Who I am is not the negatives of my life… It is the growth in my life from those negatives… So this series of posts started as “Who Am I? …”, but will now continue as “Who Was I?…” as I am learning how to grow from the pain of my past, and learning how to live a fuller life…
I am going to be looking into some more of who I am, being real about what I am going through, as I need to get it out, and also I want people to know that it happens to the best of us…
So let us jump into it…
In the last couple weeks some stuff has happened, which also had some consequences to my life, I did not expect…
What is anxiety?
But before I continue, I need to look at what anxiety really is…
When I googled it, this was what Gemini said at the top of the google results…
Anxiety is a normal human emotion characterized by feelings of worry, nervousness, or apprehension about future events or potential threats. While mild anxiety can be a motivator, excessive or persistent anxiety can be indicative of an anxiety disorder, a mental health condition that significantly impacts daily life. Anxiety disorders are treatable, and various therapies and medications can help individuals manage their symptoms and lead fulfilling lives.
Difference between FEAR and ANXIETY:
Fear is a response to an immediate threat, while anxiety is anticipation of a future threat, according to the American Psychiatric Association.
I almost died… Where my story begins (Or did it?)…
I almost died…
So let me start when things got out of hand… It was about a week ago (think it was the 26th of April 2025)… We had a Geek Festival in Glentana and a friend of mine was driving with me from Wilderness… That night I was driving back from the festival, dropped my friend at home and then went back home…
On the way back there was a turn I misjudged, and noticing just in a nick of time, and being able to brake the vehicle with less than a ruler (30 cm) to spare from a possible death… there was a mountain in from of me, which would have been a fatal hit… But I survived… I did not know the extent of the struggle that would be coming at that point…
From there, as I drove back home, I realized that shock is creeping into my whole body… I was on my way to watch a series with some friends of mine… So I was even more in shock by the time I got there… When I reached the friend’s place, I first wanted to go for a walk… They decided to join me at that moment… Me walking a little behind them, as I needed to figure out how to get the shock out of my system as well… I would his wall and stuff on the way to try and get this feeling out of my bones…
The next day, I picked up 3 friends, and we were off to the Geek festival… I noticed that my emotional state was weird… I was wanting to burst out in tears the whole time… But held back, as I did not have a safe space for it… I was withdrawn that day, but one event did help me somewhat that day… (a card game that kept me distracted for a while…)
On Monday, again I went to the festival… This time my friend from Wilderness was going as well… I passed the place I would have died just two days prior, where I knew I braked and there should have had skid marks of about 50 meters (by random guess), there was none… So I have no idea how my vehicle stopped… I fetched him and drove back… The severity of what happened started sinking in… I lived for another day, but I had no idea if my brakes actually worked or anything… Picked up some other friends again, and went through to the festival…
When I went back that afternoon, I just wanted to cry, but kept it in… Everyone decided to go with to drop off the friend in Wilderness first… So I did not have to pass the area on my own at least… But I still needed to get everything out of my system…
But this was only the start… This opened up underlying anxieties I had either suppressed, or just never noticed… Both are possible, as I was struggling with my emotions and any sort of feeling for years… (In short, I do not even feel the cold most days… I can fake a smile, but there is nothing real about it… And I rarely show anything other than a straight face)
This is where the anxieties came out to play… It got to me to such an extent that I was struggling to get anything done… Getting out of my own way was easy, when I needed to help others, but this… This required me to do something for myself, and to believe that it is not for a selfish reason that I am doing this… Well, rather let me say… This requires that I do something for myself, in the present tense… As it is ongoing…
I talked to the friend here, whom I went to for the series we were watching, and she mentioned I needed to talk to someone… So I contacted someone I trusted in Switzerland… We had a talk, and he prayed for me as well… It did wonders… However, more things were coming up… And as I am here today… I am a bit sad as well, as I now realize there are some anxieties I need to deal with…
Some anxieties I am struggling with…
So what are the things I was realizing that I am anxious about?
1. Biggest of all, Not following Christ…
The second I realized I was busy moving away from God, I needed to correct myself… Anxiety has put me in auto-pilot, and a search for answers… But I forgot what God has done for me over the years… And what God has done through me even to this day…
Anxiety has made it that I believed that the things I prayed for, for other people, did not apply to me… I never prayed the same way for myself as I would pray for others…
I have seen numerous insane things in my life… But I never felt like it was for me…
2. Being rejected by people I really care about…
I am walking in a constant state of anxiety, worried that I would do or say something that will push away the few people I have close to me…
These are people I care about deeply, and adore… People who have become like a family I never had… But my past was grim, and I thought they would reject me for it…
Just read most of my “Who Am I?…” posts and you may see a person who needed to build and fight for his life… And yes, I was scared to face most of that…
3. Not being good enough/Not being seen…
I am the person who loves deeply, because I have deep hurt that I never dealt with.. I do not like it when people are struggling, and I try to help them…
But I have always been afraid that I would not be good enough… I put in heavy hours at work, to the point of exhaustion a few years ago…
When I was a kid (I am talking age 12-13), I went to school… After school, I would walk into an office and work OR train employees… Go home at 5pm, have supper… After that only I would go do homework… And finally, go to sleep between 10pm and midnight… After a whole year of this… The office closed for the December holiday, and I slept for almost two whole days…
All of these things we do are because we do not want to go without recognition… And it does that in the moment, but we learn to perform to get recognized…
4. My safety, me feeling safe…
I have for very long in my life never felt safe… I only recently found a safe place… A person where I felt I could be myself at…
Because of a life of not having emotions this was extremely hard for me… Even after nearly dying, I have not yet cried, I wanted to… But I did not…
This is because safety is something I needed… A battle I have been fighting for years…
When did the story really begin?
But was nearly dying really the start of all my problems? No….
As I have been journeying with this the last few days, God has started pointing me to the areas I needed to start working at…
Rejection in primary school… A decision that I would never date, because of it… Learning about being single, and deciding I want to only date and marry my wife one day… Being rejected by someone whom rejected me for both male and female… All of this had a small part of one hurt in rejection…
Many of the current trauma I am dealing with, I got back when I was 4-8 years old, when I did not know of better, I did not know how to deal… And I did not understand everything I understand now…
This story begins not 2 weeks ago… Not 2 months ago… But back when I was a kid… And every kid is going through it… But we need to fight the battles, so we can see them recover, or even avoid them having that fight to begin with…
This is why anxiety is so prominent… It is fears of a future, we do not know… A response on something that may never happen, but we protect ourselves as if it will…
This is our battle when we deal with trauma, and this is how we overcome anxiety… Identify the emotion that bothers, search back into your past for the memories where it happened… Start finding the answers by journalling, and speaking to God… Work through the memories, by asking God where He was in them… Let God restore your identity… Back to the way He created you…
Just on an end note, the almost dying did not trigger the anxiety at all, it was a catalyst in which it got sped up so I must deal with it… The actual trigger was me asking God to help me stop biting my nails just about two to three weeks prior to this incident… And then the ball started rolling, to the point where I knew I had to deal with it… If I did not almost die, the anxiety would have slowly creeped up, and I would likely have missed it, as I would not have felt different or weird, almost like getting boiled alive… You would not just into boiling water, as it will scorch your skin, but heating it up gradually, you will not really notice, until it is too late…
The hard truth I needed to face…
I used to believe that I can fight everything on my own… I got there because of the rejection I mentioned above, but also because the times I did reach out, many people have just not valued the actual time set apart… This had the effect that, in the end, I decided to not get help again… I have met many groups and people that walk with through the hell I have gone through, but I always made sure, my issues are discussed minimally…
I was always there for others… Always willing to help others… But I never once thought it counted for me…
After almost dying, I needed to contact someone to chat to and get prayer… I realized that I need people in my life now, more than ever…
I realized that I want people in my life… And now I need to change how I do life…
John 13:34 – A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.
When did it all go wrong, globally?
This section is not just about in my life, but overall…
There was a time, back before 2020, when people actually spent more time with others… The issue is that a global epidemic happened, Covid… This led to countries all around the world forcing people into isolation…
What was the problem I saw in this time? People who were left alone in their own homes for months, without any human interaction, ended up having mental breakdowns… People were struggling to do life alone… Everyone ended up struggling a lot more…
And the after effect of this is now a world that is scared of human interaction… More afraid of getting touched by someone, of even visiting someone… Everything went online, so relationship has become either online, or nowadays AI (artificial intelligence) – which is an even bigger abomination…
Loving people needs to happen in public, without fear… It is something that needs to be restored, and that is a big challenge… How to break this is more a matter of spending time with God, than it is spending time with self…
I, myself, have been struggling to hangout with some people… It was only recently that I hung out with people again… Playing games, watching a series we had in common, and just having fun… It is new to me and even scary in some degree… But it is definitely worth it….
Love… The journey of my life…
What does love have to do with this? Well, interestingly, a lot, and I do mean, A LOT…
But let me look at the difference I noticed between fear, depression and anxiety…
Fear is the current state of things… Depression is about the past (I know that there are medical depression as well, I have personally dealt with more a spiritual depression)… And Anxiety seems to be about future concerns, that may never even happen…
All three of these are rooted in fear… and the Bible speaks a lot about this concept of love vs fear…
1 John 4:18 – There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.
So fear is based on a mindset of being punished in the end of the day… But God is a God of love, and those who love Him, He will correct… This is not punishment, but loving correction, to guide our lives…
1 Peter 5:6-11 – Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. To him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen.
A few things in this one:
casting all your anxieties on Him – This is specifically anxieties, making it all possible future issues we are fearing…
Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. – This is something I now understand even more, when we are focussed on our fears, we are not focussed on our surroundings making it easier to become pray to an attacker… If I would be in the wild, and I was focussed on my fear the whole time, I would never be able to actually protect myself from the wild animals like lions etc…
And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace – There will be suffering… But after that God Himself will restore and strengthen us…
So why is it the journey of my life is possibly the next question?
Well, for those who have known about this blog from it’s conception, would know that it all started on a journey of finding out what authentic love was… But for me personally, it started well back in 2008… When one of my mentors asked me to do research on “Love” using only the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John… This was eye opening, as you would look at only the life of Jesus and in the end learn from Love Himself… For God is Love…
But this journey was never easy for me… There was “The Love Dare” – a way of learning to love myself… Something more difficult than I ever thought it would be… As I did not even believe that I am lovable…
Learning to love well is a journey we all need to take, but it is impossible if God is not with us on this journey…
My plan of Action…
As it stand at this point, I am not 100% about the future and the solution… This is my current journey… I am working on it as I go, since this happened in the last 2 weeks… And it became very apparent that it is something I need to deal with…
Focus on God…
I have realized that one of my biggest issues was that I started messing up my focus with God… This is being changed as we are speaking… As this is a fundamental part of my life, and of recovering to my normal…
I cannot cast my anxiety on God, if I do not have God in my life…
So I will start back up with spending time with God, in prayer, and in studying the scriptures…
Focus on self…
Focussing on self is also a important thing…
How do we talk about ourselves? How do we pray for ourselves? And how do we love ourselves?
Mark 12:30-31 –And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”
The important section here is: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ – We need to know who to love ourselves well, for us to love others well…
I myself is guilty of this… I would pray that God does something for others, but would never pray it for myself… As it felt selfish to do it… But it should be natural to pray for ourselves… To love ourselves, and to talk well about ourselves…
Focus on people…
When we know how to love ourselves well, we will be able to love people well…
Loving people well, is not speaking of dating, it speaks of a care for people where you do not expect anything in return…
I once hear LOVE is spelt G-I-V-E… Jesus demonstrated this, by GIVING His own life for everyone that He LOVED…
Focussing on people means we get to the point where we reach out to people and spend time with them, not to try and fix them, but to be what Jesus was to those he reached… Having dinner with the least expected people… Showing people a care that they have not expected in their life, with absolutely no strings attached… When we do something, because we want something in return, it is no longer a form of love…
Love well…
Learning to love well, is a skill we need to hone… Firstly on ourselves, and then towards others…
The way we pray… Time spent with ourselves, our family and our loved ones shows if we learnt how to love well… Not every person that is in our lives, will remain… But some people will be prime in making us better…
I have met a person like this, and my life has become better and better… Certain struggles have faded away… And a deeper love for people have been unlocked… But also a hunger to grow in Christ, and a knowing that I need to reach people more and more…
Be the best you can be…
So how do we become the best we can be? This is a very important question…
I had to talk to some people since all this have come up…
I talked to a lady (a life couch in our wellness network) a couple days ago, which helped me and guided me on how to find the roots of anxiety…
Some of my deepest anxieties were based on rejections I had when I was just 12-13 years old… A hurt I did not know was a root cause…
I was on Ritalin when I was in primary school for a while… This was a time period in which I felt most hurt and unloved, not because I was, but more that the Ritalin had a warping effect on my life… Making it that I did not realize that I was receiving love…
Then on Saturday, I had a SOZO session with someone I who is a part of my global community. This also dug into my past, going to the root of one of my earliest memories… A memory which I remember every single detail about… As the devil was in my house for 3 weeks… And I had to work through that… And the words that resonated deeply from that time was “I have you all” which was not even know to me to have deep an effect…
In the session God told me stuff that had me in tears… Things I did not believe before that… “I am lovable” was the first one I heard that just broke me down… As I have never experienced that in my life…
At the end of the SOZO session we went to the accident, and we asked Jesus where he was while that was happening… And I saw Him pushing my car back in the help of stopping it…
If you are not sure SOZO is, here is a link to Bethel SOZO for it: https://bethelsozo.ch/what-is-sozo/
Finding my safe space…
My safe space… What does this entail… Firstly, this is God… He also told me that in the SOZO session…
Other than that, a safe space for me is a place where people is I know I can trust, and where I have experienced love…
This has drastically grown in the last couple of weeks, something I did not expect… As I opened up to a few of the groups I am a part of and each group has lovingly showed love and compassion, which I have not experienced in a very long time…
A safe space is important for us to be able to be ourselves, where we are able to break and know there is no judgement… For married couples that safe space could be the life partner…
How would I help others like me…
Now I have gone through this for a few weeks now… And I can honestly say… Just listening and praying for them is something I know I can do…
But seeing where God is in the anxiety is an important step to take…
Would I suggest medicine? Not as a remedy… But as a help to deal with the anxiety while actively searching time with God, that I may suggest… Medicine should never replace finding the real answers to why you feel the way you feel… The root cause of the anxiety is important to find…
So I would be there… Listen… Show compassion… Trust God… Show people that God still loves…
Our anxiety is about future event, that may or may not happen, so it may be a normal part of many people’s lives, but it should not run our lives…
Other than this, I would suggest talking to a therapist/life couch – someone who has the knowledge to help in the process of finding answers… And if you are a follower or Christ, then maybe looking into SOZO may also be a good idea… As you find where God was… And what His heart is in your situations…
I need prayer… Do you need to reach out…
So yeah… I still need prayer… This was just the start of my journey… But anxiety is WHO I WAS, not who I am…
This may be a life long journey, but I know that anxiety has no right to paralyze me anymore…
Do you have a struggle with fear, depression and anxiety?
Well you are welcome to send me an email at: prayer@byburnie.co.za… We can reach out and see how we can pray for you…
Know that this struggle gets to the toughest people… Because those tough fighters, do not always have people around them to cover them in this battle…
Find someone to talk to, reach out… There are people who really do care about you… People who really deeply love you…
Know there is a God that believe you are to die for…
Final thoughts..
So my challenge as I am ending this off is: Go touch grass, make new friends, and learn to love normally again… Trust God that you will find some people that you can spend some time with…
God bless, and know you are not alone in this battle…