You Can’t Think Your Anxiety Away

Welcome! Yesterday I talked about challenging the belief—what if I am broken? Today I am talking about one of the toxic beliefs that self-help and personal development have taught us. If we know something intellectually, we SHOULD stop it and change it quickly. 

I spent too many years believing the self-help myth to change your story or stop thinking about it.

My brother-in-law, who admittedly is a little skeptical of therapy, sent me a comedy sketch on you-tube a few months ago,

It is an old Bob Newhart sketch where he plays a therapist, and his client comes into the office, and he shares that he charges $5 for the first 5 minutes of therapy, and then after that, it is free. Justifiably the client is thrilled by this setup, but Newhart cautions her that it won't take more than 5 minutes, so don't get too comfortable. As the client starts talking, she shares her fear of being buried alive in a box, and whenever she thinks about being buried alive in a box, she panics. And then Newhart says, "Ok, I have two words for you that will heal it. And he yells, "STOP IT." She looks at him, confused, and he says, "Am I speaking Yiddish—stop it?"

This sketch made me laugh. Not just because it is absurdly funny—but also because, for too many years, I believed change was that easy. I should be able to change my thoughts or stop being anxious. Just stop it. And then, inevitably, when it wasn't that easy, my Monger would go crazy beating me up for how I failed yet again. 

Much to my disappointment, I am not a robot. I do have feelings, needs, and thoughts. I even have irrational thoughts that I think are rational. No matter how much I analyze myself, I will have days where my anxiety is unexplainably high, or my Monger is unjustifiably cruel. No matter how I try to stop it from happening, I can't. 

We have to own what we are experiencing. Like the woman afraid of being trapped in a box, she needs to give herself kindness for that fear. And then, she needs to figure out strategies to calm herself when that fear arises. 

I had to go to the grocery store on Saturday afternoon. I hate going to the grocery anytime, but Saturday afternoon is especially awful because everyone's at the grocery store on a Saturday afternoon. I just needed to run in and grab some cat litter. 

So, I go to the grocery store. I get my cat litter; I'm standing in line. I'm annoyed. I had worked all morning, and I was tired and hungry. As I'm standing there, I'm just getting more and more frustrated and anxious. My head was racing with how much time I was wasting and how much I needed to get done. 

I first tried to change my thoughts by beating myself up. I kept saying to myself, "Come on, it's no big deal. Stop being so grouchy and judgmental. This shouldn't be a big deal." As if beating myself up and telling myself to stop it was going to make me feel better. 

Then I tried changing my thoughts through positive thinking—you shouldn't be grouchy, you are warm and safe in the grocery store, and you are lucky to buy cat litter. 

Finally, I said to myself, "You know what, let's own this. You hate the grocery store. You hate the fact that you're here, and you're frustrated. And that's ok, but we are here. So we have to calm down a bit. "Ok, check. Got it. We own it. Now, what are you going to do about it? You're stuck in this line, and you can either stand here and be grouchy, or you can stand here and figure out another way around this.

Let's practice some gratitude. I stood there, looked around, and thought, "What can I be grateful for at this moment?" In my grouchy mood, I couldn't come up with anything. I got nothing, people. There is nothing I'm grateful for here. I'm so annoyed at the world; I just can't figure it out.

Finally, after taking some breaths and looking around, I thought, let's go basic. "Ok, I am grateful that I can come to one place and get all my food. That I don't have to make a trip to the butcher, and a trip to the baker, and a trip to the farmer's market. All can come right here at this store." That was the thing I was grateful for.

Once I started switching my mind to ok, what am I grateful for? And let's take it basic. I'm grateful for the people who farm for my food. I'm grateful for the people that raise the beef. I'm grateful for the people that make the cat litter so we don't have to deal with it. 

I started to dig in a little deeper, and I was able to play that little game, get out of my head, and improve my mood a little bit. By the time I got up to the clerk to check out, I had this great interaction with her, and she was friendly, and we just hit it off by talking about cats. My grouchy mood had dissipated a little bit.

Because I practiced self-loyalty and owned the fact that I was grouchy, I wasn't just beating myself up for it. The key takeaway here isn't that I practiced gratitude or eventually changed my mood.  

The key takeaways are:

We have to do this important step of owning it and giving ourselves permission to be wherever we are, even if it is unpleasant or unacceptable. We don't have to stay in a bad mood, but we need to own it to start shifting it.  

Not pile on the judgment and the criticism.

Once we can own where we are, THEN we can move on to a strategy that works to change our perspective. 

For too long, I swallowed the belief that my thoughts, feelings, and needs were unacceptable, and IF I could stop and change my thoughts, be more grateful, or think positive, I would be acceptable. But the truth is, we are humans, and sometimes we have unacceptable thoughts, feelings, and needs, and that's ok. It is our job to notice them and own them. We don't have to act on them, we just have to own them, and then we can implement strategies to change them if needed.

Notice how often you tell yourself to just stop it and THEN try to give yourself permission to own wherever you are. 

And if you have ANY thoughts, questions, or ah-ha's about the content—send me an email at questions@selfloyaltyschool.com or fill out the Q&A form. Ask Nancy Jane, and I will answer them in the next Q&A session. Q&A sessions will be recorded and appear on the Ask Nancy Jane podcast feed and in the member area on the last Tuesday of every month.

See you Tomorrow!