Neurosis is the enemy of your psychological health. Neurosis zaps your quality of life. Neurosis makes you a less effective friend or parent or employee or, really, just generally less effective. For our usage here, let us define neurosis as a measure of toxic emotions and thoughts (such as worry, anger, fear and anxiety) that a person tends to live with on a typical day. Everyone has different levels of neurosis, and if they are typically high in neurosis then they are considered neurotic.

Healthy people tend to have greater inner peace, and less neurosis. Neurosis makes life less fulfilling and less enjoyable. Your neurosis also makes the people around you a little more miserable, because you are more reactive to people. If we are to live in more peace, and thereby make life easier for ourselves and the people around us, we have decrease our own neurosis (without becoming neurotic about it).

Jesus said “blessed are the PEACEMAKERS”. Sometimes peace isn’t this magic miracle that just happens when you get saved or go to therapy, but rather it’s something you have to MAKE. In other words you have to work at it. What are some things your therapist has given you to do to work on making peace? What are some things Jesus gives you to work on to make peace? Is there some peace you need to MAKE between you and another member of your family, your friends or coworkers? How can you take responsibility for making that peace?

Can you have peace with another person before you have peace in yourself? How about peace between you and God? Which has to come first? Which one is foundational and automatically bleeds peace over into the next area of your life? Do you think I have answers for these questions? <hehe>

Being neurotic isn’t just hard for the other guy, it’s hard on yourself too. People with neurotic personalities are more likely to smoke, abuse alcohol and other drugs, have eating disorders, lack social support, and divorce.

What kinds of neurosis do you exhibit? How does it affect the people around you? How has it affected your life?

Make a list of neurotic behaviors you want to work on. Ask God what to do about each of them. Ask God for His own therapy homework for you that will help MAKE peace.

Parenting based in fear or anger etc is dysfunctional and creates more problems than it solves. If you’re a parent, how does neurosis affect your parenting? How does it affect your child? What is one thing you can do to work on your neurotic approach to parenting?

Some ideas to help decrease your neurosis include:

Exercise. Even a 15 minute walk every day can make a big difference.

Talk to someone. It doesn’t have to be professional. Even talking to a friend or family member about your fears can help.

Get enough sleep. A lack of sleep can worsen anxiety and limit your ability to handle stress.

Ditch all coping mechanisms, especially alcohol and pot. They can also make neurosis worse .

Eat well.

Pray the following verses and talk to Jesus about them

“If possible, so far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.” —Romans 12:18

““Refuse to be a critic full of bias toward others, and you will not be judged. For you’ll be judged by the same standard that you’ve used to judge others. The measurement you use on them will be used on you. Why would you focus on the flaw in someone else’s life and fail to notice the glaring flaws of your own? How could you say to your friend, ‘Let me show you where you’re wrong,’ when you’re guilty of even more? You’re being hypercritical and a hypocrite! First acknowledge and deal with your own ‘blind spots,’ and then you’ll be capable of dealing with the ‘blind spot’ of your friend.” –TPT Matthew

“Blessed are the peacemakers, For they shall be called sons of God.” –Matthew 5:9 NKJV

Also, people who are easily offended are neurotic. People who utilize a victim mentality to avoid responsibility are neurotic. Watch out for these traps. If you spot those mentalities inside your head, attack them and leave no survivors.