Overcoming Anxiety Through God's Help
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It's Live in the Bream with the host of Fox News Sunday, Shannon Bream. This week on Live in the Bream, we have a book that the minute it hit my pile, I said, oh, yes, this is a definite yes. I got to read this. I want to hear from these guys. And I know it's going to be so helpful and hopeful.

to many other people. So let me tell you, we've got a father-son team here with extensive background practice in everything from pediatrics to psychotherapy. We've got James Kent and Ronnie Kent with us to talk about their new book, The Anxiety Algorithm, Turning Your Pattern of Worry and Stress into a Pattern of Peace and Joy. Gentlemen, welcome to Live in the Brain. Well, thank you for having me. Thank you. Glad to be here.

Listen, I have already taken so many great nuggets from this book and I am just getting started on it. But I want to start where you guys start, which is this idea that for some people, they have great guilt over anxiety. And I've had times like this in my life where I feel like if I were more spiritually mature,

If I was further down the road with the Lord, then I just wouldn't have anxiety. And it's the mark of immaturity or of my failure as a Christian that I feel so anxious at times. I love that you guys started there. Was that kind of the Genesis for the book?

Well, I think so because, you know, you probably have read some of this story already, but, you know, it really, the whole book jumped out of, it was something that happened to me. The algorithm itself started 30 years ago when I was trying to learn how to meditate and thought I was supposed to do it by humming and doing all that, and that didn't work. And so, you know, this passage in Ephesians says,

Whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, and excellent, worthy of praise. I kept trying to think of just the word, and then I applied it to the algorithm. And so I was talking with a pastor friend of mine about that passage and told him he needed to preach a sermon series on it. And he said, does it work? And I said, do you have any anxiety? And he said, I'm anxious all the time.

He said, "I go to therapy, I take medication, I vomit between sermons." And I said, "Well, let me just teach you a little bit." And so we went through it, and he got off his medicine, got off his therapy, quit vomiting, and his anxiety is under control. And I think you're exactly right. It's that thing of--and he felt terribly guilty and a lot of shame, which is that terrible word.

And he felt a lot of shame in the fact that he was a pastor and couldn't give it to God, you know, and let go of it. So, yes, that very much is where a lot of this book came from. And I'll add to that in my practice. We're you know, we're in Mississippi. We're in the Bible Belt. And there's just such misunderstanding around Christianity and who Jesus was and really what.

he calls us to, and the idea that we're somehow supposed to chase perfection because anything less is inadequate. And so I came into contact with that constantly, and it really stood out to me. And one of the things that we do in the book is differentiate between shame and guilt.

and biblically i compare them to condemnation versus conviction and you know the truth is like john 10 10 the thief comes to steal kill and destroy i have come that you may have life and have it to the full um so it's not jesus putting that pressure on us uh he actually wants us to have a full and abundant life in him and so

That's one of the reasons we start there is just to relieve any pressure people feel to be right because none of us are. And so that's just a good starting point, I think, for a lot of healing.

Yeah, and you guys start from a place of talking about the science behind anxiety, having a conversation about what it is and that being essential to then being able to move into the algorithm. So was there anything new to you or because of the practices you guys have been in, this science of anxiety made sense to you and you just want to make sure that we understand it? Yeah.

I don't know that there's anything new. I mean, we're learning new things, especially around the brain. You know, the brain is sort of the last frontier in terms of the body. We're still learning a lot. But how we define anxiety, how we treat anxiety, we have a pretty good understanding of those things. So helping people understand, and again, this relates back to my experience clinically, is

There are some light bulbs that go off for people when you give them good definitions and, for example, differentiate between fear versus anxiety, because those two can be really hard to tell apart. They feel the exact same. And so you have to be able to assess the threat that you're encountering in order to better understand if it's fear or anxiety. And the big help there is that fear is...

you know, something that's meant to help us survive. It can be very helpful and positive.

Whereas anxiety is always irrational. It's more of a perceived threat than an actual threat. So the science is helpful in that it gives people an understanding and it puts us and them on the same level of understanding, if you will, or we agree in some ways on what we're talking about. We'll have more Live in the Bream in a moment.

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Again, we're talking to James Kent and Ronnie Kent, father and son, a therapist and medical doctor who have a ton of experience, real life, clinical, all of it. On this idea, their book is The Anxiety Algorithm, Turning Your Pattern of Worry and Stress into a Pattern of Peace and Joy. And I love that you all include practical things. I think everybody who is dealing with something like this

is really grateful for what you guys have in here as wellness exercises. Kind of stop and pause and work through something that will actually help you develop the tools you need to deal with this.

Yeah, again, I keep going back to my clinical experience, but you do learn a lot. And one of the things early on as a therapist I used to do is I would prescribe these things. I would even give handouts and they would explain how to do an exercise, for example, deep breathing or progressive muscle relaxation exercises.

And I realized I wasn't people would leave and they still didn't have a good understanding of how to do these things. It wasn't until I actually did them in session. I would practice with the person that it really seemed to connect. And so that that's just a.

piece of practical application that I felt had to be in the book. And hopefully people can understand based on what we included there. And I think there, you know, I have 10 grandchildren and we, you know, the anxiety is a part of some of their lives too. And we live out in the country. And so one of the things of them growing up was we were always, we weren't so fearful of cars and that sort of thing. We were more afraid of snakes. Right. And so...

And so we started teaching them early on and we went to a snake show, not a snake show, but where they teach you about snakes. And the guy there said in Mississippi, there's no snake that can strike more than two steps if you can get away from him. And so he said, when you see a snake, take two steps directly backwards and you'll be safe.

Instead of turning to run, and then the snake can bite you in the back of the leg, so take two steps back. So that's what we always tried to teach them if they did see a snake. And actually, my wife was the one that applied it. She was getting upset. We moved after we retired and downsized. We were building a house, and she got a little frustrated with something that was going on as we were building. She said, you know, I just took two steps back.

And it may help me regain my emotions. And so we that's actually in the book. And what you know, you should never feel bad about the way you initially feel about something because that's a that's a reflex. But what we teach is what the next thing you do, you have control over if you choose to.

So when you do get anxious or fearful, that's like James said, that's a protective mechanism. And then you're able to respond in a way if you let your thinking control your emotions instead of your emotions controlling your thinking.

And so to have a reflex response that can either take two steps back, it can be a scripture passage that you always use automatically, reflexively, when you get into a situation that makes you anxious or even sad or whatever. Those kinds of things help you engage the thinking part of your brain and not just respond through emotions. Hmm.

Which in any part of our life is going to be better for us if we're not acting out of emotion, but we're using logic. We are reasoning through things. I think that this book comes at such a good time. I mean, you all are the experts. You would know, but it feels like we are in an heightened anxiety period. I mean, clearly, I think COVID did a number on a lot of us and especially for young people being taken out of their social structures and their schools and their lives as they knew them were completely upended.

But I think there's a lot of lingering anxiety, not only from that, but people are worried about financial markets and about the world. And if we aren't careful to, as you said, focus our minds on, you know, good, noble, true, worthy, excellent, praiseworthy, all of those things, it's really easy to get distracted by what the world feeds us all day long is that you should be terrified.

Absolutely. I mean, as you were describing things, I mean, I feel like I'm one of those people who worries about things. And so COVID, it was it was just very disruptive in in all sorts of ways. And, you know, anytime it can be good when the normal is shaken, but.

When you lose your sense of control, that's typically going to breed anxiety. In fact, that can be one of the main focuses of worry for someone who deals with anxiety is a lack of sense of control. So

And if that culminates to a severe point, they can have panic attacks. And so absolutely, it was something that we were hoping we could help with. But I'll tell you this, too. A lot of it just happened organically. We can't take all the credit. I think God was more so in it than us reading the tea leaves, if you will.

And God is such a relational God that he put us here for relationship first with him and then family and then those around us. And what happened with COVID is it disrupted that in a significant, even the mask, but whatever your opinion is about those, they definitely disrupted those relational type things that we have and not being able to gather together

in person. And your studies show that it's real-time communication that really develops a sense of well-being with us as humans. And you can text, and you can even talk by phone, and that's the best is when it's real-time. But in person, there's just that thing that connects us in a way that's really above what we can do

on a rational level. So I think that we have unfortunately become a society that is more withdrawn and into ourselves and into our own little sphere, even in the place of family. You know, we're blessed to have our family all around us. All 18 of us live close. And so just having that, I think, causes you to have a sense of peace. And I

The number one sense of peace comes from the presence of God. And that's really what we were hoping in the book is that the algorithm or just helping people understand anxiety and the basis of it, both psychologically, physically and spiritually, would help them be more aware of God's presence in their life in a real way.

What do you think that people who are believers, have a strong faith, struggle with that? Is it that we don't know the exact proper protocol or the algorithm or whatever it is? Because we may know scripture and we know it's good for us and we know that we can pray at any time. We know the Lord is there.

Why did you think it was necessary to kind of spell this out in a specific program to help people? And how does that make a difference? Sort of having these practical steps, these exact things that you point us to that may be things that are already part of our lives, but maybe we're not leveraging them in the right way. A lot of our decision to write a book

stemmed from, we actually taught this material in a class at our church and probably had close to a few hundred people go through it. And, you know, the reception we received was that a lot of this was new information. And

As clinicians, sometimes you forget what you don't know or what maybe the everyday person knows or doesn't know. And so it was really enlightening to have mature Christians in these classes saying, how have I never heard this or how do I not know this? And a lot of it was from a clinical perspective.

some of the easier stuff, if you will. And so why wouldn't we include those things in a book if it could help

Christians and beyond, especially if it's relatively easy information to try to communicate. And so some of it, a lot of it was from our experience in that class. And then again, leaning on clinical experience, it's hard to know what you don't know. I think one of the other things that really stands out is as you get into the Bible and especially Philippians,

It has a lot to say about anxiety. And we we didn't feel like at least materials we had been exposed to. We didn't really see anything like the book we tried to produce. And so those were some reasons I let dad add to that. Well, we both we both laugh about this experience, but this first.

really committed Christian young woman. His father was a pastor for 40 years. He's just a great guy that we've got to know and just love dearly. But, you know, when I made the comment that, you know, sometimes I have problems

You know, when I was in practice, I'd get frustrated and and and I knew that I was getting on edge. And so I'd have to go. I told him if there was a camera in my restroom, it'd be terrible. They'd probably put me on medicine because I talk to myself so much. But I'd go in there and look in the mirror and I would just pray and pray, God, let the fruit of your spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness and self-condemnation.

come out in me. And, you know, I do it multiple times during the day and she just blurted out, you know, so you have to pray more than once for something that's going on in your life. And I said, oh, yeah. And I think we as Christians a lot of times think God's almost like a button.

You just, you know, you pray this prayer and push a button. And, you know, I have maybe a kind of an unusual approach to anxiety. You know, I think it's really God's call for us to talk to him because he said, be anxious for nothing, but all things through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And, you know, even Paul said, I had to pray three times and this was for a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan that was there to torment him.

You know, and it wasn't removed. And so we see, I think we see all in the Bible that really God is so relational. He wants us to talk to him pretty much all the time. Pray without ceasing. You know, I think about with Paul in that passage, too, about the thorn in the siding and God's response to him being, my grace is sufficient for you because my power is made perfect in your weakness. I think it gets to the point you were making about grace.

The difficult things and uncomfortable things that we go through in life do force a dependency, which we're created for, I think, on the Lord. And as you said, it makes us stay in communication with him. Our struggle isn't for nothing. I mean, there is growth and purpose in that often. Absolutely. I think that, you know, we have a little saying that practice makes progress. Jesus makes perfect. And.

you know, it's like James said, we aim for perfection, or I think Satan wants us to aim for perfection knowing that we've never been able to achieve it. Adam and Eve couldn't achieve it, and we've never been able to achieve it apart from our relationship with Jesus and dependence on him for that perfection. And so, as we move toward wellness, is kind of one of our phrases, as we move toward wellness,

It does become easier in that we know where to go every time. And we think it's within us to produce that peace. And it's not. It's within him to produce the peace. And he wants us to ask him for it simply because he loves us so much he wants to talk to us.

And even there's in the book too, there's this idea that, you know, it's muscle. I mean, we can't think we say one prayer and everything is solved and we're done. You don't work out once and you're in great shape. I mean, you have to constantly be re-injuring and re-strengthening our muscles or our cardio, whatever it is, pushing ourselves. But it's in the repetitions that we do get muscle memory and that that can be translated to this situation too, where

when the anxiety shows up, when the fear, whatever it is, that we can better manage it through practicing and getting it right one time after another.

Well, I go back to the science of that, too. And, you know, it's, you know, and I compare it to walking. You know, when you're learning to walk, you have to be extremely intentional. You have to think about what you're doing. And it's very awkward and you fail more than you succeed. And, you know, and you have to have encouragers around you that say you can do it. Get up and people that cheer your successes. But now as adults, walking is very reflexive.

And so what we hope is through the book and the use of the algorithm, people's intentional approach of God to help them in those stressful situations will become more and more reflexive so that they can, through God's help, control the anxiety and the anxiety doesn't control them.

Yeah, there was such good knowledge and so much in this book. Again, it's by James Kent and Ronnie Kent, The Anxiety Algorithm, Turning Your Pattern of Worry and Stress into a Pattern of Peace and Joy. James, would you like to give us a final thought, a final word and tell us how we can find the book and the other work you guys are doing? Sure. So along with Anxiety Algorithm, we continue to develop other curriculums and resources

that are faith-based. And so, for example, our real focus, and Dad's mentioned it, is wellness. And our definition of wellness is the great commandment that you find in Mark 12, when Jesus is asked what the greatest commandment is and replies that it's to love God, heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love neighbor and self. And so that's our definition of wellness. And

All of our tools focus on helping people with various issues move toward wellness. So Dad is actually developing something for educators.

And then I focus a lot on our not-for-profit, which is actually named 1230. You can look us up at 1230ministry.com. And so a lot of what I'm focused on right now is trying to form relationships with pastors and develop resources for pastors to

Thinking that pastors are a lot of times the gatekeepers into their church communities. And so we're relatively new, not for profit. But yeah, I think that sums it up. Yeah. You can find the book on Amazon. And at Books A Million. Books A Million, Barnes and Nobles. You should be able to find it fairly easily.

Well, James and Ronnie, thank you for the work you're doing, for the encouragement and practical help in this book as well. God bless you guys and your ministries. Thanks for joining us on Live in the Bream. Thank you so much for having us. Listen ad-free with the Fox News Podcast plus subscription on Apple Podcasts. And Amazon Prime members can listen to this show ad-free on the Amazon Music app.

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