This year has been a challenge.

I’ve faced some strange health symptoms — no clear answers, lots of unknowns. Along with the physical challenges came the mental weight: fear and worry.

Fear about what’s going to happen to me.
Worry about whether it’s serious, whether it’ll get worse.
And thoughts like: What about my wife? My daughter? 

The common thread in all of it?
My mind was living in the future.

When you live too far in the future—especially through a negative lens—fear and worry become your emotional home. Anxiety moves in right alongside them. Because here’s the truth: the future is something we can’t control. And when your focus is on what you can’t control, anxiety naturally increases.

That’s been my battle at times this year.

But when I look back on these past 11 months, I ask myself: What did I really have to fear? 

All that time I spent worrying, planning, and fearing—what did it get me? Nothing.

• I’m still here.
• Still standing.
• Still breathing.

The only thing fear really did was steal precious hours, days, and moments. Maybe you’ve done this too—built up fears in your mind, only to look back later and realize none of it ever happened. And you think, Wow… I wish I would’ve freed my mind back then. 

If I look back through my life—high school, college, last year, last week—so many of the things I worried about never became reality. Yet they consumed my reality at the time.

I guess the old saying by FDR is certainly true “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

So how do we shift from this fear-based, worry-filled mental prison?

Here are 3 ways to break free:

1. Live in the Present Moment

When you live in the present, you focus on what you can control—and anxiety fades. The grip of fear loosens.

Two tools to bring you back to the present: 

A. Control your breath.

Use the 4-6 breathing method: inhale through your nose for 4 seconds, exhale through your nose for 6 seconds. Focus on the counting. Feel your hand rise and fall on your belly. The more you focus on your breath, the more you return to what you can control.

B. Engage your 5 senses.

Ask yourself:

•  What do I hear?
•  What do I see?
•  What do I smell?
•  What do I taste?
•  What do I feel?

You can only experience your senses in the present moment. 

Note with both tactics: Relief will often show up the second you return to now. But the mind will fight to pull you back into future worry. That’s why you must practice this daily—so presence becomes your default setting.

2. Focus on Gratitude

Fear and gratitude can’t live in the same space. One will push the other out.
So when you catch yourself slipping into fear or worry, stop—and shift to gratitude.

Think of everything you do have, everything that’s going right. 

For me, even in my health challenges, there’s so much to be thankful for. I can still move, work, and love my family. Gratitude reframes everything and shifts your perspective.

3. Lean Into Prayer

This is the most powerful tool I’ve found.
When I start to feel like God doesn’t have a plan for me—or that He’s abandoned me and my life doesn’t matter—that’s when fear, worry, and loneliness creep in.
It’s in those moments I begin to feel like God’s forgotten me, forsaken me, or that I’m completely on my own.

But prayer reminds me that I’m not.
It grounds me. It reminds me that my life matters, that there’s a plan and a purpose to everything—even the hard parts.

Prayer also naturally reduces anxiety because it’s something you can control.
You can’t control whether or how your prayer is answered, but the act of prayer itself is within your control. And when you focus on what you can control, your anxiety begins to fade.

Try a prayer walk today.
Start by thanking God for your blessings.
Take in the beauty around you.
Then, hand over your problems—fully.

If prayer feels unfamiliar, start with this timeless one from an Al-Anon meeting I attended years ago:

The Serenity Prayer
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference. 

Hardships are part of life. But when you believe that God has a plan and will see you through, you build one of the strongest foundations of Mind Strength there is.

I’ll leave you with a short poem I wrote during a recent “Why me, God?” moment that you might resonate with.

Easy, Easy

-Luke Falk