A God Box: A Practice For Surrendering Worries & Fears

Worry begets worry. It doesn’t solve problems. What if instead, you could gather up your fears, anxieties and worries and hand them over to someone else?

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Recently on the phone with my Aunt, I told her about my ‘God Box’. What’s a God Box you ask (and so did she)? Well…

Let’s face it, we reach life saturation points from time to time, perhaps more often than we like. For myriad reasons we hit a wall; those I just don’t have time (or the capacity) to deal with this right now moments. Sometimes I even feel caught between a tug-a-war of feeling jaded by self-help modalities (been there done that) and excited by the prospect of something new (the eternal optimist).

As a job perk, I get exposed to amazing people doing amazing things in the world all the time. And like many other living, breathing humans walking this life journey — I’m perpetually on the quest for answers to all that ails me. That is of course when I am not stuck in the above busyness mode.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think life is a perpetual quest. In fact, I think it’s necessary to absorb and assimilate. In other words to breathe into the experience of life and process, otherwise life will be exhausting and unfulfilling. Just as you accomplish one thing, you are onto the next, having forgotten to savor both the ride and the rest.

That said, when you wake up to the power within you to heal and make connections, body, mind and spirit — when you seize your power to shift out of limited thinking and unworthiness, when you identify wounds and understand your ability to break old chords that bind you to repeating patterns (some you may have inherited) — you come home to self (your Best Self) and there’s no turning back. And you want more!

But even within all of that life renovating, we need reminders to trust the timing and God, to discern what we can control, where we can impart change and where we can’t — and in particular, what isn’t ours to worry about.

Now let’s talk about God (and I’m getting to the God Box, I promise). This is non-denominational. I know that when many think of God it triggers emotional baggage — fear, shame, guilt, family history, dogma, etc. In the book I’m currently reading, It’s Not Your Money by Tosha Silver, she suggests that, for those who are spiritually curious but averse to conventional religion, it may help to choose your own words that resonate.  

I was drawn to this book because, well, money is a pain point for me. I’m always looking for ways to dive deeper into healing my old wounds and that can help me recognize those triggers. Trust me, I read plenty of books, pray, meditate, journal, use EFT (tapping), do deep spiritual dives, etc., but something really registered with a prompt in Tosha’s book…creating a God Box.

This may sound so simple (and it is), but it’s also precisely where we get caught up and overcomplicate things.

In the book, she suggests taking a box of any sort. Each time a worry, fear or negative thought comes up, write it down on a piece of paper and put it in your box…and turn it over to God to figure out.

Voila! That’s it.

The act of owning your fear, writing it down and giving it over to a higher source can be incredibly cathartic. I’m not suggesting that you are not an active participant in your life. However, this exercise creates the space for you to momentarily interrupt your thinking, to catch yourself, to claim it and call it out and to ask for help reconciling it. These are the kinds of steps that break patterns and reroute behaviors.

The other day, a worn-out worry popped up for me mid-conversation and I just interrupted it, wrote it down, and slipped it into my God Box. You’d be surprised how one fear leads to exposing a few more. One thought unleashes a slew of them. All that to say, my box is filling up.

While I’ve only been doing this for a week or so, I can’t give you any conclusive findings. I can tell you that it has been oddly comforting — and things have been shifting in subtle, but noticeable ways for me. I’ve also committed to telling the truth without explanation or editing. And the simpler, the better. Just put the raw emotion on the paper and give it to God.

I’m a natural born do-er, fixer and one who rolls up her sleeves and gets in there. In other words, sometimes I try to muscle my way through things that aren’t mine to fix. What if we considered a different approach all together: Let go and let God. Hmmm. I’m liking this ‘God Box’ idea. Want to join me? What do you have to lose…some anxiety, worry, fear, limited thinking?

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You may also enjoy reading Worry vs. Mindfulness: A Life Lesson, by Judy Marano