Skip to content The Anxiety Field Guide with Jason Cusick, Part 1 May 21 · 29 min ...more
The Anxiety Field Guide with Jason Cusick, Part 1
May 21, 2026 · 29 min
Discover divine peace and wisdom with Jason Cusick's Anxiety Field Guide.
Series Daily Program May 21, 2026 · 29 min · Daily Program
Discover divine peace and wisdom with Jason Cusick's Anxiety Field Guide. ...more Show the full description Show less Discover divine peace and wisdom with Jason Cusick's Anxiety Field Guide.
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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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Introduction to Anxiety and Jason's Story 0:15 Thank you so much for joining today with Marilyn and Sarah. We consider it a great honor to get to have some time with you and I want to ask you this question. Have you ever had any problems with anxiety or worry0:27 dealing with stress? You're like, yeah, probably. So this is, oh my goodness. You totally want to watch this program because Jason Cusick is our guest0:38 we're interviewing and he has the anxiety field guide. Oh, my goodness. You will absolutely completely love this interview. And, mom, you have a special testimony to encourage us as well.0:50 I really do. Roland called in for prayer over his mother who experienced light headedness and fainting after COVID. After prayer, she was1:02 healed. Is this wonderful? God answers prayer. So that's why we'd like to have you call in for prayer because we pray and we believe in God.1:13 And you know, mom, there's not anything too difficult for God. There's not anything too small or too big. And1:20 Right.1:20 You might be watching right now, maybe you got a diagnosis for cancer or you got, you know, you have chronic pain or maybe you're just having some difficulties on your job with kind of a horrible boss1:32 or maybe you're looking for a job, you're unemployed, maybe you got some bad news on in your finances and maybe you're in foreclosure. You know, nothing is impossible with God. So hop on the phone, get on the website1:44 and it will really be a big opportunity for God to come in and change and and bring divine intervention and also to give you wisdom. Wisdom on the right decisions to make and and wisdom maybe in some of1:56 your choices and your thinking and all that. So and I just want to say shout out to our partners. Thank you, partners. You are so fantastic. You know, partners, you some of you have been with us for decades2:07 and I just wanna thank you for helping us to cover the earth with the word and connect everyone to the heart of God. Let's watch this interview now on anxiety.2:17 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 anxiety2:30 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 will2:41 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 for2:53 your 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 and3:05 victory for your emotional healing. Call or click today for this amazing resource.3:18 Thank you so much for joining today with Marilyn and Sarah. We are thrilled to get a little time with you, and I wanna introduce you to my new cool friend, Jason Cusick. Thank you so much.3:29 Thanks so much, Sarah.3:30 Marilyn Thank you for being with us.3:31 With us. Thank you so much.3:32 Jason, you have this book called the anxiety field guide, and I think our audience, there might be a few people. Hello? That have some anxiety if you wanna admit it or not. But before we do that, give us a little3:44 background on, like, who you are, upbringing, and then we'll jump into the anxiety field guide.3:49 Yeah. Great. Thanks. I, I was born and raised in Southern California, still live in Southern California. Raised in a kind of, not so religious home, but I actually, made4:01 a decision to follow Jesus when I was in college. I had, what you would say, religious experience. I was sitting outside 1 day and suddenly realized that something or someone4:13 had to make everything that I'm seeing. And it drew me to what ended up being a a black gospel church in South Central LA4:22 Wow.4:23 Where I accepted Christ as my savior, and I was there for, 7 years and came to faith, met my wife in college. She had been4:35 raised in the Christian Missionary Alliance Church. She and her family came from Vietnam right after the war. And we have we've been married for 29 years this year. We have 34:47 kids. And, I've been serving as a pastor at the church that I'm at now for about 18 years. Before that, I was a hospital chaplain4:59 working with patients and families and, medical staff in helping people find the connection between, spiritual care and and physical care.5:09 Mhmm.5:09 So that's that's me.5:11 That's pretty cool.5:12 Yeah.5:13 In a anxiety field guide. It's like a sneak peek. I love the intro. Love your intro because you talk about your mom and how your mom was a little bit kind of, anxious on a5:24 few things. Yeah. And, what did that look like for you?5:27 Yeah. I grew up I I think I've wrestled with anxiety my whole life, but I never really knew it. My mom is a a self professed clean freak. She always5:39 liked to have things, in order and tidy, and she is a self professed people pleaser. And I inherited either by by example or by genetics,5:51 those same things. But I didn't realize in me underneath all of that stuff was anxiety and probably some undiagnosed obsessive compulsive disorder,6:04 which I always thought was a very extreme kind of mental health issue. But as I started learning more about it, I was like, wow. Maybe I had this, and and it didn't work itself out in some of those6:16 dramatic ways, but it was very much a part of my thinking and feeling. And I hit kind of a, anxiety crisis about, 7 years ago when I took on6:28 the the lead pastor position at my church. And I think it was all the new leadership that I that I got, it spiraled me down. I was having6:39 uncontrollable anxious thoughts and feelings. I was, having some self destructive behavior. I've always had a habit of chewing the inside of my mouth, but that got worse.6:53 And then I started just having all these physical symptoms, nausea and all kinds of things. At 1 point, I said to my friend on a phone call, I7:05 said, not only do I think I might not be helping people, but I wonder if I'm actually hurting people. And he went, what are you talking about? And I was like, yeah. What am7:17 I talking about? Suddenly, I was like, what's going on with me? And I happen to be connected with a a person who's a a Christian therapist that specializes in obsessive compulsive7:29 disorder. And I gave him a call. I said, hey, we need to talk. And that's where a lot of this healing began for me.7:36 Mhmm. Mhmm. You know, you might be watching right now and maybe you have anxiety or you know somebody that has anxiety. Sometimes our family members sometimes we go through seasons in our lives that have more7:48 anxiety and pressure. Sometimes it's just the natural course of life, but we wanna pray for you. Hop on the phone, get on the website. We'd love to pray for you. And of course, grab your copy of the anxiety7:59 field guide. I think it would be huge, immense, immensely helpful resource to you and really, really practical. And I like the wisdom in here because you very much grounded. What does GodUnderstanding Good and Bad Anxiety 8:11 say? What does the Bible say? And and very much integrating some of the things we've learned through science and biology and, and some of the psychology stuff. But does every, does anxiety only present8:23 in terms of like OCD or are there other ways that anxiety presents? How could you recognize anxiety?8:30 Yeah. I think, probably 1 of the things that was most helpful for me in learning about anxiety is that, we anxiety is kind of a bad word with a lot of people. In a lot of Christian circles, it's8:42 a bad word. But if we just look at what's happening in our bodies and our minds with anxiety, it's actually part of God's plan. You know, Psalm 1 39 says we're fearfully and wonderfully made or we're made wonderfully8:53 complex. Anxiety is a response to a perceived threat. So if we feel that there's a threat Could9:04 you say that again?9:05 Yeah. Anxiety is our response to a perceived threat.9:10 Okay.9:11 So if I'm out late at night and I hear a rumbling in the bushes and I'm alone, God's designed my body to respond immediately. My eyes9:22 dilate in order to allow more light. I have blood begins to rush to my appendages to allow me to fight or run. Adrenaline comes out of my renal glands in order to9:34 invigorate me, and all of that stuff happens naturally. And thank God. Thank God it does. Yeah. I don't have to say, oh, there's somebody possibly threatening me. Eyes dilate.9:46 It doesn't work like that. So our body does that naturally. And then when the threat's over, my eyes go back, my blood begins to change, the adrenaline gets reabsorbed, all of9:58 these change. And that happens normally and naturally, and that's part of God's plan. That's good anxiety. Bad anxiety is when those things happen10:11 and then things don't go back to normal. I'm still wired. I'm still anxious. I'm up in the middle of the night and and I'm fidgeting. Or10:23 my body suddenly reacts to a threat, but there's no threat around. That's what we call a panic attack. Suddenly, my heart is racing and my eyes are dilating and I'm10:34 fidgety, but nothing happened. That's what I started learning. Just trying to understand my body more, how god has designed our bodies, and we know we live in a fallen world.10:47 So sometimes our bodies kinda misfire, but we are not our bodies. We can learn skills10:59 to deal with anxiety differently and hopefully work with our body and our mind as God intended it for happen. And and I think what that did11:11 for me is it kind of reduces the shame and the embarrassment. Right? Mhmm. I can say, okay. My body's doing something right now. Let me take care of myself in11:23 a helpful way. That was kind of the main thing that got me going in in learning about my anxiety and then starting to learn some of these skills that could help me.11:35 Mhmm. So it took you, like, long it seems to me like quite a while for you to kinda settle into this and then start to unpack it. What'd you do for the years before you started to settle and unpack11:47 it? What'd you do all those years?11:49 A lot of, self medicating. So I think for me, my when I was feeling anxious and restless, and I12:00 didn't know what was going on, I mentioned mouth biting. Yeah. That was 1 of the ways I attempted. I don't know what's going on with me, so let me, do something to help myself. I think I would distract12:12 myself. I think I learned a lot of very negative self talk. Stop thinking that way. Stop thinking that way. It's bad that you're having these thoughts.12:25 I think pornography was 1 of those ways where I'm restless and anxious, and I don't know what to do with my thoughts and feelings. So a lot of times, we'll try to self medicate12:37 Mhmm. To try to help ourselves get better. Mhmm. And none of that worked. Mhmm.12:42 You know, you might be watching right now and maybe you find yourself kinda in those some of those habits, some of those routines, and you're like, it's not working, I wanna encourage you, hop on the phone, get on the12:53 website. We wanna pray with you and really see God give you a breakthrough. But I also wanna strongly encourage you to grab your copy of the anxiety field guide. Such such helpful truths and resources13:05 in here, experience, and great tools to help you overcome and not live as a victim of anxiety, but letting it be what God has designed it for you.13:19 You are not alone. Jesus loves you so much. I know in my life, I've struggled with depression and I was in a depressive season where I felt like there was no 1 around me and no 1 could help me. But Jesus13:31 revealed to me that he had never left me. You are not alone, Isabelle, he said, and that 1 sentence changed my entire life. And so if you feel alone, if you've never prayed to ask Jesus to come into your heart,13:42 or if you have, and you wanna pray this again, I invite you to pray with me. Say, Jesus, I thank you right now for the opportunity to get to worship you, the opportunity to get to love you. I receive your love. I receive13:53 your relationship. I receive your companionship and I wanna be in relationship with you. Jesus, would you come into my heart? Would you be Lord of my life? I submit it all to you. I submit my future. I submit my past and14:05 my present. Jesus, I love you. I chase after you. I desire you and I want you to be my best friend. We thank you and we praise you. In your name, we pray Jesus.14:16 Amen. Hey there. I wanna encourage you to download our app on your phone. You're like, really serious? Absolutely. We have some amazing things on our app, really convenient for you. We have today's program. We14:28 have opportunities to pray for you. 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 reading14:39 plan, daily bible reading plan. This app app is super relevant, very convenient, and super helpful for your daily living with Jesus.14:48 Hey. I want you to come with us on Marilyn Hickey Ministries Footsteps of Paul tour this fall. We will be traveling to Italy, Greece, and Turkey, looking at many of the churches that Paul went to and where he wrote most15:00 of the epistles. We will be traveling by land, air, and sea on this once in a lifetime tour, and it's perfect for you and your family. Spots are limited, so visit our website to apply today. Come join15:12 me. I cannot wait to see you.Practical Tools: Kind Self-Talk and Jesus' Prayer 15:19 Welcome back to Today with Marilyn and Sarah. And I want you to talk to us, Jason, about the anxiety field15:31 guide, your book. What made you do this?15:35 You know, I think it was my own struggle with anxiety. I went when I was going to counseling, I I found this great Christian counselor and I was taking all these notes15:48 And I found myself writing just little ideas that were so helpful to me. And then when I would get anxious, I'd go back to different ideas that helped me at different times. And I16:00 was like, why don't I just write all those down so I can give them to somebody else? So the anxiety field guide is actually laid out as very short, simple ideas to apply. Because16:11 for me, an an anxious person, if if I find a book of anxiety, I just wanna tear through it and read everything, but that doesn't help me. I need to slow down, and I need to practice very specific simple principles.16:23 And so it's kinda laid out like that. Each chapter has 1 idea to apply. Mhmm.16:29 And that's good because I think sometimes we try to just grab it all at 1 time and it doesn't work.16:36 Exactly right. Anyway. Yeah. Exactly right.16:39 So anyway, I think this chapter speak kindly to yourself. Yeah. Why is that so important?16:50 You know, I think that sometimes we speak more kindly to other people than we do to ourselves.16:58 I do too.17:00 And and I think God speaks more kindly to us than we do to ourselves. And unfortunately, I think sometimes some of our17:12 personalities and in some of our churches, we're we're very intense with each other. We we tend to be17:24 corrective and defensive. And especially when we want to fix things in our lives and if we want to be pleasing to God, sometimes we're like, you need to do17:36 better. You need to fix that thing. You need to stop doing that thing. When I look at the example of Jesus in the New Testament, he was really tough17:49 on hypocrites. Most of us, we're not hypocrites. We're actually just trying to do our best. And when I look at how Jesus talked to people who were trying to do their best, he was18:00 so kind. So I think 1 of those skills that we need to learn when we're dealing with anxiety is to be much more kind to ourself.18:11 I love that. Say it again.18:13 As we're growing and learning how to deal with anxiety, we need to learn to be much more kind to ourselves.18:22 Mhmm. Mhmm. And gentle. Yeah. And forgiving. I screwed up. Well, it's probably the sixth 1 for today. Right. Or I guess what? I get to make18:34 new mistakes.18:35 Yeah. And that's a little that's new18:39 Mhmm.18:40 To some Christians. It's also new to how some of us were raised. Sometimes we're just repeating things that we heard our parents say. Do better. Stop doing18:52 that. Why can't you be someone different? Maybe what needs to happen is a kind of a spiritual reparenting of ourselves where we let God start speaking to19:04 us in a kinder, gentler way that can kind of undo some of those recordings and tapes that are in our own minds.19:16 Mhmm. And I think that's so powerful and because it says in I think it's first John 3 8. Jesus came to undo the works of the enemy. And I'm not saying like our parents are our enemies or Satan or anything like19:27 that, but I am saying that Satan can work through people to do harmful things.19:34 It doesn't take much. I mean, there's direct harm that can be caused by people, but sometimes just a word misinterpreted a certain way can hit us. Somebody can19:46 throw a feather at me and it hits like a brick. And also, the enemy actually doesn't do need to do much work on me. I can cause my own problems all by myself. I you know,19:58 like, I think sometimes the enemy is like, oh, I'm gonna really make Jason feel bad about himself. And then the enemy sees how bad I'm making me feel about myself, and the enemy is like, Jason's doing fine on20:09 his own. So I think part of that challenge is is kind of stopping and saying, wait a minute. I need to be more kind and gentle to myself. And that doesn't mean I'm letting myself off the hook.20:22 It means I'm trying to follow the way of Jesus.20:27 Mhmm. And and listen to what Jesus says and watch the way Jesus acts and watch Jesus priorities and values and and the engagement. I mean, super super20:38 powerful. And you might be watching right now and maybe you've just had such negative self talk. I mean, you're like, oh, you're an idiot. Oh, you're a failure. Oh, you're the loser. Look at all the things you did back20:49 here. I mean, I don't know about you, but sometimes those are, tapes that I hear in my head. And I just wanna encourage you, hop on the phone, get on the website. We would love to pray for you that God would help to set21:00 you free and that Holy Spirit would lead you into truth. Right? Spirit of truth. But I also encourage you grab your copy of the anxiety field guide. Again, such practical helpful tools and21:11 I love the way you write because it's very conversational. It's easy to read. It's not like jargon and intense and heavy duty, but very, very accessible and practical. The other thing I really like about what you did is21:23 your action steps. At the end of every chapter, hello, you need to get this. Action steps because you can read this stuff but sometimes if you don't if if somebody doesn't write the action, oh, here's some ways to apply21:35 this, then I kind of lose lose it in the weeds. You know what I'm saying?21:40 I think that's especially true when it comes to anxiety. A lot of times, if somebody's dealing with anxiety, they'll think, let me go get some counseling. And traditional,21:53 kind of talk therapy in counseling is sometimes not the best thing for a person with anxiety. You get me in a a session and somebody starts saying, how are you feeling? I just start spinning out and I get more22:04 anxious. Sometimes what's most helpful in dealing with anxiety is something more like coaching. Okay. You're anxious about this. Let's talk about what that is. Let's22:16 identify it. Let's face it. Let's talk about how you're feeling when you face it, and let's come up some ways some creative ways to deal with the negative feelings that you're having right now.22:26 Mhmm.22:27 And it's much more action driven. It's much more outcome driven.22:32 Mhmm.22:32 And and I think that's what's been most helpful for me.22:35 Mhmm. I love that. And I love a lot of the action steps are very very practical. Another 1 of the chapters in here you talk about pray like Jesus prayed. Mhmm. What does that mean?22:46 Well, there's 2 things that I've seen. When I look in the New Testament and I read about how Jesus prayed, there were 2 elements that I think he had. 1 of them was there was an incredible22:58 amount of honesty and transparency when Jesus prayed. And Jesus is in the Garden of Gethsemane, and he's like, take this cup from me, god. He's sweating as it were drops of blood. We don't know23:10 what was going on physiologically. He's probably experiencing some real trauma in that moment, a genuine anxiety. He didn't hide that. He was honest about it. Yeah. And I think sometimes23:22 prayer wise, sometimes we put on our best face to talk to God. And I think the liberating thing is if we're gonna pray like Jesus, it means we're just gonna say exactly what we're feeling and thinking. Mhmm. And23:34 God can handle that. Not only can God handle that, God wants that. And we see that with Moses and David and Elijah. We see that throughout the bible. The great spiritual giants of the faith23:46 are people that are like, I don't know what to do. I'm a hot mess. I don't know what's going on. So that honesty. I think the other component of23:58 Jesus' prayer is best seen in the Lord's prayer. The Lord's prayer starts and stops, and then he's done. Sometimes with anxiety,24:10 we use prayer as a way to fix our feelings. I pray and if I can pray enough, then the anxious feeling will go away. So we keep praying or we say maybe I24:22 didn't say it the right way or maybe I need to do something different. But prayer isn't so much about getting rid of feelings. It's about just being able to be with God. And24:34 so I find it really powerful when you can just start to pray and stop.24:40 I think too if I think of prayers conversation, that also helps me. Because then it's not quite like trying to work my way up for something, get out of all, but it's just conversational. Yeah. Talking and listening and24:52 engaging. So I just think it's super super powerful and and I love I love the field guide. I love the value in it, the the practicality. I love all of it and I just encourage you, hop on the25:04 phone, grab a couple of copies of the anxiety field guide because it will absolutely be a tremendous gift you can give to other people, but also help to help you to walk in truth and25:16 freedom for your own self.25:19 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 anxiety25:31 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 will25:43 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 your25:55 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 victory26:07 for your emotional healing. Call or click today for this amazing resource.Prayer for Breakthrough and Final Encouragement 26:19 Thank you so much for watching this interview. Jason, would you pray for our audience?26:24 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 we26:35 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, fully26:47 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, helping26:59 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 all27:10 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 thank27:22 you. Surround us with people who can encourage us and understand us in that way. And we ask all these things in Jesus name. Amen.27:33 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. Right? You say, but you're always27:45 saying that. But not today, I'm saying it just for you, for you to get it. Because we all need to have help. Now say with me, today,27:56 today is the best day of my life because Jesus Christ lives big in me today.In this video 0:00 Introduction to Anxiety and Jason's Story8:07 Understanding Good and Bad Anxiety15:19 Practical Tools: Kind Self-Talk and Jesus' Prayer26:19 Prayer for Breakthrough and Final Encouragement28:30
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