Skip to content The Anxiety Field Guide with Jason Cusick, Part 2 May 22 · 28 min ...more
The Anxiety Field Guide with Jason Cusick, Part 2
May 22, 2026 · 28 min
Learn how facing anxiety through faith can lead to healing and peace in your life.
Series Daily Program May 22, 2026 · 28 min · Daily Program
Learn how facing anxiety through faith can lead to healing and peace in your life. ...more Show the full description Show less Learn how facing anxiety through faith can lead to healing and peace in your life.
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As one of the most respected and anointed Bible teachers worldwide, Marilyn has a unique and powerful ability to communicate deep biblical truths in a way that
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Introducing Jason Cusick and the Anxiety Field Guide 0:15 Thank you so much for watching today with Marilyn and Sarah. We are delighted to get some time with you and delighted to have our partners, wonderful wonderful partners. Partners, thank you for helping us0:27 to cover the earth with the word and connect everyone to the heart of God. And mom, I want us I want you to introduce who's our who's our guest today?0:34 Well, our guest today is Jason Cusick. Cusick. Cusick. Yep. Thank you for helping me pronounce it correctly. And his book is anxiety0:46 field guide. Because I think this this really is everybody's problem. Anxiety is a big deal. So we can be anxious over our marriage, over our0:58 health, over our money, over our job, you know, over our neighborhood even. So this is gonna be a wonderful time with Jason Cusick1:11 and anxiety the field guide. Healthy habits for long term healing. So this is wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.1:23 And you need the book or books because this is a good gift. Everybody has problems with anxiety. So if you say you don't, we'll have to pray1:35 for you for lying. So because everybody has some problems. God bless you and remember healthy habits for long term healing.1:46 It's really good and here's an encouraging testimony. Alyssa watched your Facebook live on forgiveness and decided to set herself free by forgiving her brother. You know what?1:58 Sometimes anxiety is because of unforgiveness and whatever the need is in your life, maybe you need to forgive, whatever the issues are, we would love to pray for you. So hop on the phone, get on the website,2:10 give us the opportunity, privilege of getting to pray for you, and let's watch this interview on anxiety now. Hey there. I wanna encourage you to download our app on your phone. You're like, really2:21 serious? Absolutely. We have some amazing things on our app. Really convenient for you. We have today's program.2:27 We have opportunities to pray for you.2:29 We have places for you to give and partner with us. We also have things that'll help you know what events are coming up and group tours that you could join, as well as a bible reading plan, daily bible reading plan. This2:40 app is super relevant, very convenient, and super helpful for your daily living with Jesus.2:47 Together, we are impacting thousands of lives with the truth, compassion, and power of God's word. When you become a 30 dollar a month partner, we'll send you the Jehovah Rofah oil vial with oil prayed2:59 over by Marilyn and Isabel, the key to more miracles book, the majesty coffee table book, featuring beautiful representations of the names of God, and more. Call or click today to become a partner and help3:11 us cover the earth with the word.3:18 Welcome to Today with Marilyn and Sarah. We are so very happy to have some time with you and super excited to introduce to you my friend, Jason Fusick. Thank you so much.3:28 Thank you so much. Thank you. Wonderful to be with you. Thank you so much.3:31 Wonderful to have you.3:33 Thank you.3:33 And Jason, you have a cool book, anxiety field guide. But before we jump into it, can you give us a little bit of a thumbnail? Who are you, background, and then we'll get into your cool book.3:44 Yeah. I was born and raised in Southern California. I I came to Jesus when I was in college, had 1 of those, spiritual moments of awakening. I was sitting outside and3:56 saw the beautiful blue sky and the green grass and suddenly realized there was a God. And I was like, I have to figure out who this was. I don't know who it is. Ended up at a friend's church4:08 in South Central Los Angeles, a black church, a black gospel church, and gave my life to Jesus, spent 7 years in the black church, and then, moved into4:20 ministry where I became a hospital chaplain for 10 years, working in hospitals, caring for patients and helping bridge that connection between spirit and body and and what God4:32 says about that. And then ended up leaving hospital chaplaincy and going into local church ministry where I've been a pastor for about 18 years. I'm, I'm married, a wonderful4:44 wife of 29 years, this year, and we have, 3 kids, 24, 22, and 16.4:52 Mhmm. So Fun years.4:55 Yeah. It's Yeah. It's4:55 great. Oh my goodness.4:57 Great years. Totally good. And 1 of the things you talk about in the anxiety field guide and of course you wanna get a copy because this is an amazing book. But you talk about exposure to anxiety exposing like5:09 and kind of stepping into it. Why is that helpful?5:12 Yeah. My own experience with anxiety and a lot of this comes from healing from a lot of really intense anxiety in my life. I didn't realize that anxiety is often anOvercoming Anxiety Through Exposure 5:24 intolerance to uncertainty. Basically, I don't know what's going to happen, and I can't handle it, so I avoid it. The way to5:35 actually overcome your anxiety is not through avoiding it, it's through facing it. And then when we face our anxiety, we begin to5:47 relearn not just what we believe, but our brain actually begins responding differently to the anxious things. So I'll give you an example. I mean, you you can both probably think of5:59 something in your life that when you were a little girl, you were afraid of it, and now you're not afraid of it as a grown woman. I'll say for me, I was afraid6:11 of swimming when I was a little boy. Look over in the water. It I I can't swim. I'm afraid. I'm not afraid of swimming anymore, but that's not because I stayed away6:23 from pools. I overcame my anxiety about swimming by learning to swim. And so the goal in dealing with6:34 anxiety is to figure out what you're afraid of and face it. And that's how all the basic principle of all anxiety treatment is through what's6:46 called exposure.6:48 So say that again, just that definition.6:51 Yeah. If you're gonna overcome anxiety, the way to overcome anxiety is not to avoid what you're afraid of, but to face it. You're7:03 afraid of crowds. Okay. You can overcome that. You know how? Start getting into crowds. If you're afraid of elevators, you know how7:14 you overcome that? Start yeah. You don't have to just go into it and maybe just sit outside of an elevator for a little while and let yourself get anxious and then talk yourself down And7:26 then maybe you step into an elevator and then you get back out before the doors close and then you calm yourself down. And at some point, the more you're engaging with it, the7:38 more your brain says, I guess we don't have to be afraid of this anymore. That's how we overcome our fears. And that beautiful story in the bible when Jesus is7:50 telling Peter, step out of the boat. Peter does it. So that has been the most helpful thing to me of being able8:02 to learn. I can't control what is gonna happen, but the way to get better is to learn to swim. Mhmm.8:14 Yeah. That's really good. And and, I'm thinking of snakes. Oh, snakes. I hate snakes. And all I'm thinking of is like Raiders of the Lost Ark Yes. When he drops in that pit and8:26 there's snakes everywhere.8:27 Why did it have to be snakes?8:28 Yeah. There's plexiglass though in in that thing. Yeah. But you overcame pure snakes. How did you do it?8:36 Well, they would sit outside on our sidewalk.8:40 Yeah.8:40 And so I picked up rocks and thought the next time I see a snake, you're gonna die. And so I hit the snake.8:51 That'll do it.8:51 So that took care of it.8:53 That'll do8:54 it. And so from time to time, if there were snakes, they didn't wanna stay near8:58 our house.8:58 No. But they'd crawl away and the tail would9:00 be stuck on the sidewalk,9:02 which was like no bueno.9:04 But that's really different than saying I'm afraid of snakes. So when I see a snake, I'm going to run away. Instead, I'm afraid of snakes. I'm gonna actually do something about that.9:13 Yeah.9:14 My wife had a terrible fear of spiders. I mean, we'd have a spider in our house, and she'd be like, I want nothing to do with that. I started working through this stuff. I started talking to her about this idea of9:23 exposure. And she said, you know what? I'm going to look at some videos of spiders on YouTube.9:35 And she was, okay. Alright. That's enough. Okay. And then she started watching more videos of spiders on YouTube. And she realized the more she looked at them, the less she was triggered by9:47 them. And then over a period of time, she got to a point where when she saw a spider nearby, she wouldn't freak out. And now she's at the point where she's the9:59 primary spider killer in the house. So now she can do it. That is what's called desensitization. Now it happens on the other side of things.10:11 Excuse me. It happens on the other side of things. The Bible warns us to not become desensitized to sin. Right. The more we sin, the more our soul can just get used to it and we10:23 become kind of numb. We don't want that to happen. But when it comes to our anxiety and fears, I think God does want us to become a little bit10:34 more numb or word we talked about just earlier before this, resilient. Mhmm. Maybe I can learn to handle anxiety10:46 better.10:47 Mhmm.10:48 Yeah. And I just want to encourage you, you might be watching right now and you're like, that idea of exposing my, you know, I've always run fight or flight, you know. I just want to encourage you, hop on the11:00 phone, get on the website. We would love to pray for you, that God would help you in terms of facing that and whatever that could look like. Sometimes it could be little incremental steps. Sometimes it might just be you11:10 know a giant plunge off the deep end maybe I don't know. But just hop on the phone get on the website. We'd love to pray for you and grab your copy of the anxiety field guide. And I would strongly encourage you. This11:22 resource massively practical, extremely helpful and walks you through stuff that you're thinking and working in and dealing with and and really helps you to overcome it so that you're not just the victim to11:34 it. Instead, you can see it as a as a resource, as a tool, something that God gave you. And you know, sometimes we talk about this. Anxiety can get kind of a bad rap. And it's not always shouldn't11:46 shouldn't always be a bad rap. How come?11:49 Yeah. So anxiety is God's self protective mechanism in us. But God doesn't want us to live in anxiety.12:00 Yeah.12:01 Bible says he hasn't given us a spirit of fear, meaning a disposition of fear. We're not supposed to be afraid all the time. Being afraid of things is actually good. We should be afraid of things, the Bible tells us,12:13 to fear God.12:14 Right.12:15 So fear isn't bad, but when fear is our disposition, that's bad. Instead, he wants to give us love Mhmm. And courage and a sound mind.12:28 So what if we said, okay, I'm feeling anxious. Let me kind of just hold that. Let me move forward the way God wants me to move.12:38 Mhmm. And so it doesn't constrict and bind and dominate and overwhelm and control. I just encourage you. We're gonna come back in just a little minute and talk through some more very helpful keys for12:50 you in terms of letting God really work in you to overcome and be an overcomer in these various areas that have seemed to be debilitating to you. So I want you to stay tuned. But as you're waiting13:02 here in just a few moments, just hop on the phone, get on the website, give us the privilege and opportunity to pray for you. And whatever the needs are in your life. Could be financial needs, could be medical needs,13:13 could be relational, emotional issues. Just hop on the phone. Let us pray for you.13:19 The pressures of modern life can cause anxiety, and anxiety is on the rise. The good news is that you can break free from anxiety. For your gift of 30 dollars or more, we will send you the anxiety13:31 field guide by Jason Cusick. Filled with practical advice and the hope of Christ, the anxiety field guide is a rich resource for both those who suffer from anxiety and those in a position to help them. We will13:42 also send you Marilyn's breaking free from fear mini book and Sarah's hope for the future DVD. Faith can empower you to be set free from fear and set you up for anointed success. And for your13:54 gift of 100 dollars or more, we will also send you our healing prayer shawl. This shawl will encourage your faith and draw you closer to the father as you read and meditate on the word. There is grace and14:06 victory for your emotional healing. Call or click today for14:11 this amazing resource.14:19 You were created on purpose for a purpose, But do you know what that purpose is? My grandmother, Marilyn Hickey's newest book, 7 Spiritual Gifts, will help you find that purpose. Based out of Romans14:31 12, this book will help you to not only recognize your individual motivational gifts, but best live a life that helps you to walk in the purpose that God has for you. Go ahead and go on our14:43 website to get your copy of this book today. It will change your life. Do you know how loved you are? The king of the universe loves you so much and he14:55 wants to be in relationship with you. So if you've never prayed this prayer, I would invite you to pray with me. Father, I thank you right now that you are king of my heart. You are king of my life. Please come in and be15:06 in charge of my heart. Be in charge of my soul and show me how much you love me. Father, I give my heart, my mind, my choices to you, and I submit it to you. In your name we pray. Amen.Choosing Joy, Neuroplasticity, and Progress 15:20 Jason, you talk about choosing joy. How do we do that? That's a big deal.15:28 Yeah. Marilyn, you've talked a lot about this over the years. Right? So, I mean, I think this is 1 of those beautiful principles in the New Testament that our feelings15:41 and the direction of our hearts and our minds, there is part of that that is under our control and there's part of it that isn't. Right?15:53 So we get anxious feelings. We get fearful thoughts that come into our mind. Okay. That happens. Don't panic. But16:05 then the Bible instructs us that we we have a choice to make at that point. We can choose joy. And I can just say for me, like as an anxious person, as a worrying16:17 person, I'll go down a rabbit hole with catastrophizing. I'll be saying, oh, this is the worst scenario. This is what I'll think about stuff until it's the worst possible situation in the world.16:29 So I have to be intentional to have joy. I have to make a decision. In fact, I made a decision a few years ago. I said, I'm not getting out of bed in the morning until I16:41 am getting out of bed with gratitude. Now, times I'm in bed a little bit longer than I should be in order to do that, but I make a decision. What is it that I can be excited16:53 about today? How has God worked in my life already? How could god work today? And that's a choice I have to make. And if and if17:05 the people in your audience are dealing with anxiety and and and fear and intrusive thoughts and feelings, you might not be able to do anything about the thoughts and feelings that pop17:17 up in your mind. But you can do something about where you go from there. And that's the decision to say, yes, I'm gonna focus on the good.17:29 Like Paul says, whatsoever is true and praiseworthy and pure and admirable, think about these things. The sad part, we live in a17:41 culture that's just bombarding us with bad news. Here's more bad news to think about.17:44 Right.17:45 Here's something going on in the world that you can't do anything about instead of saying, let me focus on what I can do something about and the relationships right in front of me.17:55 Mhmm. That's really good. And I just encourage you hop on the phone, get on the website. I know that's such a powerful principle in terms of thinking, what can I be grateful for? And don't get out of bed until you you18:07 get some gratitude. And and again, grab your copy of the anxiety field guide. You know, another thing that principle that's helped me somewhat you know, like that worst case scenario.18:19 You know, running through what happens if this and this and this. And 1 time I felt God say to me, yeah, but if that does happen, I'll be there. I was already there. Sweet. And and if I know if you18:30 know that if you're with me, you know that I'm with you Yeah. Then no matter what. I mean, you know, fiery furnace. Yeah. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. And and the fourth person that okay. Jesus is there.18:42 Yeah. Jesus is in this and I didn't know. I didn't know what I didn't anticipate this, but Jesus already knew. And was it and is there a present now? No shocks. No surprises. God you don't catch18:54 God off guard.18:55 Right. You know, and I think something that's so liberating about that too is it's I believe God is with me but it doesn't necessarily mean that my anxious thoughts and feelings aren't gonna go away. I I19:07 Yeah. God's with me even with those. I think sometimes we think19:10 That's good.19:11 God, would you just show up as if when God shows up, all of that stuff goes. But we don't see that throughout scripture.19:19 Yeah.19:20 We see people who are anxious and restless and they are with God. And God's not condemning them for that. Yeah. I think even the idea of go back for a second and talk about waking up in the morning and not getting19:32 out of bed until, you have gratitude. I mean, some of us really struggle with getting out of bed in the morning. Choosing joy doesn't mean extinguishing the anxious19:43 feelings. I think sometimes we're like, I gotta I gotta shut this feeling down. No, no, no. You can still have it and choose joy and be focused forward.19:56 And I think we have to be careful that we're not trying to fight something that God's not calling us to fight. I have an20:08 anxious thought and feeling. Okay. Now let me go serve the Lord. And maybe those can exist together and the more I'm serving God,20:20 maybe some of that anxiety will begin to minimize. But if we focus on it and we make that the center of I'll get anxious about my anxiety,20:32 and then I'm just swirling down into that drain again.20:36 Mhmm. Right.20:36 And it's the cogitation trap. You just kind of ch20:39 ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch20:41 ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch20:42 ch ch ch ch ch ch and I'm gonna recognize God is with me in this. And then I've watched20:54 God kinda and God has taken me and like said, hey look in the rear view mirror. Remember how you're anxious going in? I was, I do. And and how about now? I don't have that. And it's interesting. And some21:05 are, kind of dissipates and evaporates along the way. Not always, but I've had that.21:10 Yeah. And in neuroscience, they call this, neuroplasticity. And the idea that our our brain, God has made our bodies in such an amazing way, and our brains have the ability21:22 to learn and keep learning throughout our entire lifetime. So some of us have these pathways that are locked in, especially when we've experienced trauma or abuse. Sometimes those fear21:34 pathways are really strong. But God has designed our brains that we can begin new practices, new ways of seeing things, new ways of talking to ourselves. And21:46 over time, our brain will begin kind of rewiring, and that's part of choosing joy. That's the choice we're making to say, I'm going to start developing some21:58 new habits and some new spiritual practices that will actually change me from the inside out. And the beautiful thing is our modern neuroscience is backing up all22:10 of this stuff that Jesus and the New Testament have shown us for 2000 years.22:16 That's pretty cool. I wanna ask 1 more quick thing. Progress versus perfection. How do you navigate that?22:24 I tell myself and other people, rather than looking at life and spiritual growth as pass fail, why don't we look at it22:36 as a continuum? On a scale of 1 to 10, am I doing spiritually better than I was last year? On a scale of 1 to 10,22:48 am I doing a little bit better than I was last month? I think for followers of Jesus, we put a lot of pressure on ourselves, and then we23:00 read that pressure into things like be holy for I am holy, really, which I think is really saying be spiritually mature because I am spiritually mature.23:12 If we can learn to measure progress rather than look for the idea, the ideals in heaven. And Paul said something to Timothy when he23:24 was writing to his his young pastoral protege. Paul says to Timothy, he says, stay in the word, keep preaching so that everyone will see23:36 your progress. Yep. Not so everybody will see the final product. It's the beauty that we get23:43 The progress.23:44 When we do spiritual relationships together, we go, wow. You're a lot different than you were years ago.23:50 I think that is so wonderful. Now I wanna encourage you, because you say I'm really getting something out of this program. But you need the book because you need to go back through it24:02 and say, yeah, this is what I got. And then sometimes you need to read it to remind yourself, come on, snap out of it. I used to say put a rubber band around your head and24:14 snap out of it. But I think truth helps you to snap out of it. And so I I still have to snap out of it sometimes because I think,24:26 oh my goodness, what would happen if this happened to my grandchildren driving home from ORU? Oh, 0. And I think snap out of it. You know, you're praying over them.24:38 Do do you not believe that God answers your prayers? Or do you just say words and doesn't mean a thing? So that's why I like this book. And that's24:50 why I like to give this book to people. You wanna be a true friend to someone? Give them the truth. Give them the truth. And so, you know, I'm looking25:02 for opportunities to give people truth. But they're not always gonna listen to me. They'll say, oh, that old lady? No, thank you. But you can give them a book and you can give25:14 truth and say, I know you'll love this book. Well, maybe they'll read it. Absolutely.25:21 The pressures of modern life can cause anxiety, and anxiety is on the rise. The good news is that you can break free from anxiety. For your gift of 30 dollars or more, we will send you the anxiety25:32 field guide by Jason Cusick. Filled with practical advice and the hope of Christ, the anxiety field guide is a rich resource for both those who suffer from anxiety and those in a position to help them. We will25:44 also send you Marilyn's breaking free from fear mini book and Sarah's hope for the future DVD. Faith can empower you to be set free from fear and set you up for anointed success. And for your25:56 gift of 100 dollars or more, we will also send you our healing prayer shawl. This shawl will encourage your faith and draw you closer to the father as you read and meditate on the word. There is grace and victory26:08 for your emotional healing. Call or click today for this amazing resource.26:21 Thank you so much for watching this interview. Jason, would you pray for our audience?26:25 Yeah. For sure. God, thank you for the opportunity to be together today. And thank you as we're as we're learning and thinking more about anxiety. Thank you that we26:37 don't have to be embarrassed because you love us. Mhmm. You care about us. And God, thank you that you came down into this world in the person of Jesus, fully26:49 human, so you know what it feels like to be anxious. Thank you that you love us just as we are, and you are right there with us, helping27:01 us move from being filled and and and and wrestling with anxious thoughts and feelings to following you in a new and different way. God, we know all27:12 those feelings and thoughts that we have. They're not gonna go away right away. But, god, thank you that you can help us face our fears. With you, we can face anything. Mhmm. And we thank27:24 you. Surround us with people who can encourage us and understand us in that way. And we ask all these things in Jesus' name.27:32 Amen. Amen. I think this this is 1 of the best programs we have ever had. So I want you to be sure you get the book.27:44 Right? You say, but you're always saying that. But not today. I'm saying it just for you, for you to get it. Because we all need to have help. Now27:56 say with me, today, today is the best day of my life because Jesus Christ lives big in me today.In this video 0:00 Introducing Jason Cusick and the Anxiety Field Guide5:16 Overcoming Anxiety Through Exposure15:20 Choosing Joy, Neuroplasticity, and Progress28:30
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