Anxiety vs abundance: cultivating a better mindset

Before setting off to walk Papua New Guinea’s Kokoda Track, I was worried about a few things: blisters, staying hydrated, getting gastro (I’ve contracted it before in PNG—not a pleasant experience), being physically up to the challenge, having the right equipment . . . the list could probably go on. One thing I was not worried about was having a panic attack. Little did I know, it would happen to me less than 24 hours into the trek.

Let me rewind a little. Walking Kokoda was a bit of a bucket list item. For many Australians, Kokoda holds a special place in their heart as the scene of an important historical campaign in World War II. A limited number of Australians fought a rear-guard action to stop the Japanese army reaching Port Moresby—and ultimately, Australia. They fought across rugged mountain and jungle terrain with limited supplies and many challenges. 

I was walking to write about the event for 10,000 Toes, a group that does amazing work tackling lifestyle disease in the Pacific. But it was also a personal journey. I was joined by my mother and brother, who, since I left home, I’ve only seen about once a year. I was really looking forward to the experience and had been training hard for months. However, the first morning did not go well. 

We set off Sunday morning at 4am. The rain was incessant, turning the dirt track to clay, slippery and treacherous. After a hard day of walking and being separated from my family, I was so grateful to arrive at camp. But when I greeted my brother with open arms, his next words shattered my satisfaction of surviving the day. 

“I’ve stuffed my shoulder,” he said, tears in his eyes. “I can’t get my pack off.”  

I helped him and we called a nurse over to assess the damage. The worst had been done. He had fallen on that first steep descent and landed on his arm. We later found out, through scans back in Australia, that he had probably dislocated it. His shoulder had gone back in but not before damaging the joint. 

That night, lying on my thin hiking mattress, my mind would not stop going over what would happen the next day. My heart rate was around 120 beats per minute and would not slow down and my mind was racing as fast as my heart. Would they go home tomorrow? Was my dream of spending a week hiking with them shattered? Should I go too, giving up on all I’d worked for? I was in severe distress and spent a very unsettled and anxious night. Long story short, I completed the track—but they did not. They had to turn around and hike the 11 hours back to the start with some porters. I was shattered. The event stayed with me for months after. 

Working with a counsellor sometime later, I realised that the event (and being unable to shake it afterward) impacted me so much because it was a clash of my two highest values: family and high work ethic.

To stay and finish the trek was to honour my work commitments—but to “abandon” my family. This cognitive dissonance created mental fallout. 

However, both values have one thing in common. They are both driven, in a large part, in me trying to live up to my need not to let anyone down. This pressure probably mostly comes from me, yet in my perception it comes from outside myself. Dig a little deeper and for me personally, any anxiety I feel is centred around an insidious lie at the centre of everything: that I am not enough. 

the anxiety epidemic

Maybe you’ve got a similar, familiar lie. Fear you’ll be rejected at every turn, fear you’re not worthy, fear of inadequacy, fear of being alone, fear of turning into someone you’re trying to escape, fear of never finding true love. Some of these fears can drive anxiety in us—becoming a fear that haunts many of us.

In the West, we are living through a mental health crisis. Between 2020 and 2022, more than 17 per cent of Australians had experienced a 12-month anxiety disorder. Almost 20 per cent of Americans experienced an anxiety disorder in the past 12 months, while New Zealanders also suffer high rates of anxiety with around 1 in 5 people experiencing mood and anxiety disorders.

The American Psychological Association describes anxiety as an emotion characterised by feelings of tension, worried thoughts and physical changes like increased blood pressure. It is considered a future-oriented, long-acting response broadly focused on a diffuse (non-concentrated) threat. For the record, I’ve never been diagnosed with a mental health condition. However, I’ve wrestled with anxious thoughts, come close to burnout and live with a spouse who has been treated for depression. 

consider the birds

Some ancient wisdom from Jesus can help us address the root of some of these existential questions. In perhaps His most famous teaching, known as the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus has a section of three teachings on money. But the final teaching in this triplet focuses on worry and Jesus expands it beyond money to other material concerns. 

In Matthew 6:25–27, Jesus says:

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?”

He identifies clothes and food as root causes for worry. In first century Palestine, these things were much harder to acquire than they are in modern society. Yet, Jesus goes on to say that the birds and the flowers have everything they need; that they are clothed more beautifully than the most beautiful fashion model and the birds are fed every day. If we dig a little deeper, food and clothing could be stand-in examples of appetite and appearance. Appetite represents the concern that “I have enough”.

Appearance can stand in for “what others think of me”. We get dressed up to impress others and are fixated on our reputation management. Jesus recognises these as sources of concern for His listeners, and yet He believes in a different mindset: an abundance mindset. In Jesus’ worldview, God provides everything needed. That is how He can say, “Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself” (6:34).

An abundance mindset, as demonstrated by Jesus, is the opposite of a scarcity mindset. A scarcity mindset says there is not enough to go around, that we must be in competition with others—always comparing, cynical, climbing the ladder. Getting stuck in a scarcity mindset tires us out and can lead to consistent negative thinking and mental health challenges. 

Anxiety says: “I must provide; I have to show up and show out; and I am alone.” The comparisons that chase us on Instagram^*, our fear of failing—they all whisper the lie, “I am not enough.” 

It is the insatiable hunger that drives us. Am I enough?  

If my kids embarrass me, what will people think of my parenting? If something goes wrong at work, I link it to my value as a person. That question, Am I enough? keeps echoing through the chambers of my mind as I get stuck in cycles of negative thinking, stressing about tomorrow and what my future holds. 

Shame can creep in and corrupt anything good. It is hard to believe in the abundance mindset. 

Jesus says, “You don’t need to be enough. God cares for you and is willing to open His storehouse of abundance to you. God is enough—and you are made in His image.”

He adds: “God will provide. God will show up for me. I am loved; God knows the future and has it under control.”

You may believe in God’s provision like Jesus did but look at the outcomes of having an abundance mindset as compared to the scarcity mindset (competition, insatiable striving, worry about tomorrow). Having a mindset of abundance gives us space to be creative, serve others and find generosity, peace and contentment. 

To me, those things seem worth striving for.