under two minutes. Sound familiar? I know it does to me. I once sent my own therapist a meme that said, “I’m not spiraling, I’m just following a suspiciously curved path.”

This is the thought-emotion cycle. And when anxiety and depression are already present, this cycle can spin faster and go deeper than it does for someone who isn’t struggling. The thoughts feel more true. The emotions feel more permanent. And the cycle becomes harder to interrupt.

Here’s the important part: your thoughts and feelings are not always facts. I know that might be hard to hear when a thought feels absolutely, undeniably true. Additionally, feelings are not facts. They are experiences — real, valid, worth paying attention to — but they are not always an accurate picture of reality. I refer to them as data and we can be curious about it.

What Happens When We’re on Autopilot

Most of us are running this thought-emotion cycle almost entirely on autopilot, like we talked about in our last blog. We’re not choosing our thoughts deliberately. We’re not pausing to ask whether they’re accurate. We’re just reacting — thought to emotion to thought to emotion — and the anxiety and depression get to keep driving.

Research has actually shown that this kind of automatic, unexamined thinking — what we call living on autopilot — is one of the factors that allows anxiety and depression to deepen and intensify over time. When we don’t notice our thoughts, we can’t question them. When we can’t question them, we believe everything they tell us. And anxiety and depression tell us some very convincing, very unkind things.

The good news is that noticing — simply becoming aware of the cycle — is already the beginning of interrupting it.

What the Bible Has to Say About This

The instruction to “take every thought captive” from 2 Corinthians is not a command to suppress your thoughts or pretend they aren’t there. It’s an invitation to notice them — to become aware of what’s happening in your mind — and to bring those thoughts into alignment with truth.

Philippians 4:8 tells us to think about what is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, and commendable. That’s not a call to toxic positivity. It’s a call to intentional attention — to practice directing our minds rather than letting our minds direct us. There are studies that show that what we focus on profoundly impacts our mood.

And Philippians 4:6-7 — the “do not be anxious” passage — is paired with a promise: that when we bring our concerns to God, the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds. Guard your minds. That language is active. It implies that our minds need guarding — and that God partners with us in that work. In a world where the news is literally a dumpster fire all the time, it can be so easy to have our thoughts and emotions focused on darkness. We have to be intentional about turning our faces away from that.

Skills That Actually Help (Not Just Cope)

Here’s what I want you to hear most: there are practical, learnable skills that can genuinely reduce anxiety and depression — not just help you white-knuckle through them.

I’ve sat with clients who came in convinced that they would always feel the way they felt. That this was just who they were. That the best they could hope for was managing symptoms. And I have watched those same people — through consistent practice of specific, evidence-based skills — experience real, lasting change. Not perfection. Not the absence of hard days. But genuine freedom that they didn’t think was possible. And yes, we also had to process traumatic experiences, but between sessions using good skills promotes healing.

One of my clients told me that practicing these skills changed everything for her. Another came in stunned to report that her blood pressure had improved — her doctor was amazed. The mind and body are deeply connected, and when we learn to work with our thoughts rather than being dragged around by them, the effects ripple out into every area of life.

Research backs this up. Practicing mindful awareness — learning to notice your thoughts and emotions without being controlled by them — for as little as 10 minutes a day over 8 weeks has been shown to literally change the structure of the brain and reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression. This isn’t a trendy wellness hack. It’s neuroscience. And it’s grace.

Where Do You Start?

The first skill — the one that everything else is built on — is simply learning to notice. Not to fix, not to analyze, not to judge. Just to observe what’s happening in your mind and body in the present moment.

When a thought arises, instead of immediately believing it or reacting to it (or judging it), you can learn to pause and simply notice: There’s that thought again. Or: I’m noticing that I feel anxious right now. That small act of observation creates just enough space between the thought and your reaction that the cycle begins to lose some of its power.

It sounds almost too simple. I understand that. But I have seen it work — in my practice, in my own life, and in the lives of people who were convinced nothing would help. The skill is simple. That doesn’t mean it’s easy. But it is learnable, and that matters. Here’s a pro tip – practice noticing your thoughts and emotions when you aren’t in a spiral. That will give you really good practice and build that muscle.

You Don’t Have to Stay Stuck

If anxiety and depression have been a long-term part of your story, I want to be honest with you: this work takes time and practice. These skills are not a quick fix, and I’m not going to promise you otherwise. But they are real. They work. And you deserve to have access to them.

The abundant life that Jesus talks about — life to the full — is not a life free of struggle. But it is a life where you are not a slave to your thoughts and emotions. It’s a life where the anxiety and depression don’t get to make all the decisions. Where depression and anxiety don’t get the final word on who you are and what’s possible for you.

That kind of freedom is available to you. Not because you’ll ever be perfect at this — none of us are — but because these are skills that grow with practice. And every single time you notice a thought, pause, and choose not to let it drive the spiral, you are doing something powerful.

You are taking your thoughts captive. And that is exactly where change begins.

Ready to learn the skills in more detail? Click the link below to learn more about the Taking Every Thought Captive course series and start building skills that create real, lasting change. Use the code RESET24 to get a big discount!

And if you need some one-on-one counseling support, reach out to our expert team at The Journey and The Process. It’s okay not to be okay, and you don’t have to stay there.

The post What if the Way You’re Thinking is Making Your Anxiety and Depression Worse? appeared first on Tabitha Westbrook.