Stop Anxiety from Stopping You: The Breakthrough Program For Conquering Panic and Social Anxiety(9)

1. Judgment


Problem: In the entire range of mind games that panic and anxiety play on you, in my opinion, judgment is the most pernicious one. There are a few ways that this plays out. First, we judge ourselves for getting or having anxiety. Second, we judge ourselves for failing to get better. Third, we feel like having anxiety is shameful and we cannot talk about it, even to our closest friends and confidants. In my clinical practice, it is not uncommon for me to meet a client who has not told their spouse or close family members that they are in therapy for anxiety.



Solution: Let’s end self-judgment right now. Let’s put a stop to the idea that it is somehow your fault that you are anxious. It is not. Let’s eradicate the idea that you should know how to deal with it – how could you? I am a trained and licensed clinical psychologist, and it took me years to crack the anxiety and panic code! How could you, without training or specialized education, possibly know how to treat anxiety and panic? You could not. Until we make anxiety education part of the health curriculum in schools and remove the stigma so that we, as a society, are able to talk more openly about it, this is an unfair expectation.

Try the following exercise to practice viewing your emotions without judgment.



Visualization Exercise to Unwind and Reset

Close your eyes and imagine a big movie screen inside your head. In your mind’s eye, go back to the start of your day, when you woke up. Going ahead in thirtyminute increments, remind yourself what you were doing, feeling, and thinking on the half hour. Do this exercise as though you are watching a movie. When we watch a movie and see a fire start, we do not run out of the movie theater as though there is real danger.Instead, we observe and pay attention without being consumed by what is on the screen. Please approach this exercise in the same way.

For example, if you woke up at 7:00 am, you may start with, “woke up, lying in bed feel sleepy, 7:30 am cooking breakfast and sipping tea, feeling relaxed, 8:00 am getting ready for work, feeling rushed,” and so on. When you complete this exercise please note the absence of the words ‘should’ or ‘should not’ from it. Also, please notice how your emotions change throughout the day. Even when they are strong emotions, they all seem to pass and change.





2. Expecting the Worst


Problem: We have all been there at some time or another. A thought enters our head: “what if things get worse?” This may be during a time of stress, when we already feel like our resources have been sapped and are wondering what will happen if things gets worse. It also may happen during a time of relative calm, when you wonder, “I am okay now, but how long will it last this time? When is the next panic attack coming on?” Panic thrives on this sort of thinking – in fact, it counts on it!



Solution: The next time you have this thought, try telling yourself that it is not up to you to predict the future, and that if you did, it probably would be in the positive direction. “What if things are going to feel good for a while?” is a thought unlikely to raise anxiety!

Please remember that you are building a new habit. This means that changing your responses to anxious thoughts will feel unnatural for a while. Please expect this and practice it anyway. It takes a lot of practice to feel like a habit is becoming second nature. One way to know that it has is when it occurs to you that you have not done something you used to do in a long time. I will often have my clients notice that although they became anxious, this time they did not expect their anxiety to turn into a panic attack, as a sign of this internal change.





3. Focusing on the Negative


Problem: Panic will automatically draw your attention to the negative. In your mind, this may sound like: “This is the third day this week that I have had anxiety. I cannot believe I am still struggling! I cannot get a break, everyone could tell I started to panic at the start of my speech.”



Solution: The good news is that although panic and anxiety will have you zero in on the negatives, you do not have to stay there! Zoom out and take a wider panoramic view. Ask yourself: “What is going okay? What is going well? What is going great?”





4. Ignoring the Positive


Problem: Panic thrives when it has command of all of your internal resources: your time, your attention, and your energy. When we experience anxiety or panic, it is natural to shift our resources in that direction momentarily. What you do after that initial shift determines how successful you will be at managing it. If you focus all of your energy on panic, you are likely to continue to feel worse.



Solution: If you decide to take a step back and say to yourself, “this is just part of the picture; I am also having the following positive or neutral experiences right now,” and list them in your mind, you are likely to feel better. Try this exercise the next time you feel a bit of anxiety coming on:



Remove Your Internal Judge Exercise

Stop and describe everything that is in your immediate surroundings in neutral to positive terms. If you were in the kitchen eating breakfast, it may sound something like this: “I am sitting at my wood kitchen table; it is round and I am sitting on a cushioned chair. There is a plate with a piece of toast and jam in front of me and a pot of coffee on the counter. Next to the pot of coffee is a fruit basket filled with apples and bananas. The kitchen is blue with white cabinets. The appliances are stainless steel. The floors are wood. There is a bit of sun coming through the blinds and I can see a cherry tree showing its first blossoms.” Take a moment to really observe your environment and then to observe how you feel following this exercise.