#12111 Is Seeking Professional Help for Anxiety a Sign of Weak Faith? - Gary Zimak

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Catholic Answers

Religion & Spirituality, Christianity

4.8 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 17 March 2025

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When should you rely on faith alone, and when is it time to seek professional help? Gary Zimak tackles questions on giving up worrying for Lent and more, including Scripture recommendations, and accepting life’s crosses.

Questions Covered:

15:00 – How do we give up worry in a case where one has clinical depression?
18:44 – What good scripture and writing from the Church Fathers do you recommend I read?
23:12 – I’ve used therapy, and it never helped. Now that I follow faith it’s been a huge change. Should I still continue traditional therapy?
34:45 – I want to improve my faith life before seeking professional help for anxiety. How do I know whether or not I need to seek professional help, or I’m simply just not trying enough with my faith life? I feel like getting professional help would be “failing” or giving up on trying to solve my anxiety with Jesus. How do I know when I’ve tried hard enough that I need outside help?
42:17 – I worry about a friend who has basically given up in life. How do I help or stop worrying?
46:57 – How does one accept that life will have crosses, and that life is not always happy?
49:11 – I personally went through a period of terrible anxiety due to a traumatic event. I was given medication, and it helped so much! Both prayer and medication can be from God.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Buying or selling your home, real estate for life can connect you with a pro-life real estate agent.
0:05.2	When Real Estate for Life receives a referral fee, they donate 65% to Catholic Answers.
0:11.5	Learn more at realestateforlife.org. Hello, welcome to Cavagansans was live and happy St. Patty's Day to you, wherever you are.
0:36.2	I'm wearing my green today.
0:37.4	I've got my, oh, no, this is not going to be a nice one for our first hour guest. Patty's Day to you, wherever you are. I'm wearing my green today. I've got my, oh, no,
0:38.9	this is not going to be a nice one for our first hour guest. He's from Philadelphia. I'm wearing my
0:42.7	Boston Celtics shirt, but it's green, so I have a good reason to wear it. We've got a great show
0:48.4	for you today, and a second hour, Andrew Pettiprin's going to be here, and he has got a new book called The Faith Unboxed. And it's basically about clearing our heads of some of the kind of limiting ideas we have
1:00.6	about what the church is and who the church is for. A great, great topic. So we'll have
1:06.7	Andrew Petaprin with us, second hour. First hour, it's a tradition here. I would officially say it is
1:13.0	tradition. We've been on the air doing this show for 27 years and now for the 49th Lent in a row.
1:21.2	Somehow we've done it 49 times. Gary Zimak is here. We're going to talk about giving up worry for Lent. I personally believe
1:29.7	Gary has his finger right on the wound, so to speak, you know, like putting pressure on the
1:35.6	wound because we hurt with so much worry in the world, so much anxiety, so much upset. And that
1:42.4	is, I can tell you, because I have read Gary's books,
1:45.6	the opposite of what Jesus wants for you. He, of course, wrote the best-selling book.
1:49.5	Year after year, it sells out on Amazon at this time of year. Give up Worry for Lent,
1:54.9	and many other books that we will mention. Welcome, Gary Zimak. Thanks for being here.
2:00.1	Sy, it's always a pleasure. Always a pleasure to beak. Thanks for being here.
2:04.7	Sy, it's always a pleasure. Always a pleasure to be on with you, my friend.
2:09.7	Sorry about the Celtic shirt. I apologize for that. That looks like Eagles green to me.
2:13.8	Oh, is that what it is? Oh. That's what I thought it was.
	...

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