by Robert Duff
Fortune Telling: This is a close relative of mind reading. The difference is that in fortune telling, you are assuming that you can predict the future and outcome of a given situation. In reality, it’s most often impossible to know the outcome of a situation until it has already passed.
Example: Say you are a musician and you have a gig coming up tonight. You may have prepared plenty and your set list is on point, but you have yourself convinced that you are going to bomb and that everyone in that city sucks. I bet you aren’t feeling too hot or treating the people around you very nicely. In fact, that might even lead to you blowing it hard at your gig where you otherwise might have killed it. Hmmm… curious indeed.
Personalizing: Personalizing sucks. This is that little trick your brain does where you attribute a personal meaning to things that actually have absolutely nothing to do with you.
Example: Mom comes home. You ask how her day was and you notice a strange inflection in her voice. You assume that it obviously has something to do with you and are left wondering for the rest of the night what the heck you did to make her so annoyed at you. In reality, her boss chewed her out right before she left work about something that was someone else’s fault.
Alright. That's about enough of those for now. Like I said before, if you found that you have engaged in a few or even all of those patterns of thinking, you are not alone. We all do. I'm sure you can start to see how engaging in these messed up thoughts a little bit too much could lead you down some stressful roads. There is something you can start doing right now that will help you grab negative thinking by the balls. It's as easy as ABC.
You might be reading this on a Kindle or whatever, but you should probably grab a piece of paper for this next part. Or you can just use your laptop, tablet, etc., which is probably sitting right next to you as well. You technojunkie. I am going to take you through an exercise that is mega simple, but super effective. It's helped a great deal of my clients and friends who have been patient enough to put up with me. It's called an ABC thought log and it basically takes that cognitive triangle and uses it to break down a situation into its component parts, so that you can see where you shooting yourself in the foot. Grasping the concept is simple. Mastering it takes a little practice. Start off by drawing a little grid like this:
Now I want you to think for a bit about a situation recently that made you anxious. Got it? Sweet. So go ahead and put the event that happened up in the A box. I will play along with you here and fill in my own situation in my thought log. So in the A section of the box, I will put that my friend texted me and said that we needed to talk. That's it, just the event that caused the stress in the first place.
Next, you're going to hop down to the C portion because you're a rebel and fuck the alphabet anyways. The C part is for you to write down what you felt in that situation. Try to avoid using thinking words, and instead just describe how it made you feel. In my case I felt worried, scared, and frantic. You're probably wondering how I hopped from my A all the way to my very dramatic C. Well, that is exactly what you should be wondering, because that is what we need to fill into the B section: our thoughts about the situation. In my example, this friend was someone that has some pretty serious health issues and I thought the bastard was trying to die on me.
Let’s pull back the curtain a little bit. A = Activating event, B = Beliefs, and C = emotional Consequence. If my friend let me know that we need to talk in a vacuum without any other influences, it would not be a bad thing in and of itself. Unfortunately, that's not how things work and instead, my jerk of a noggin had to interpret the event through the lens of my beliefs about the situation. Since I think that he is calling to tell me that he's dying, I'm sure as hell going to feel pretty crappy.
Take a second to look through the cognitive distortions that I defined a little earlier. Can you see any of them that seem similar to my beliefs in this situation? I'm definitely engaging in a little bit of fortune telling. I don't know what he is going to tell me, but that's not stopping me from emotionally reacting with stress and anxiety. I'm probably doing a little bit of catastrophizing too, since he's really been in pretty good health lately. Do the same thing for your Bs. See if you can identify some of those maladaptive thought patterns. I bet you can. I encourage you to write them down as well next to what you wrote in the B section.
The next step in using a thought log like this is to challenge your negative thinking patterns. Pretend like you're a lawyer and your brain is on the stand. You get to ask it questions and hopefully reveal that it is guilty of sabotaging your sanity. How are you sure that he wants to tell you that he's dying? Has he ever wanted to talk about other important things? Did you have something that you are working on together that might have hit a snag? Once you develop a few good alternatives to your unhelpful belief, try them on for size.
Scratch out your original B and instead put in an alternative. In my case, I can replace, "I think he's dying," with, "He screwed up on our project and we are back to the drawing board." Does that change anything? Sure it does. Now my C is boiling rage and anger instead of anxiety. Not that much better. Let's try another. Maybe he wanted my advice about a new girl that he is seeing, because he knows that my game is hella tight. That actually makes my C transform into positive things like happiness and pride. Much better.
It is important to evaluate the likelihood of each of your alternate possibilities. Sure, you can plug in the B that you’re going to suddenly going to win a zillion dollars, but that’s not really going to change your mood too much unless the percentage likelihood of that actually occurring is at least moderately high. The beauty of this process is that much of the time, our beliefs that lead to anxiety (or depression for that matter) are distorted and off base. At the very least, they are hugely magnified versions of the real thing. I encourage you to try this process out with your own ABCs. Be a scientist and develop a few alternative hypotheses. What else could be true about the situation that might not be as upsetting? In other words, how can you replace that bitch of B with something more realistic and less self-sabotaging?
This may seem simple, but trust me when I say that it takes some practice and that when it is used consistently, it's a crazy powerful tool. The trick is repetition. You need to use this technique so many times that it seeps into your bones. When you first start doing this, it serves as more of an intellectual exercise. The brain a nifty organ, but it's also a lazy ass one. It is great at learning new skills, grouping large bits of information, and forging new pathways. Once it's built those synaptic shortcuts, though, it can’t be bothered to listen to your silly notions of change and progress. This means that you really have to beat it into submission. You need to say, "Hey, asshole. I don't care if you want to or not. We are going to keep thinking this way until you get the hang of it." Once you force feed it knowledge like that consistently over time, you will internalize the process and apply it to your life instantly without even realizing it. Real change can happen using this technique, I promise.
So here's the thing. This technique is effective, but not it's not perfect for everyone. We are all different and for some of us, our anxiety is not cognitively driven (driven by thoughts), but it is somatically (physically) driven. What good is working through the ABCs if you can't even identify any particular activating event? Sometimes your heart and mind seem to start racing for no apparent reason and you are left sitting in the parking lot trying to cool your damn jets before you can even get out of the car. If you are like that, then this next chapter is for you.
Ch. 3 Your Body is an Asshole too
If you thought your mind had a monopoly on screwing you over, you were sorely mistaken. Your body seems to be in cahoots with the boss upstairs and has its very own contributions to that lovely beast we call anxiety. Don't worry if you are one of those lucky people who seem to have anxiety that is primarily driven by physical symptoms. You're not S.O.L. We just need to approach things a little differently.
Physical an
xiety symptoms vary from person to person, but there are some that tend to be pretty consistent:
● Pounding heartbeat
● Shakiness
● Shortness of breath or hyperventilation
● Sour stomach
● Headache
● Dizziness
● Feeling of pressure on chest
● Sweating
● Feeling of choking
● Chills or hot flashes
I bet you’ve felt a few of those suckers before. Maybe you’ve even had a panic attack, which is basically when you have intense fear plus a few of those symptoms, and it pops up all of the sudden and prevents you from functioning normally. Panic attacks and physical anxiety symptoms in general are scary as hell. I don't get to that point often, but I have been there before and I've seen it occur in others countless times. When you have a panic attack, it feels like you are going to die. You might even webMD yourself (never webMD yourself) and find that your symptom profile is strikingly similar to a heart attack... I bet that realization did wonders for your anxiety. Here's the thing, though. I know it hurts, I know it sucks and it feels like you are going to die, but you will not. People don't die from panic attacks. It just doesn't happen. Your body is a dick, but it's not going to let you self-destruct like that. Even though the emotional pain and physical discomfort may be quite unbearable, anxiety will not physically hurt you.
Great. Now that we've gotten that out on the table, we can pack up and go home right? Problem solved? Probably not. Realizing that you are experiencing symptoms of panic and not having a legitimate medical emergency can help to bring down your stress level a little and it might stop you from needlessly calling the ambulance, but it still sucks really bad. That's okay, there's still more that we can do to help. I'm going to tell you something really important here and I want you to memorize it. Symptoms of panic are fundamentally incompatible with deep breathing. Let me say that again. Symptoms of panic are fundamentally incompatible with deep breathing. Got it? What I'm trying I say is that the process of breathing deeply, focusing your mind on your breath, and taking in a larger amount of oxygen will start to break down those physiological symptoms of anxiety. Imagine that your anxiety symptoms are a raging fire. Deep breathing is like turning on the sprinklers. The fire might continue to smolder, but it's definitely not going to be raging anymore. The last time you were freaking the hell out due to anxiety and you were in the presence of someone else who told you, "Breathe. Just breathe," you probably felt like punching them in the face, right? That's because you suck at breathing. Let me teach you how to suck less.
The reason you haven't been able to simply breathe your way out of a panic attack is because you haven't effectively practiced breathing. Practice breathing? Yes. Imagine that you are playing basketball. In fact, imagine that you are on an NBA team playing in front of a ginormous crowd. Pretty sweet, right? It is until you get fouled and have to step up to the free throw line and remember that you never practiced free throws during training. Now that the heat is on and you don't have that bionic muscle memory that most professional players have, you sure as hell aren't going to be very consistent in your shots. Breathing is the same way.
I want you to think of breathing as a tool that you have in your tool belt. In order to effectively use that tool under pressure (like a panic attack), you need to first practice under non-stressful conditions. Then you keep practicing until it becomes second nature, and you can press that big shiny relaxation button at a moment’s notice. Once you achieve that level of comfort and mastery with deep breathing, you will have added another awesome weapon to your anxiety slaying armory. While it probably won't solve the root of your anxiety symptoms, it WILL bring you down a couple notches and help you think more clearly. You can also think of it this way: Say you wanted to learn how to shoot a bow and arrow in order to hunt your food. Well, the first time you decide to go out and practice, it probably shouldn’t be when a lion is chasing you down. You will likely shoot wildly and miss your target. If instead you practice your shooting intentionally over time on other objects, you are much more likely to hit that lion exactly where you want to when it does show up.
What kind of breathing am I talking about? There are approximately one zillion different kinds of breathing exercises out there (seriously, google it). All of the different techniques have their own merits and most of the ones that I have tried are effective. There’s no mystic voodoo here. In my opinion, there are basically two main components that make breathing exercises effective. The first one is obvious; they prompt you to take deeper, slower breaths--basically the exact opposite of what the anxiety monster is telling you to do. The other is that they trick you into focusing on something other than your sense of impending doom. This sort of breathing is effortful, and if you are trying to keep track of how you are breathing, it is going to help take your mind off of flipping out. Here’s one that is quick and dirty, but works wonders for me.
It’s called 4-7-8 breathing. I don’t even remember where I learned this one, but it’s come to my rescue for many a close call. I hope you can count, because that’s all you have to do for this one. Breathe in for 4 counts (you can count faster or slower depending on comfort), hold that breath for 7, and then release for 8. I know I said there’s no voodoo involved in these, but for me, these numbers are magic. As soon as I hit my second or third 8 count exhale, I can feel the relaxation inject itself into my bloodstream like I’m mainlining tranquility itself.
The beauty of using this technique to cope with anxiety is that it’s not an obvious one. You don’t look like some tool sitting cross legged, touching your belly button, and exhaling “ahhhhhhhhh” with every outbreath. You can look like a tool on your own time. When you are in the middle of a coffee shop and you feel the monster creeping up, you don’t want to worry about looking like a tool. You can use 4-7-8 without anyone else knowing. If anyone is looking at you close enough to notice that you are using a breathing pattern, then they are creepy and you should probably back away slowly.
Don’t forget that this takes practice. The only reason that I can give myself a quick shot of relaxation in the middle of a stressful situation is that my body and mind have been trained to do so. You need to practice this often in non-stressful situations. When you are at home by yourself, right before you go to bed, in the car on the way to work… basically whenever you can get it in. My suggestion when starting out is to practice this at least three times per week.
Here’s what a typical practice session looks like for me: I lie down on the couch and close my eyes. I let myself breathe normally for a few seconds and just notice the rate that I am naturally breathing. I feel the rise and fall of my chest as I start to slow my breathing down. Before jumping into the 4-7-8, I will usually do a few sets of 4-4-4 just to get in the mood. Then I will start my 4-7-8s and do this for as few as 5 minutes or as long as 15 minutes. Try not to stress yourself out about the particulars.
Don’t make it an unpleasant experience, because then you will start to resent it. Breathing is your friend. Remember that whole beating your brain into submission thing from before? Well the same thing applies here. Your body is going to resist you at first. You’re going to feel like this is the most boring damn thing in the world and that you could really spend your time more effectively. Your mind will race and relaxation won’t come easily. That’s okay. Keep practicing. Once you forge those pathways and develop that muscle memory just like the basketball free throws, it will come so much more easily. This means that when you are first trying to learn a breathing technique, you need to put in a lot of work and practice as often as you can. Once you start to get the hang of it, you can back off a bit and just do some maintenance training every once in a while.
I hope that once you learn this skill, you never have to use it during a panic attack or something. I really do. But if you do find yourself in that situation, believe me when I say that you will be thanking your past self for practicing when you
did.
The last thing I want to mention about breathing is another resource that is available for when you have a few minutes to really focus on your relaxation. There are a lot of great guided relaxations out there that walk you through different steps designed to bring you into a state of calm and relaxation. Guided relaxations (or guided meditations) can come in several forms including text, audio, or video. There are tons of great free ones on Youtube or through apps on your phone. Just pop in your headphones, close your eyes for a bit, and bliss out. I’m going to include a script I’ve written for a full body progressive muscle relaxation that you can read. I guarantee that it will make you feel good if you decide to breathe along while you read. I’ll put this script into the appendix at the back, though. I take my guided relaxations seriously. I don’t swear at you or make bad jokes in the script. We’ll keep that gentle stuff separate. Just promise me you’ll imagine that my voice sounds like Bob Ross when you read through it.
Ch. 4 Don’t be a Jerk to Yourself
Seriously, just don’t be. It takes more than the strategies I've described so far to really kick anxiety in the ass. You need to set yourself up for success, too. You need to invest in yourself. You need to stop being a butthead and sabotaging yourself. Let me take a wild guess here. Your life is pretty stressful. Things seem to happen quickly, and often times there are factors that are out of your control but that significantly contribute to your level of anxiety. You have this high level of kinetic energy inside of you, and sometimes it feels like you can't stop the hamster from running at full speed and it just won't fall off the wheel even though it's so tired that it could die. About 60% of you just nodded your heads, so I feel good about this next part I'm going to advise you on.
