Does Anxiety Sometimes Take Over Your Life? There is Help

It is inevitable that we will face adversities in life. They may be related to missing a flight, learning that our child is sick, or us being diagnosed with cancer. Many times our anxiety takes over and we begin to catastrophize. We wake up in the middle of the night thinking about a chain of disastrous events that we believe will happen and then we get even more anxious. There's help.

There are some simple techniques we can use to help us with this common situation. This week I used one with a coaching client that had just learned of bad news, and it really helped. The first thing we need to realize is that adversities do not necessarily and automatically generate a specific emotional consequence. For instance, if my pet dies I may feel sad. However, between the adversity and consequence there's a filter called belief. What I believe affects the emotional consequence. After my pet dies I may feel peace, joy that its suffering has ended, anger, sadness, etc. It is important to know this, because we are able to focus on our belief to reduce our anxiety. One technique for doing this is called "Putting It in Perspective."

When an adversity happens we often think of the next bad thing that could happen because of that, then the next thing that could result, and on, and on. For example, I left my laptop at work and it could be stolen. My boss will be angry. The thief could publish the corporate data and the company will violate privacy laws. I will then get fired. Most other companies would have heard about it and not want to hire me. As you can see, each next step is a logical progression, but it is unlikely that all will happen. Yet, our mind believes the whole chain and we get very anxious.

This is what we can do to put things in perspective. On a piece of paper write at the top the only thing that is real, the adversity (I left my laptop at work). Then make 5 columns. In column one write down the column the whole chain of catastrophic events, this is the worst case scenario. On column 2 write the likelihood that it could happen as a direct result of the only thing real, the adversity. So the laptop being stolen is probably only 30% likely to happen since the building has guards, but it has happened before. My boss getting angry for me forgetting the laptop is 5%. The thief accessing data and publishing it because I left the laptop is less than 1%. And so on. On the 3rd column write a best-case scenario. Make it ridiculously great. So good that you chuckle. Then in column 4 write what is likely to happen. By now you have the clarity to accept some bad consequences to the adversity, but it won't be nearly as bad as the initial chain. Finally, in column 5 write a few things you can actually do about this. If we focus on the likely beliefs, we can do something about it. It's hard to do something on the worst case scenario chain.

My coaching client and I did this together and it really help in getting to solutions that could not been seen earlier. This is simple, but it works. This is based on work by one of my teachers, Karen Reivich, author of The Resilience Factor. I hope this was useful for you! God bless!

Technorati Tags: Anxiety, Happiness, Resilience

Comments

[Angie]

very nice! very helpful! I will definitely use this! Thank yoU!

[Brigid]

I stumbled upon your page today when searching for "Catholic Life Coach Training". What a treat! Thanks for all your great insite, I feel inspired to continue trusting our Lord and keeping my life open to His will. Keep up the good work! Peace~Brigid

[Hector]

Bridgit, I'm glad you found the post useful. God bless!