Self-Help
Update:
Talking
to Anxiety*
Here is an interesting way to respond to the sensations
and fears of any anxiety that does not require problem-solving—anxiety
that shows up unneeded and unwanted. Consider this an advanced
skill; it involves a leap of faith to create this transformation. Not
everyone will be willing to try this out, and it isn’t
a required skill. But I can tell you this: when it
works, people report that it works in a powerful way. If
you are up for the challenge, let’s get started.
The structure of this strategy appears to be on the level
of changing what you are mentally saying, but that’s
not it. You are changing where you place your attention. How?
Here are the steps of “talking to anxiety” (and
I’ll give you a formula for it in a moment):
1.
When you get anxious,
literally speak to the anxiety as though it exists outside
of you.
You
are prying your attention away from its automatic focus
on your worries. Your worries feed your resistance.
---
The less you attend to your worries, the less you will
resist by giving yourself a competing task.
---
The less you resist, the more powerful you become.
And what task are you investing in? One that is
weird and different for you. That requires concentration.
---
The
more you concentrate on mastering this task, the less you
attend to your worries.
Yet it simultaneously keeps your
attention on your discomfort and doubt. We know from research
that when you attend to your doubt and discomfort without
resisting them, you contribute to your healing process. 2. Give your anxiety instructions that
are opposite of what it expects.
You force your attention over to the task of delivering
a paradoxical message. Your logic needs to be: I
want to ask for more trouble as one way to combat my powerful,
automatic message of “I hope I don’t have more
trouble.”
---
Fighting and resisting has failed you. Resisting
a threat makes the threat feel worse.
---
The best way to
stop resisting is to busy yourself with the task of inviting what you fear.
You
might be terribly clumsy at this task, and that won’t
matter a bit. You can win the booby prize as the
least talented student of this skill on the entire Earth. How
good you are at these instructions is irrelevant. What
is relevant is where you place your attention. If you will
attend to the task of developing the best skills of talking
to anxiety, then, by default, your mind will have less
attention available to float over to your worries. In
game theory they use a term called zero-sum. It means
you only have so much of certain resources available. For
instance, let’s say you have limited funding for
a business project. If you spend 80% of your money
on research and development, you only have 20% left to
produce and market the product.
Your attention operates on a similar formula, and we can
take advantage of that. When anxiety is winning,
it is because you are “spending” vast amounts
of your limited conscious attention on reacting fearfully.
---
If you consciously and powerfully engage your mind in the
project of figuring out how to ask anxiety to increase
your sensations, then, by default, you will automatically,
spontaneously withdraw mental attention from your fears.
So attend to this skill—as a student trying to master
it—and you will discover that it serves your goal
of not attending solely on how to resist. As you stop resisting,
you start the healing process.
3. Then return your attention to your current activity. Don’t look for any “benefit” from what
you just said. Turn away from your worries and back
to your task.
You have been attending to your sensations or doubts in
a negative fashion—fearing them and trying to resist
them. You will not be able to immediately wrestle
your attention away from them. Instead, change how you attend to them (by encouraging instead of resisting).
Talk to your anxiety. Talk to it as a customer asks
for another serving, as a boss demands output from a lazy
subordinate, as a blackjack player asks the dealer to “hit
me again.”
Then turn your attention away from the transaction, gently
and immediately. You are done addressing your fearful
thoughts. Consider the transaction as complete from
your vantage point. Don’t expect anything back
from anxiety and don’t check to see if it is responding. Re-engage
in your valued task. Turn your attention back to driving
your car or talking to your friend or concentrating on
your work.
When you turn your attention back to your task, your belief
system and your body-&-mind will perceive it, at least
in the beginning, as a risk, because you have been using
your attention as a defensive system—to track your
discomfort. Shifting your attention away from your worries
is a form of dropping your guard. So assume you will feel
anxious because of your intervention. Expect that.
In the learning process we all feel insecure.
4. When anxiety
grabs your attention again (which might occur within seconds),
be O.K. with that and return to step 1.
Inevitably your distress will grab your attention again,
usually within moments. No matter how many times
it grabs you, commit to responding to it each time in the
same manner. Yes, it distracts you from your task,
but that is the sacrifice you must make. If you
want to get stronger, you have to practice. When you practice,
you will not be able to devote all your attention to the
task at hand, so others might notice you are nervous, or
you might not be able to track the plot of the movie, or
you may miss a turn while driving. But once you have invested
the time in repeating this practice, and you have learned
the skill, then you will discover the benefits of no longer
fighting your fears.
The Formula
Here is a simple structure for any request you make of
anxiety. Express a desire, conveyed in a tone that
you purposely choose. It can range from a soft tone (“would
you please…?”) to an aggressive one (“Come
on! Is this the best you can do? Give me your best shot,
now!”). This desire should be your direct request
for anxiety or doubt to increase strength, length, intensity
or frequency (“give me more, please”) of whatever
currently threatens you, such as your bodily sensations
or worries about the judgments of others.
How
to Talk to Anxiety: The Formula
(choose
one per column)
|
| Request |
 |
an increase |
|
in whatever
currently
threatens you |
Want
Demand
Encourage
Plead
Invite
Urge
Beg |
|
Stronger
More
More intense
Longer
lasting
More frequent
More threatening
Scarier |
|
Worries
Fearful
thoughts
Physical
sensations
Doubts
Confusion
Mistakes
Embarrassment |
Please note that in order to convey these principles as
simply as possible, I have labeled them as “talking
to anxiety.” But you can give that entity any label
that feels appropriate. Depending on what is threatening
you, feel free to talk to “worry,” “panic,” “embarrassment” or “doubt.”
Now it’s time to try this strategy out. Start
off with low-grade threats and low anxiety sensations. For
instance, if you have a big event tomorrow and you are
beginning to notice your nervousness today, even though
you are prepared, then practice talking to anxiety. Ask
it (or beg it or demand it) to increase your specific uncomfortable
sensations at that very moment. “(Boy, am I anxious!)
Oh, anxiety, would you please make my stomach tighter?
Please?” If your worries are more troubling
to you: “(Geez, I’m all caught up in my worries
about tomorrow.) Hey, anxiety, could you make those worries
come more frequently, please? And how about making
them more catastrophic? I mean, these are kind of
wimpy. Really scare me, how about it!”
Remember to give the instruction, and then turn your attention
back to your current task. Don’t sit there
and ask, “Did that do anything?” Just
practice the mechanics of the skill, without attention
to the results. Stay with the practice, and look
for opportunities to try again throughout the day. As you
begin to master the structure of the communication and
as you discover that nothing terrible happens as a result,
then extend your practice into more threatening arenas.
* excerpted from Wilson, Don’t Panic: Taking Control
of Anxiety Attacks (Collins Living, 2009) |
