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Dealing with Test Anxiety

When preparing for a test, a major component of being ready is about managing our stress effectively.  That means making sure our body and mind are setting us up for success. By practicing these guidelines, testing can be much less painful.

1.  Relax your body
Find a mindfulness or relaxation app (https://www.headspace.com/, https://www.calm.com/, https://breathball.com/) that helps you de-escalate from common symptoms of test anxiety (increased heart rate, dysregulated breathing, stomach aches, etc.).  Once you’ve got the app, practice the skill of de-escalation.  If you’re in a situation where you can’t use an app, simply focus on slow controlled breathing.  Inhale through the nose for 5 seconds then exhale gently through the mouth for 5 seconds (repeat as necessary).  Practice a minute or two of relaxation before during and after study sessions, and do the same thing for testing.

2. Manage your thoughts
When we experience stress or anxiety, our minds can become more rigid and it’s easier to believe distorted thoughts that are typically extremely unhealthy (i.e. “I’m gonna fail” “My life is over if I don’t ace this test” “What if I’m the only one that does badly on this test?”  “I should have studied another 10 hours.”)  Each of these examples will only intensify the emotional experience, leading to more suffering and probably worse performance.  You can learn more about distorted thinking patterns and how to challenge them from the series of blogs starting here.

3. Align Your Behavior to How You Want to Think and Feel
Our behavior influences our thoughts and physiology, so sometimes we need to make sure our behavior isn’t becoming an obstacle on our path to a happy successful life.  Engaging in nervous habits, distractions, avoidance, or procrastination tends to exacerbate the stress in the long term even if there is some mental and emotional relief in the short term. For example, Netflix and Youtube are designed to be highly effective distractors, yet when used to excess, time for things like studying and sleep can quickly be lost.  Read more about how to avoid distraction and procrastination here: http://infinitenorth.com/avoidance-the-burden-of-dodging-burdens/

4. Willingness and Acceptance
Be willing to feel a little anxious and stressed about your test.  School can be difficult and exams are intended to be a challenge in order to assess your understanding.  Just because you’re worried, doesn’t mean you’re not prepared.  If you constantly fight to not be anxious, or you consistently distract yourself from the discomfort of anxiety, you’ll end up enduring more suffering than you need to. You can find more information and a guided acceptance exercise here: http://infinitenorth.com/tricky-business-of-sincere-acceptance/

Through it all, be kind and patient with yourself.

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Can Treating My Mood Disorder Be a Little More Fun?

I have to admit that most treatment workbooks are dry… sometimes even boring.  I can recognize several problems with this.

  1.  Even people that are engaged, motivated, energetic, and generally not struggling with their mood are unlikely to get excited workbooks.
  2. Mood disorders (depression and anxiety among others) can make it difficult to concentrate and process information effectively, limiting the usefulness of workbooks.
  3. Most workbooks are designed by therapists.  That usually means the content is pretty solid; unfortunately, therapists are necessarily the greatest and creating engaging materials.

Despite those points, I do like clients to have a tangible resource, something with clear guidelines that they can reach for when they’re ready to work on their mental well-being.  I don’t want to rely entirely on what they remember from our sessions (see number two above).  I’d like to have some options that are a little less dusty.

Many other health initiatives have worked to make themselves more appealing to a general audience.  There are mainstream marketing campaigns for smoking cessation.  There are commercials airing nationwide and streaming online for healthier food options, working to convince people that food can be healthy and delicious. REI wants me to #optoutside. Even the CDC provides colorful infographics online.  They make TV shows immortalizing and glorifying people’s journeys of weight loss and improved fitness (the problems with these programs will have to wait for another blog)

Mental health seems to be a harder sell.   There is no mental health treatment equivalent to Zumba.  The’s no cutting vegetables into fun shapes to make sure we’re having fun while eating healthy.  I’m starting to sound pretty pessimistic, but there’s hope.

Some people have taken it upon themselves to focus on the delivery just as much as the content.  I’ve shared Jane McGonigal’s work with Superbetter previously and haven’t found a better example of gamifying recovery anywhere.  One example of applying the concept of producing an engaging intervention in the written form is a collaboration between clinician Russ Harris and illustrator Bev Aisbett.  The result was The Illustrated Happiness Trap and it’s great for those interested specifically in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.

A more recent discovery, and probably the more effective example of making a mental health recovery book fun is Rock Steady: Brilliant Advice from My Bipolar Life by graphic artist Ellen Forney.  With humor, pragmatism, and clever visuals she translates the dry academic wisdom of clinicians into something very relatable, accessible, and manageable.  Her book is built upon her experiences with managing her own bipolar disorder.  She acknowledges the struggles inherent associated with emotion regulation and self-care and delivers clinically sound advice.  According to Forney, the foundation of health can be boiled down into SMEDMERTS! (Sleep, Medication, Eating (well), Doctor, Mindfulness, Exercise, Routine, Tools, and Support).  The acronym is solid and the mascot is even better.

If workbooks or traditional self-help books aren’t for you, don’t give up hope.  There is more and more diversity in the options for a structured resource that can help you when you’re not with your therapist.  If you’ve got other suggestions, comment below.

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Quick Check: Values Based Action

It’s been a while since the last blog post, and I’m planning on tightening up the time between submissions.  More wisdom is on it’s way.

Everyday provides endless opportunities to live the life we want to live, but we’ve got to paying attention, and be prepared to take advantage when an opportunity presents itself.  With that in mind, I want to provide a decision making strategy that can be applied anywhere and anytime.  When you’re making decisions mindfully (and hopefully most of the time you are), it requires intentional questions and answers in each moment.

  • Where will I choose to focus my attention?
  • What will I say in response to that greeting?
  • What tooth will I brush next?
  • What am I tasting right now?

With all those questions and choices, how can we know which path to follow?  It’s easy to fall into a pattern of looking for the ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ path, but that’s an oversimplification and introduces unnecessary judgment.  Instead you can ask, “How will this choice help me move toward my values?” or “What behavior would I be engaging in if I were behaving in alignment with my values?”

Through the course of any day, the more closely we can align our choices and behaviors to our values, the better off we’re going to be.  It minimizes guilt, regret, shame, self-criticism, and judgment.  It maximizes healthy pride, self-efficacy, contentment, and personal growth.  It allows us to live our life based on the things that are most important to us.  If you’re not sure how to define your values, you can take an initial step by downloading and printing this  values clarification worksheet.  Rate all the values on the worksheet as either very important, somewhat important, or not important.  Once you’ve identified all the values that are very important to you, narrow those down to your top ten.

By using your top ten values to make decisions, you’re sure to find yourself on a more fulfilling path in life.

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What is Awe?

I’ve been an advocate for awesomeness for many years (read more here), but I’ve just recently started diving into the research related to the study of awe.  Prior to this, my ideas about finding the awesome were based largely on research focused on mindfulness and gratitude.

It turns out, experiencing awe is whole separate beast.  Make no mistake, awe is closely related to gratitude and mindfulness, but there are important aspects that create clear distinctions.

Scientist suggest that one of two primary factors are necessary to experience awe, and both tap into a perception of vastness.  First, awe requires a sense of something that is bigger than ourselves.  This can be physically large (mountains, buildings, oceans, light-years, etc.), temporally expansive (passage of decades, centuries, millennia, etc.) or any other version of vastness.  The second prerequisite is the sense that the experience is beyond our ability to fully comprehend.  Recollect the awe-inspiring magic tricks of your youth, and you will have a simple example of how lack of comprehension creates awe.  You can also follow that path down memory lane to the point when you discover how the trick is done.  That’s likely the exact moment when “magic” lost it’s ability to inspire awe.

Vastness conjures images of majestic natural and man-made wonders.  The Grand Canyon, Great Wall of China, Mount Rainer, and the Empire State Building are frequently instilling awe – they’re big, they’re old, and it’s tough to fully grasp the how and when of their creation.  I’m certain you could come up with a similar list of things that have instilled feelings of awe.  Actually…it would be helpful if you did make that list.  Writing down our experiences of awe helps us build memories and access those feelings more readily.  Even if you only take a few minutes, see what it’s like to write about one thing that has inspired awe – write about it’s vastness and how you felt in relation to that vastness.

Now, we get to the surprising part.  As someone that has spent hundreds of nights hiking and sleeping under the open sky, I had a firm understanding of how awesome (literally) our natural environment can be.  It’s pretty easy to experience awe in the midst of wilderness.  The research supports this; however, nature is not the most consistent trigger of awe.  When scientists complied data from around the world, they found that social experiences were the most consistently identified triggers of awe.  Specifically, witnessing birth, death, and the generosity of others had the biggest impact.  Those three things, while not necessarily physically or temporally vast, can certainly be difficult to fully comprehend.  How do I wrap my head around the idea that two humans can create a third living-breathing person?  How do I make sense of the extinction of the same human life?  And, how do I make sense of a truly selfless act?  An act that could theoretically result in an expedited end to the generous person’s life?

Every culture has found a way to explain these awe-inspiring events, and most of them have created systems and entities of vastness to explain life, death, and generosity.  Whether it’s a version of an all powerful creator or a resting place that has no limitations of time or space, our cultural explanations for the awe in day-to-day life only serve to expand and amplify the sense of awe.  That makes sense, right?  The only way to explain an awesome experience is through something equally or more awesome.  Both science and religion end up at the same place when explaining awe-inspiring experiences.  Science concludes that the universe is 14 billion years old (vast and impossible to comprehend).  Many religions conclude that the world was created by one or more unearthly entities (vast and impossible to comprehend).  I guess we can’t help ourselves when it comes to trying to make sense of the world we live in, but when it comes to awe, the only explanation of awesomeness is more awesomeness.  I like that.

Now lets zoom-in.  Forget that the universe is 14 billion years old and two living things can create another using virtually no resources.  Let’s look at the third example of awesomeness in social life.  When reflecting on powerful experiences, right alongside life and death (and on the same list of awe-inspiring stuff like the Pyramids) is witnessing acts of generosity.  This gets me extra excited because I CAN DO THAT.  I can be generous.  Plus, I can appreciate the generosity of those around me everyday.  By simply paying closer attention (being mindful) and working to recognize the generosity of others (being grateful), I get to experience awe on daily basis.

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Mental and Emotional Fitness

My perspective on mental health continues to move further and further from the traditional medical model.  Identify symptoms, track causes, treat the disease – repeat.  I’m a much bigger believer in a preventative health model, the model that states we can avoid many illness and recover faster from the ones we do encounter IF we are taking good care of ourselves along the way.  The preventative model, while not actively implemented, is universally accepted.  I don’t know anyone that argues against the idea that regular exercise and a healthy diet can prevent many diseases and improve recovery rates for many others.

It’s important here to distinguish between being mentally and emotionally fit and being happy.  These are two extremely different things.  Happiness is a impermanent emotional experience.  Fitness is a slow-to-change state of being.  In the course of building and maintain fitness in this realm, I’m confident that there will be increasingly more opportunities to feel happy.  However, just like being tired one day doesn’t mean you’re not physically fit, being sad or anxious one day (or a few) doesn’t mean that you’re not mentally/emotionally fit.

Things are more clear with physical well-being.  Everyone knows that smoking cigarettes, consuming excessive alcohol, and subsisting on Doritos and Mountain Dew may have serious health impacts.  No one expects to be healthy when they consistently avoid healthy behaviors and engage in unhealthy behaviors.  No one is surprised when their doctor tells them that regaining health will require a change in lifestyle – consistent, long-term changes in diet and exercise.  We all accept the fact that physical fitness comes through committed effort.

It’s the same for our mental and emotional fitness.  It’s just harder to see.

Many people fall into patterns of mental and emotional sabotage then lament their lack of contentment.  They engage in unhealthy behaviors every single day then honestly wonder why they don’t feel mentally and emotionally well.  They judge, criticize (themselves and others), focus on the worst part of their day, build walls of righteous anger, fill the world with blame and shame, fail to communicate assertively, ignore their feelings, neglect boundaries, compromise their values, and passively watch life go by….then they complain about not being happy.

It’s the equivalent of someone watching their twelfth straight episode of “House of Cards” on Netflix, finishing off a pack of cigarettes, and washing it down with the last swallow in two-liter of Mountain Dew and pondering, “Why isn’t my body in peak physical condition right now?”  It sounds a little silly, but many people expect mental and emotional well-being without the work.  They expect fitness without committed effort or significant changes.  To be fair, it can be easy to mistake moments of happiness with genuine emotional fitness.  Unfortunately, it’s a costly mistake that allows people to justify a wide variety of strategies for exercising mental fitness.

The same way poor physical health makes physical injuries more likely and recovery more difficult, poor mental and emotional fitness can make people more prone to mental health “injuries” – diagnostic levels of depression, anxiety, substance use, etc.  as well as making recovery from those illnesses more challenging.

Now, physically fit people still fall ill and suffer some of the same maladies as those less concerned with physical health.  They can still suffer from heart attacks, broken bones, and pneumonia.  Mental illness is no different.  Practicing mindfulness, exercising gratitude and compassion, engaging in values-based living, and working to maintain a healthy mental outlook doesn’t guarantee  mental well-being.  Nothing can completely protect you from illness.  Mental and emotional fitness is about quality of life before, during, and after those illnesses.

So what’s it take to get fit?  The guidelines for physical fitness have been well defined.  According to the World Health Organization, adults benefit from spending at least 150 minutes per week engaging in moderate-intensity activities.  That’s 30 minutes five times per week, roughly 1.5% of your time each week.  Let’s apply the same standard to mental and emotional fitness.  Spend approximately 150 minutes per week actively engaged in becoming mentally and emotionally fit.  Whether that means meditation, writing a letter of gratitude, challenging distorted thoughts, practicing compassion, or seeing a therapist – carve out 1.5% of your weekly schedule and prioritize your emotional well-being.  Get fit.

As a therapist, people usually come to me after they recognize an illness.  The preventative piece is gone in terms of the present struggle.  I’m the cardiologist that meets the patient for the first time after the heart attack.  Not ideal, but it’s a place to start.  If I have the opportunity to work with someone on developing skills, building strategies, and creating a life-style, I’ve got a chance to help them get fit, to help them avoid (or lessen) future illnesses, to help them enjoy life a little more.  I’m grateful for that opportunity.

 

 

 

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10 Most Common Distorted Thinking Patterns: Part 4

In the first three installments we explored distortions that created catastrophes from our imagination and another that was the least helpful filter ever then we looked at how the polarization of thought impacts us and the dramatic limitation of “mind-reading.”  Then,  it was on to Emotional Reasoning and Should Statements.  Today we cover Personalization and False Permanence

  • Catastrophizing
  • The Mental Filter
  • Black-and-White Thinking
  • Mind-Reading
  • Emotional Reasoning
  • ‘Shoulding’
  • Personalization
  • False Permanence
  • Blaming
  • Magical Thinking

Let me remind you – as you begin to challenge these distortions, for effective change, take the time to write down the specific unhelpful thoughts as you recognize them and write down the alternative thinking patterns that will set you on the path to healthier ways of perceiving your experiences.  You’ll see overlap in how these patterns feed into one another, each one making the others a little easier to believe, creating a seemingly unified (albeit distorted) vision of life.  Don’t be fooled.

  • Personalization:  Not every mistake is your fault, and even if it is your fault, it doesn’t mean you’re bad, stupid, or incompetent.  Personalization begs to differ.  This distorted thinking pattern tells you that every misstep is attributable to you as a person; every mistake in your life is indicative of some shame-inducing character flaw.  It tells you that when your kids misbehave at school, it means you’re horrible parents.  When we don’t get invited to the party, it’s because we’re worthless.  When we get rained on it’s because the world hates us.  Personalization invites us to take every perceived slight, criticism, or inconvenience as an attack on our humanity.  A disagreement is an insult.  A furrowed brow is a harsh judgment of your decisions.  This distortion can also be flipped towards others and generally wreaks havoc on interpersonal relationships.  If you assign global characteristics based on isolated behaviors, you’re likely to create patterns of judgment and criticism.  If forgetting to feed the dog means your partner is an idiot, you’re relationship is in trouble.  If arriving late means your in-laws are inconsiderate and selfish, it’s going to be tough to fully enjoy Thanksgiving dinner.

Challenging Personalization: While I encourage everyone to take personal responsibility for their own decisions, challenging personalization requires a clear line to be drawn between what is and isn’t you’re responsibility.  More important than taking responsibility only for yourself, is the practice of attributing consequences accurately.  What does that mean?  It means we all need to practice explaining circumstance, situations, and other people’s choices is a way that is not destructive to our own sense of self-worth.  Attribute random events (birds pooped on your car, the bus was late, you were cut off in traffic) to the lottery of the universe.  No more.  No less.  Recognize that no one is out to get you.  The birds don’t have it out for you.  God doesn’t hate you.  It didn’t happen because you are inherently bad or deserving of misfortune.  Work to accept the fact that poop happens – even to good people.  Attribute apparent personal attacks appropriately too. When your friend, partner, child, coworker, or some stranger is having a bad day and treating you poorly, it doesn’t mean that you’re being a horrible person.  Assess our own behavior, and make necessary course corrections, but don’t assume that their bad day means that you’re inadequate.  In concrete terms, describe the situation, validate your emotional experience, resist, refute, or redirect when global labels pop up, then take decisive values-based action.

For example, if I’m not invited to the party…

Rather than beating myself up because I’m clearly a worthless friend (that’s distorted personalization) that no one wants to be around (and that’s mind-reading), I 1) describe the situation (without judgment): I wanted to go to the party and I didn’t get invited, 2) validate my experience: I feel hurt, lonely, and rejected…it’s painful, 3) take values based action:  I value my health and challenges, so I’ll take this time to jump on the treadmill.  Notice the lack of judgmental name-calling directed at myself or the host of the party.  Also, no assumptions were made about anyone’s intentions.

  • False Permanence:  One sure way to create stress, anxiety, hopelessness, and despair is indulging in the distorted concept of false permanence.  This particular pattern often appears as a combination of black-and-white thinking and catastrophizing along with a paralyzing perception of permanence.  It’s clear how this type of false permanence could lead to emotional discomfort.  “Everything is bad and it always will be!” sets you on a clear path to hopelessness and despair.  If we eliminate the possibility of change, the current circumstance can never improve; we can never grow; our efforts to initiate change will feel worthless.

Conversely, falsely assuming positive experiences and emotions will remain permanent can also lead to significant distress.  “Everything is perfect and always will be!” can set you up to fall hard when changes occur.  The lack of psychological flexibility is at the core of this distortion.  Clinging to any moment with an unwillingness to accept change will result in unnecessary suffering.

Challenging False Permanence: Accept the present moment and embrace the certainty of change.  Whether the experience is comfortable or uncomfortable, work to accept it as it is, letting go of expectations (especially judgmental expectations).  Mindfulness exercises can help build the skills necessary for nonjudgmental observations.  In conjunction with the effort to accept, embrace some version of the mantra “Nothing is forever,” “This too shall pass,” “Change is inevitable,” or “Live for the possibilities of today.”  In other words, actively remind yourself that your reality IS NOT permanent.  Throughout this process it’s important to be kind and compassionate with yourself, working to avoid other thought distortions, while encouraging yourself and seeking healthy support.

As you challenge this particular pattern, be careful to apply it to only to your mental or emotional experiences.  There are certain aspects of life that are permanent.  Certain types of loss, such as death, are permanent, and that is not a distortion.  The thoughts and feelings associated with those losses, however, are fluid and ever changing.  It can be easy to fall into the trap of connecting the real permanence of death with false permanence of the emotional experience.  This comes up with many permanent or mostly-permanent losses – death, break-ups, job loss, relocations, etc.  Even if these changes are permanent, the emotional experience never is.  It always changes.  Challenging this pattern is about recognizing, anticipating, and appreciating the ups and downs we’ll all face.

Next up, we’ll tackle Blaming and Magical Thinking, and we will have gotten through all ten of the most common distorted thinking patterns.  Part five will also include a downloadable PDF compiling all of the blog posts.

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10 Most Common Distorted Thinking Patterns: 2

Last time we focused on one distortion that created catastrophes from our imagination and another that was the least helpful filter ever.  Today we’ll explore black-and-white thinking and mind-reading.  We’re on our way to covering all ten…but tackling two at a time seems halfway reasonable.  There was a time when these distorted thinking patterns were referred to as “irrational” thoughts.  While I understand the technical absence of rationale inherent in these thought patterns, “irrational” carries some significant negative connotation.  It’s often an accusation or an insult – “Ughhh!  Stop being so irrational!” or “If you weren’t being so irrational…”  This negative connotation and these types of comments are disproportionately directed at women, but in my experience, men are just as likely to fall into these “irrational” patterns as women.  In order to start from a place from equality (less accusatory and insulting), let’s stick with referring to these extremely normal, yet unhelpful, thought patterns as “distorted.”

  • Catastrophizing
  • The Mental Filter
  • Black-and-White Thinking
  • Mind-Reading
  • Emotional Reasoning
  • ‘Shoulding’
  • Personalization
  • False Permanance
  • Blaming
  • Magical Thinking

Let me remind you – as you begin to challenge these distortions, take the time to write down the specific unhelpful thoughts as you recognize them and write down the alternative thinking patterns that will set you on the path to healthier ways of perceiving your experiences.  You’ll see overlap in how these patterns feed into one another, each one making the others a little easier to believe, creating a seemingly unified (albeit distorted) vision of life.  Don’t be fooled.

  •  Black and White Thinking: This distorted lens can create false dichotomies in any and every situation.  It polarizes every effort, every person, and every experience.  This means that your workout was either AMAZING or absolute MISERABLE.  You looked PERFECT or HORRID.  You’re a great parent or an abject failure.  You’re the best or your nothing.  Your goals DOMINATED or you FAILED.  This distortion also seems to mandate the use of absolute language.  Whenever you hear “always”, “never”, or “everytime”, you’re likely dealing with black-and-white thinking.  Spending too much time thinking this way can easily lead to hopelessness – it becomes almost impossible to feel successful.

Challenging Black and White Thinking:  You may see some significant similarities with the Mental Filter problem.  These two distortions go together.  By filtering out all positive aspects of person, thing, or experience, it quickly becomes an extremely negative version of itself.  Black-and-White thinking confirms and amplifies the contrast between your hopes and your reality.  Your task is to find the gentle middle ground in-between the harsh extremes.  Acknowledge that you weren’t perfect or horrid; your workout wasn’t amazing or miserable.  Most things are someplace in between.  Allow for (and even cultivate) more complex perceptions.  Actively identify the aspects that are going well and the ones that aren’t – incorporate both sides, and avoid the absolutes.  If your mind give you a “never” or “always,” recognize it for what it is, and start to celebrate the successes that will almost certainly be found in the middle-ground.

  • Mind-Reading:  I’d like to believe that if I had the capacity to read minds, I would use it for more than confirming people’s negative perceptions of me.  Unfortunately, this distortion takes the concept of mind-reading to very dark places.  The mind-reading distortion allows us to be fully hooked into the assumptions we make about what others are thinking.  We become certain about their intentions and how they really feel.  It may be something straightforward like, “She thinks I’m stupid” or “He hates me.”  Throw in a few additional layers of social networking and mind-reading becomes extremely complicate and messy.  It can destroy relationships and lead to a sense of constant social pressure when the assumptions are self-critical.  A wave and a smile becomes a sinister ruse aimed at tricking you into foolishly desiring a friendship you don’t deserve (insert evil laugh)!!!  Or…maybe it was just a smile and a wave.

Challenging Mind-Reading:  It wouldn’t be responsible for me to tell you to just stop doing it.  I’ll try to be a bit more helpful.  A large factor in challenging this distortion is simply becoming aware of when you’re doing it and then not buying into the story.  If you’re well practiced at mind-reading (many of us are), the information that was gathered telepathically immediately becomes integrated into the mental narrative as fact.  Recognizing where the information came from can loosen the “fact” label significantly. Ask yourself, do I know this or am I assuming it? When in doubt, stick with external observations.  What did they DO?  What words did they say?  List what you observed, making sure it’s free of assumptions or judgments, then respond accordingly.  They smiled and waved, now I will smile and wave.

Alternatively many times you can just ask what someone is thinking or feeling.  You might say, “I noticed you were scowling, and I’m a little worried you’re upset about something I did.”  No need to assume.  If you insist on assuming, and creating a narrative based on those assumptions, the very least you can do, is build and interesting and helpful narrative rather than one that is destructive and critical.

 

Next we’ll cover Emotional Reasoning and, one of my personal favorites, Shoulding

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Skills I’d Rather Not Have: Inventing Catastrophe

We’re generally more attuned to potential dangers, to things that can harm us or put our lives at risk.  Our brains have been honed to see the snake in the grass, the poisonous berry, the lurking enemy, and the loose step.  In facing these threats, we fill-in any gaps of knowledge with a narrative that makes sense.  We want to create some certainty in a precarious situation, and we do that by creating stories to make all the pieces fit.  Based on observations and the emotional experience, what makes the most sense?  When we’re hurt, scared, or otherwise suffering, that narrative turns dark quickly.  The driver in front of you that failed to use their blinker (you recognize the potential danger and now feel mildly scared) gets caught up in a narrative that completes the story of “The idiot that tried to kill me and is probably the worst driver in the world because why would anyone not use their blinker……etc.”  This explanation justifies the fear.  If the narrative was, “That responsible driver had a minor oversight in the application of normal safety protocols, but it didn’t really impact my safety in the grand scheme of things” the fear would have no rational explanation.

Our internal narrative acts to justify our emotional responses, to explain them, to make them more predictable. Unfortunately, these justifications often only serve to intensify and/or prolong the emotions.  This effect of emotional amplification is common when we try to rationalize, control, or judge our our emotional experiences.

In our heads, the airplane turbulence quickly become a failing engine.  The coughing child is informally diagnosed with tuberculosis.  The angry boss is definitely making plans to fire half the department. Perceived threats lead to fear, fear motivates the need for an explanation, and our minds happily oblige, providing a narrative that is often unhelpful to say the least.

There are two primary approaches to managing this problem.

  1.  Change the narrative.  Take control over the story, and create a narrative that does NOT intensify or prolong the uncomfortable emotions.  It can be a reasonable alternative or a ridiculous exercise in creative writing.  Perhaps that turbulence is a slight breeze that will subside momentarily.  Or, it could be that Superman was flying along beside the plane and gave us a little nudge.  When you take control of the narrative, you can influence the emotional response.
  2. Accept the emotion.  Acknowledge the fear, observe the narrative, and work to let it be.  Let yourself be scared without a “reasonable” explanation. It’s okay to be scared when you hit turbulence (It’s always okay to be scared).  Allow yourself to complete this sentence “I’m scared and….”  You can be scared and imagine all the most horrible things that could happen during a plane crash (that’s what we want to avoid).  Alternatively, you can feel scared and take some controlled breaths.  You can feel scared and chat with the person next to you.  You can feel scared and play Tetris on your phone.  Engaging in actual behaviors can help move you out of the narrative in your head.

Both approaches go against the default strategies of most people, making them especially challenging to apply when facing a perceived threat.  It takes self-awareness and practice, but the benefits are ubiquitous.

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Beyond the Buzzword: Mindfulness

Mindfulness has become popularized in the last several years.  With the explosion of yoga for physical fitness and increased use in psychotherapeutic interventions, mindfulness has become commonplace.  But what does it mean?  Does the CEO prompting his employees to be mindful mean the same thing as the instructor of the hot yoga class you take on Saturday morning?  Does being a mindful parent create different outcomes than the mindfulness taught in schools?  Do you have to meditate or chant “ohm” to be mindful?  Can you be mad, stressed, scared, and overwhelmed and still be mindful?

Anyone can be mindful and they can do it whenever they want.  I’ll try to simplify as much as I can while explaining mindfulness in a way that goes well beyond the buzzword and the image of the meditating yogi.  Boiling it down to a single sentence, it looks like this:

Mindfulness is the ability to control attention, non-judgmentally, in the present moment.

Now, let me unpack those three primary components.
1. Controlling Attention: This does not equate to controlling specific thoughts or emotions. Controlling attention involves the ability to focus and refocus with intention.  It’s the ability to recognize the thoughts, emotions, and sensations as they happen then choose what you focus on and how you pay attention it.  Our mind, left to its own devices, wanders.  That’s normal; that’s to be expected.  Through some consistent effort, we can improve our ability to maintain focus and be more mindful.

2. Acceptance: This is the opposite of judgement. Observing our thoughts, emotions, and sensations without evaluating or passing judgement is often a major paradigm shift in terms of how we interact with our experiences.  Being genuinely mindful requires the practice of compassionate observation.  Judging experiences as “good” or “bad”, sorting thoughts into “should be having” and “shouldn’t be having”, or delineating emotions into “strong” and “weak”, only serves to distance us from the reality of the experience.  This lack of acceptance creates some inherent discomfort.  By observing and accepting our internal and external experiences without judgment, we can engage without the self-created (and unnecessary burden) of “right” and “wrong”, allowing us to be a bit more comfortable and make more room for joy.

3. Remaining Present: We experience more than enough in any given moment to safely let go of the past and stay out of the future without fear of being bored or unfulfilled. However, to be content in the present moment requires the previous two skills. Without the ability to control attention, the present moment can quickly become overwhelming.  Without acceptance, the present moment can be unbearably uncomfortable due to the incessant judgment. Ultimately our experience is the accumulation of single moments, so being able to engage with each moment will lead to a more fulfilling experience.

At any time, you can apply these three basic components in order to effectively practice mindfulness.  While you do the dishes, pay attention to how the water feels on your skin, or the sound of the water as you rinse the dishes.  Do that without judging the feelings or evaluating the sound and BOOM!  You were just mindful.  Sitting in traffic?  Notice your thoughts, imagine them drifting through your head, and allow them to be there.  BOOM!  You did it again.  You were mindful.  It’s as simple as that.

Go.  Be mindful.  Let me know how it goes.