Thoughts About Anxiety
“I was told that my thoughts are leading to my anxiety, and that changing my thoughts would get rid of my anxiety, but it doesn’t seem to work. What are your thoughts on this?”
That was one of the questions asked at our recent Let's Talk About Anxiety event at The Hague Natural Health Centre.
When I became a mother for the first time I was gripped by intense anxiety. Yes, the anxiety was partly triggered by negative thoughts about the safety of my baby. However, there was something much deeper that my body was feeling yet my mind could not understand. It was much later on when I engaged in therapy that I understood what it was: trauma.
Your negative thoughts can lead you to experience anxiety, because our brain does not decipher between what is real and what is imagined. However, depending on your unique circumstances, being simply told to change your thoughts to get rid of your anxiety, as the attendee shared, is not helpful. In fact, on top of the anxiety you might feel like a total failure.
In addition, we are not always consciously aware of our thoughts, and anxiety can also be a response to not only our cognitive processes, but also to our Body which, as Bessel Van Der Kolk wrote, Keeps The Score.
The deeper question to ask is: why do some people have the tendency towards negative thoughts in the first place, or have the tendency to feel things more deeply than others?
The answer lies in one’s personal history. Your life experiences shape who you are, and have an impact on your thoughts, feelings, and behaviours, as well as your capacity to handle the various types of stresses that life throws at you.
Imagine that you carry a container into which you dump the stress you come across from day to day. This container also has a tap from which you can occasionally empty some of that stress. Things that help you relieve the stress, or empty out your container, include exercise, mindful activities, talking to a friend or doing a hobby. If anything interferes with this regulation system of the container, for example an unexpected big life event which fills up your container with a sudden huge amount of stress, or a blockage to the tap due to, say, missing out on regular exercise, then your container will overflow. Some signs of overflow can be irritability, sleep disturbance, being withdrawn, or outbursts of strong emotions. The idea is to be self-aware and closely monitor your container and take action in order to avoid overflow.
Another thing to consider is that the capacity to hold stress differs from person to person.
What causes this difference?
The answer again lies in our personal history. If you have had a life filled with childhood traumas, losses and upsets, then your container size will be smaller due to the sediments that such life experiences cause, which take up space in your container. These sediments get dislodged when you face life challenges and interfere with the flow. Talking to a professional can help process these life experiences and break the sediments into much smaller pieces that can easily flow out of your container. Also, you may be carrying baggage that does not belong to you which also adds to the sediments in your container. Again, a therapist will help you identify what is yours and return what is not to the rightful owners. This creates space in your container.
Someone whose life was devoid of drama will have a much bigger container with no sediments and therefore have a bigger capacity to handle stress.
So, if you have had a life filled with traumatic events then you become a person who is more likely to have negative thoughts, and is generally more vigilant and defensive. That is because your experience taught you that the environment is not safe, that people are not to be trusted. You have a heightened sensitivity to your environment, and thus a more anxious personality. You are in survival mode. You go through life preparing to fight, flee or freeze, as expressed by one client who said,
“I feel that my head is full, I can’t focus or think clearly. All I want to do is run.”
Understanding that how she was feeling is normal considering the severe trauma she has been through, already brings a degree of calm. She is not crazy. She is emotionally wounded and has not been given the appropriate first aid treatment.
The more you address and heal the wounds of your past, the calmer you become and the safer you feel. We underestimate how much past events impact our present.
Of course, challenging your negative thoughts and practicing positive thinking is great, provided you have done the deeper work.
Let's Bust The Myth
Let’s bust the myth.
Being a coach, counsellor or therapist does not mean:
That you have all the answers.
That you can fix anything or anyone.
That your life is perfect and always together.
That you don’t experience bad days.
That you never doubt yourself or feel anxious or afraid.
We are human after all. We are not perfect nor in possession of magical powers.
Let me demonstrate this through sharing a personal story. I am living up to the Arabic meaning of my name after all, the female storyteller.
All the work I did in relation to mental and emotional well-being, provided me with insights into my childhood experiences and how they led me to have certain behavioural patterns as a result of those experiences. This is also often the case with most of us. The circumstances surrounding our childhood shape who we are as adults. The coping behavioural patterns we develop as a result were helpful then as children, however prove to be ineffective strategies when we are adults. One of the things I became aware of are the issues surrounding abandonment, feeling unloved and unaccepted as I am. It drove me to try hard to people please, to adopt a perfectionist attitude and to suppress my authentic emotions. Gaining that self-awareness was transformational on a personal as well as a professional level.
I quit working as a pharmacist after many years in the profession and retrained to become a coach and a counsellor.
In my existing professional role I do experience periods where I am busy with clients, inspired to write blogs and social media posts, interacting with other professionals in the field, and attending webinars and workshops as a form of continuing learning and education.
And there are also the periods when I am less busy, have fewer or no clients, feel uninspired, experience fewer interactions and sit in a kind of stagnation.
I noticed that those quieter periods make me feel uncomfortable, and I observed that I seem to fall back onto the old out-dated childhood strategies of trying too hard to be and do what I feel is expected of me, in order to escape this discomfort. This was mostly evident to me during the COVID lockdown years when the world felt like it came to a standstill.
“How interesting”, I thought to myself, on noticing my discomfort. “I wonder what is happening here?” I questioned myself.
So I decided to consciously take a different approach during those quiet periods. Instead of getting busy ‘doing’ I chose ‘being’, to instead sit quietly with that discomfort and discover its source. I remembered Dr Susan David’s famous quote, which I love,
“Discomfort is the price of admission to a meaningful life.”
- Susan David, psychologist, speaker and author.
It’s not surprising that I did gain some meaningful information through withstanding this discomfort. I discovered that the source of this discomfort was connected to my past abandonment issues and feeling unloved and unaccepted. The discomfort I experienced in those quiet periods was due to me connecting to my Inner Child’s old fear of being abandoned, forgotten and left behind.
That insightful moment was so helpful and healing. It meant that nowadays when I do experience quieter and less productive periods in my profession, I do not feel that uncomfortable anxiety anymore. I let myself be and trust the process. I embrace this time of quiet and enjoy the valuable reflections it brings me that ultimately are so helpful in the work I do with clients. I see them as periods of enrichment.
Being coaches, counsellors and therapists simply means that we have the knowledge about psychological models, and having experienced them during our own therapeutic and supervision sessions, we know their value in assisting others, as well as ourselves, to resolve emotional and mental issues. We know how to implement them to support others without judgement and with much empathy and compassion.
The solution to ease our suffering lies within us. In the same way I was able to support myself in easing my discomfort I support my clients in finding the answers within them to ease their own discomforts.
I am curious what other professionals in this field think?
Please share in the comments.
Never Give Up!
NEVER GIVE UP!
How often have you been told to never give up growing up?
How often do you repeat the same message to your children or other people in your community?
We are so programmed to never give up that we persist and struggle in situations that are detrimental to our physical and mental well-being because we are made to feel like failures if we give up.
“Giving up is always an option, but not always a failure.”
- Cameron Conaway, Author
Many end up feeling anxious, depressed and in some extreme situations even contemplating suicide.
It’s great to be encouraged to never give up on your dreams, on your relationship, on the job/career. But what if you realise that the dream you have been fighting for was never yours in the first place, that the relationship is toxic and abusive, that the job and work place are leading you towards burnout?
We are taught that to
Never give up = Resilience
How true is that?
If I think back on my life, and when I reflect on the life stories that some of my clients share, I observe how much distress and unhappiness this seemingly positive message causes. I ended up persisting in situations where giving up would have been the healthier approach. Clients share similar insights.
“Sometimes it’s better to end something and try to start something new than imprison yourself in hoping for the impossible.”
- Karen Slmansohn, Author
Certainly challenging ourselves, and learning to overcome those challenges does contribute positively to our resilience. However giving up, quitting or letting go is not always negative. Sometimes, and especially if you find yourself in a toxic and manipulative personal or professional environment that is not contributing to your growth and development, giving up and getting out is a sign of emotional health. As the saying goes, not everything is worth fighting for and we need to be selective about choosing our battles. Taking the right action whether it may be giving up, quitting or letting go, to safeguard our mental and emotional well-being, is a sign of resilience. It means that we are brave and mature enough to make a choice about the kind of situation or world we are choosing to live (or work) in.
Deciding to give up, quit or let go is a sign that you are gaining self-awareness about what you want to retain and what you no longer want in your life. It is what emotionally healthy people do.
“It is always important to know when something has reached its end. Closing circles, shutting doors, finishing chapters, it doesn’t matter what we call it; what matters is to leave in the past those moments in life that are over.”
- Paulo Coelho, Novelist
What are your thoughts? Please share in the comments.
To Let Go Of The Past, You Need To Stop Avoiding It.
I remember a particular period in my early thirties when I became a mother often revisiting and talking about unhappy aspects of my childhood.
On one occasion someone close to me said this:
“Why are you talking about the past? It’s done. Just move on.”
Sounds logical, right?
I hear that statement often from many people in both my personal and professional circles. They believe the same. “Why dredge up the past?” They say, “It’s done and dusted.”
Yet I consistently observe in those very people how their avoidance from learning about the past continues to determine their actions in the present.
It is true that the past is done. However simply closing the door on the unintegrated and unresolved past does not mean that it stops impacting your present. Not to mention the loss of access to valuable resources that the past often offers. As long as the past is left unresolved, it will continue to impact your present because the impact is unconscious. You are living in the past without realising it and are continuing to react to past events as if they were in the present.
“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”
- C.G. Jung, psychiatrist and psychoanalyst.
The past reappears every time:
You go into an inexplicable rage and direct it at someone in the present who ultimately is not responsible for the wrongs you have experienced in your past.
You are terrified from things that terrify no one else because your body is responding to danger messages carried from your past.
You sob uncontrollably for no valid reason because you are grieving for losses you had no opportunity to grieve for in your past.
You laugh in situations that are actually distressing because it is easier to discount their significance instead of acknowledging the pain they carry for you from your past.
Basically anytime when you find that your emotions and actions don’t fit the current situation. In that moment you have unconsciously time travelled to the past.
Moving on, as logical as it sounds, is not that simple. To move on you need to first look back and make peace with the past. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to do so.
I invite you to do the same. Take a fresh look at your past, integrate and resolve it, so you can finally stop it from charging or contaminating your present, and affecting your current actions and experiences. This is how you can let it go once and for all. The result is less time travel and more grounding in the present.
“Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, and today is a gift…that’s why they call it present.”
- Kung Fu Panda, animated movie.
By becoming aware of the past and gaining the ability to live with it, you transform yourself from an unaware victim of the past into an empowered individual in the present.
You don’t have to do this alone. You can get the support of a professional if need be, so you can begin to enjoy fully the gift of the present.
Life Lessons From My Grandmother
When I was in primary school in Lebanon, an incident at school taught me some important life lessons.
During a writing assignment that we were instructed to carry out by our teacher, a classmate sitting next to me whispered something funny which got us both giggling. At that very moment the teacher looked up and witnessed our playful interaction. She singled me out and instructed me to come to the front of the class. Then she picked up a piece of chalk from the writing board and asked me, as punishment, to put it in my mouth. I looked at her incredulously and refused.
She became frustrated when despite her insistence I repeatedly refused to put the piece of chalk in my mouth. She then tried to force the piece of chalk into my mouth. I clenched my teeth and in the process the chalk slid across my clenched teeth and bruised my gum. I took the piece of chalk and flung it defiantly on the floor. At that moment the school bell rang signalling the end of the school day, so I collected my things and took the school bus home.
“We have absolutely no control over what happens to us in life but what we have paramount control over is how we respond to those events.”
- Viktor Frankl, Austrian psychiatrist
When I arrived home I told my Teita (Arabic for grandma) what happened at school. Teita was furious, not with me but with the teacher. She headed straight to the phone and called the deputy head and made a formal complaint. The deputy head was very apologetic and assured my grandma that she would look into the matter.
When I went to school the following day, the class teacher called me to the front of the class again, however this time, with a stony expression on her face, she apologised for what she had done the previous day. I nodded my head in acceptance and went back to my seat.
At the time I wasn’t able to make sense of my teacher’s behaviour. I felt hurt and confused by it. Various questions were going around in my mind. Why did she act so weird? How come she singled me out for punishment and not my classmate? Was she being discriminating? (I was the only black kid in class and one of two in the whole school), a concept I was too young to comprehend then.
As usual I took my pain and confusion to my Teita who always made me feel better. Teita helped me learn a few important life lessons from this event:
Someone’s behaviour says a lot about him or her and nothing about me.
To hold compassion: Even at that young age I was forgiving and remember feeling sorry for the teacher who I imagined was clearly going through some difficulties and made a big mistake. My Teita helped me separate the person from the behaviour. The teacher was a good person but her behaviour was bad.
To call it out: I am glad I told my Teita about the incident as in my childlike mind I could have easily assumed that I was in the wrong for being playful in the middle of a task. By taking appropriate action, Teita demonstrated to me that bad behaviour is not to be tolerated. We need to call it out and take action.
Lastly and most importantly, I have people on my team. No matter what I faced in life I had people like my Teita who reminded me that I am loved cared for and supported.
Teita’s wisdom helped me learn that the way we respond to what happened, and the meaning we make of what happened, leaves a bigger impact on our lives than what actually happened.
The Benefits Of Failure
Photo credits: Hicham Boumediane | @hicham_boumediane
Those of you who know me will know that my youngest daughter is a fairly high level athlete. As her mother I have witnessed closely her journey from the start to where she is now. She is hoping to make it to the Olympics. She might… and then again she might not.
I observe on a regular basis the benefits she gains from the many perceived failures and disappointments she encounters. She learns something valuable with every single run and competition that fails to meet the desired targets. I witness that her positive approach to setbacks is what has got her so far in her athletics career. There is a lot to be learnt from children and young people.
To be able to support her I read a lot about the subject of success and failure, of winning and losing, and on fear, which depending on how we manage it, can motivate us or paralyse us. I can tell you that fear of failure has played a big part in my life and in the lives of many clients that I have worked with.
I happen to be reading now a book by Dr. Pippa Grange, a renowned psychologist, called Fear Less.
Dr Grange says that there are many myths surrounding our concept of failure and success: the main one being that losing turns you into a loser. She believes that this is wrong.
She goes on to say this about failure:
“Really you shouldn’t see failure as part of you, but just as giving you a puzzle to solve. Yet that’s not the message most of us absorb. We let failure leave behind a smear on our character, rather than simply being an indicator of our performance on a given day. And that makes us reluctant to show imperfection or vulnerability, in case it’s mistaken for weakness. The truth? Losing is for winners. “
And I say that failures are the path to success.
I agree with Dr Grange that it is not how we fail or lose that matters but our attitude towards it.
How do you handle failure?
My grandmother taught me early on how best to manage my failures. When I came home to her crying and disappointed at failing an exam, she would lovingly comfort me and then ask me a very important question: where do you think you went wrong Rawia? What can you learn from this experience that you can take with you to the next one?
Your willingness to examine closely the failure, see where you went wrong, where you can improve, reassess, re-think and then move forward with this added information is key. If we do this then failing becomes a valuable lesson because it allows us to learn and simply provides us with information about the areas where we need more growth and development. Failing might feel uncomfortable but by perceiving it differently we can reap the benefits.
Dr Grange goes on to say that the best attitude to failure is the one that willingly invites it.
So how do you willingly invite failure in your personal and professional life?
How about by daring to step out of your comfort zone and do the things you so much desire to do but some old fear or limiting belief has been holding you back. I still remember how terrified I was the day I walked into the chamber of commerce in 2012 to register my coaching practice.
What if I fail? What if I am not good enough? I felt the fear and did it anyway.
I confess that I have made mistakes and have failed many times on my journey. I am human after all. However through it all I have learnt to face my fears, fully identify them, name them and check which ones are truly mine, and which ones I have inherited from parents and carers and the environment. This has allowed me to do some growing up, and let go of limiting beliefs and decisions around those fears. The result is that I fear less as Dr Grange entitles her book. My failures have been extremely beneficial.
Fear of failure can explain a plethora of human behaviours. It can explain why many avoid public speaking roles and why members of an organisation hesitate to engage in a new scheme or procedure. As a team manager and a coach my experiential understanding of this fear helped me to be more supportive of members in my team and my clients who happen to have a similar experience. I was better equipped to guide them to a place where they felt encouraged to take a chance.
I encourage you to explore your fears and beliefs around failure on your own or with the support of a coach or counsellor. Dare to step out of your comfort zone and do the things that you find most challenging in your personal life or your business. And let go of the idea of being perfect. Perfectionism is boring. Instead look forward to making mistakes and failing because that is where the most growth and learning occurs. At some point you will succeed. Ultimately in life we win some and lose some. I certainly have not reached the end of the road yet. However I am enjoying every minute of the journey.
My journey to becoming a coach and a counsellor has given me so much more than I had anticipated. It has allowed me to experience the joy of finding myself, expanded my human experience, broadened my frame of reference, and increased my compassion and connection to others. It allowed me to transform pain into power, and poison into medicine as someone in my network once told me. I am very excited about sharing all of this knowledge and experience with others through my work.
As the saying goes “ it’s better to try and fail than fail to try”. Life is so much richer that way. My daughter’s attitude to setbacks constantly reminds me that we live and we learn. She is always a winner in my eyes whether she makes it to the Olympics or not.
Survival Tips Through Conversations With My daughters
I have a close relationship with my daughters and in this challenging time we make up for this lengthy physical separation through regular group video calls. We have open conversations about what is happening in the world and how it is impacting our personal lives in our various locations. We give each other support and encouragement when one of us feels down. They are a continuous source of inspiration for me as I witness them navigating their lives during this crisis. In my role as a parent, I do what I can to support them drawing from my own life experience and from what I have learnt about human behaviour and change.
My eldest daughter, a science journalist, has been reporting on daily coronavirus news since the pandemic hit Europe in March 2020. While you and I can choose to take time out from the news of the pandemic, she as a reporter ends up facing these scary realities on a regular basis. She was the one who guided us through the sensible yet difficult decision not to meet at Christmas as originally planned. I was so moved by her sense of community and global responsibility in doing the right thing. Under the circumstances, she of course is working from home, away from the physical support of fellow colleagues and mentors.
On the other hand, my youngest was one of the students who did final university exams during the pandemic. Shortly before her graduation, the UK plunged into the March 2020 lockdown. The reality certainly did not meet her expectations of how her bachelors’ degree would come to an end. There was no graduation party or a celebratory conclusion to three years of hard work as is customary. Instead, we had an intimate celebration at home in our garden. Like many in her shoes, she is applying for jobs in an environment that she had not imagined in her wildest dreams. For people like her, staying positive and motivated can sometimes be a struggle. Here you are, armed with your degree, your fresh talents and skills, and your dreams but with nowhere to go. Frustrating! As she is also an elite athlete with a realistic possibility of going to the Olympics, the cancellation in 2020 was a blow. Now she and her fellow athletes are training hard for 2021, which could also face cancellation.
“We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope.”
– Martin Luther King, Baptist Minister & Activist.
How does one stay motivated in such an environment of uncertainty?
These are the tips that we collectively came up with during the many conversations that keep us motivated and lift our spirits up:
When job applications do not lead anywhere then keep your thoughts realistic and avoid making hasty decisions about your personal capabilities. Realise that the world is facing an economic crisis that has a huge influence on recruitment and employment. The rejection does not define you. How you respond to the rejection and the lessons you choose to take from it can help shape you.
“Problems are not stop signs, they are guidelines.”
– Robert Schuller, Author & Motivational Speaker.
Having a purpose is important in staying motivated so set yourself some weekly tasks to help you structure your week and avoid being purposeless. Getting up at a regular time in the day and getting dressed for the work you are planning to do can help with that structure.
“He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.”
– Friedrich Nietzsche, Philosopher
Think skills and do some online workshops that teach you something new and different. It can also be something unrelated to your studies like learning how to code, a writing course, or painting, all good for your mental and emotional wellbeing.
Stay connected with your peers so you realise that you are not alone. Sharing is caring and also a problem aired is a problem shared. This also allows you to offload to each other, exchange tips and ideas, and cheer each other up.
Plan in some time out and away from your stressful daily job, where you can take walks in nature and disconnect from what is happening in the world for a short while. Choose to do this in your lunch break, especially in the winter months when the light is at its best at midday. Find some quiet, sit in stillness and breathe. Press the pause button on your problems. Everyone deserves a break. This can help to recharge and energise you.
Start a journal, in which, you can write about your experiences and reflections. Difficult times teach us valuable life lessons that are important to record. Your thoughts and reflections might be an inspiration and motivation for others and you can look back one day and remind yourself of your strength and the challenges you have overcome.
Last but not least remember that nothing is permanent and this time too shall pass.
“Sooner or later, every last echo fades. Even the loudest thunder in the deepest valley.”
– Brian K. Vaughan, Comic Book & Television Writer.
My 5 Steps For Managing Fear and Anxiety
Are you feeling anxious and afraid? I expect in this time of a COVID-19 pandemic many of us are.
I know what anxiety and fear feels like. I witnessed that feeling and behaviour modelled in my dad on a regular basis while growing up. In fact many members of my extended family know what it feels like to be anxious and afraid. It’s not surprising as the experience of years of civil war in Lebanon in the 70’s and 80’s and a coup d’état in Ghana in 1979 only served to feed those feelings of fear and anxiety in us. As always my curiosity about human behaviours led me to explore these feelings of fear and anxiety and in the process gain some valuable knowledge in addition to that from my own personal experience. The result has not necessarily been an anxiety and fear free life, but a life where I am able to understand and manage my anxiety in order to lead a balanced, insightful and meaningful life. This experience and knowledge has also proven useful when working with clients who presented with similar symptoms.
“Surrender to what is. Let go of what was. Have faith in what will be.”– Sonia Ricotte, author and motivational speaker.
Here are my steps on how to manage feelings of anxiety and fear. The acronym COVID makes them easy to remember.
The first step: Compassion, which starts with acceptance. It is perfectly okay to feel anxious and afraid, especially now when we are living in times of high uncertainty and unpredictability. Start by being kind and compassionate to yourself. Feelings of fear and anxiety as you may already know exist for a reason - to protect us from imminent danger. Symptoms of anxiety and fear were once smart ways with which we survived difficult childhood circumstances. So instead of always viewing them as a negative let’s try and remember their positives. Let’s accept them and attempt to gain insight and understanding about their root cause and the wealth of information that they carry for us.
“Anxiety was born in the very same moment as mankind. And since we will never be able to master it, we will have to learn to live with it—just as we have learned to live with storms.”― Paulo Coelho, novelist.
The second step: Observation, in order to see where in your timeline you are putting your focus and attention. Fear and anxiety are hardly ever about the present moment unless you happen to be chased by a hungry lion. Often when we feel anxious and afraid, those feelings are either rooted in our past due to a traumatic or highly unpleasant experience, or they are in relation to projecting our thoughts into the future about a possible upcoming event. That is why often when I ask my clients to replicate the anxiety and fear in the present they find that they can’t. Therefore, one way of managing your fear and anxiety is to bring your attention back to the present moment. It is the only moment that you have control over. I invite you to focus on the present moment rather than on the past or future, both of which are now out of reach, and therefore out of your control.
“Our anxiety does not come from thinking about the future, but from wanting to control It.” ― Kahlil Gibran, writer, poet, philosopher.
The third step: Victories, from your past, which we refer to as resources: Take time to remind yourself of your strengths, because you have plenty, which you might have forgotten while you were experiencing your episodes of fear and anxiety. The chances are that it is not the first time you have had those feelings of fear and anxiety, so how did you manage them before? What positive qualities about yourself are you forgetting while focusing on your fear and anxiety? Perhaps you are a warm, engaging, funny and energetic individual. What is your family history and what lessons does that history teach you about overcoming challenges? What wisdom and strengths can you uncover from the stories you have been told about your ancestors? Remember that most of our ancestors have been through two world wars, famines, and other pandemics in times when science and technology were much less developed than now. Apart from past resources, you also have some resources from the present in the form of people who love you and support you. Lean on them a little and ask them to stop telling you to stay calm and instead just be with you, hold you and tell you that they are there for you every step of the way. They are your support network.
“Trust yourself. You’ve survived a lot, and you’ll survive whatever is coming.” – Robert Tew, writer.
The fourth step: Inspiration, which is available if you are willing to seek it. I mentioned above how you can be inspired by victories from your past. However, there is so much inspiration to be had in the present. Talk and share with others how you feel. You will discover that you are not alone. Be curious about other people’s experiences. Perhaps they can inspire you with their own stories of how they overcame these sorts of challenges. Listening to podcasts or online talks can be another source of inspiration. The other day, I signed up for an online speaking event by Elizabeth Gilbert, an American author who is best known for her 2006 memoir, Eat, Pray, Love. Her talk was about uncovering our resilience and I found a wealth of inspiration and motivation in the wisdom she shared about how to find ways to adapt in the face of adversity and times of threat and stress. These sources of inspiration can lead you to change your mind-set. This might be the first action that supports you in managing your feelings of fear and anxiety.
“We acquire the strength we have overcome.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson, lecturer, philosopher, poet.
The fifth step: Discovery, achieved by becoming creative in finding new ways to cope and manage your anxiety and fear. This is not a distraction but a recharging of your batteries: whether it is music and dance, writing in a daily journal or blogging, taking up a new hobby like painting, regular exercise that helps in the release of mood enhancing hormones, a walk in nature or laughter-inducing activities like watching an episode of Friends as my daughters used to do in times of stress. Laughter is certainly a strategy that I saw my dad use regularly to manage his feelings of fear and anxiety. He possessed a wicked sense of humour and was often capable of getting a room full of people roaring with laughter. Incidentally Elizabeth Gilbert shared a creative tip on how to manage our fear that I would like to share with you here. She suggests that you stop fighting with your fear and instead grab a notepad and ask your “fear” to tell you everything that it is frightened of. Let your “fear” speak and you listen to it for a few minutes. Thank it for sharing those things and ask it kindly to step out and invite another voice in, the voice of “wisdom”. Ask the voice of “wisdom” to write an answer to “fear”, with regards those things that were listed previously. You will be amazed how much your wisdom has to say, if you give it a chance to speak. Your wisdom can then give you the best advice because it will be tailor-made to your specific situation. It doesn’t matter what it is that you decide to do as long as it provides you with some relief and relaxation. This is the time to start learning how to do things differently.
“Peace is the result of retraining your mind to process life as it is, rather than as you think it should be.” – Wayne W. Dyer, author, speaker.
The next time you see the word COVID, instead of thinking of a virus that kills human beings, let it be an acronym that reminds you of steps that you can take to help you manage your feelings of fear and anxiety.