do I most fear losing ? A job , an experience , the regard of another , a loved one ?
Now think about this : What is the likelihood I will suffer that particular loss at some point ? Try to assign a numerical percentage to that likelihood .
Whatever you chose , the correct answer is 100 percent . Whatever you love , you will lose . Because you will die . And when you die , you will lose every single thing , experience , value , and person you treasure .
This is anxiety ’ s great and perverse irony . We experience anxiety as the uncertainty surrounding loss , but in actuality , all loss is absolutely certain . We can try to manage loss in our lives , like the probabilities of when a loss is likely to strike . But we quickly reach the limits of loss management . Death — like the speed of light — is fixed for all of us . It is unchanging . And the size of that loss is huge . In fact , it is total .
Keep in mind that total is not the same thing as final . Christianity does offer the hope that our loss will not be final . Properly grasping this final hope of resurrection is critical for our spiritual growth through anxiety . But many Christians can subconsciously believe that God is supposed to guarantee loss avoidance in life . Biblical Christianity never promises that we can avoid total loss in our lifetimes . Like Jesus , we all will die and experience the loss of everything . Like Jesus , we only access the final hope of resurrection by going through the total loss that awaits us all .
Therefore you ’ re not being entirely delusional when you are anxious about loss . You are , in fact , facing an elemental truth . The delusion lies in believing we can ultimately avoid loss . The unavoidable reality of loss is why it is a fundamental mistake to treat anxiety itself as a problem we are supposed to eliminate . We can and should treat anxiety disorders , which stem from dysfunctional ways people respond to the experience of anxiety . But it is delusional to expect that we can or should eliminate anxiety itself . This delusion permeates Christians who treat anxiety as “ sin .”
It can also distort secular mental health approaches that treat anxiety as “ disease .” This was the point that social scientists Allan Horwitz and Jerome Wakefield made in their important book All We Have to Fear . They rightly call attention to various ways in which normal responses to the inevitable prospect of loss are increasingly pathologized by the mental health industry .
To repeat , there is a critical difference between anxiety ( which is inevitable ) and anxiety disorders ( which stem from dysfunctional responses to anxiety ). And what is the most prevalent kind of dysfunctional response ? It is avoidance .
This truth is captured in the second half of the Anxiety Formula :
Anxiety = Loss × Avoidance
Avoidance creates a multiplier effect . When we try to avoid the unavoidable , we are
12