For most of her life, Janet has had what she calls “bad luck” when it comes to romantic relationships. If you ask her, she’ll tell you it all started in the 9th grade when a senior boy asked her to be his date to the prom. It’s not every day that a freshman gets plucked out of obscurity and thrust into the spotlight of senior prom activities, and Janet was over the moon. Turned out, the whole thing had been a ruse. The boy had used Janet to make his ex-girlfriend jealous, which apparently worked, and two weeks before the prom he broke the date with Janet.
I mean, talk about a shitty thing to do, right? Janet was devastated. Humiliated. Hurt. It was a traumatic experience and, probably goes without saying, it left Janet with some serious trust issues. Now, coming up on twenty years later, any time a man shows interest in Janet, she gets that spinning feeling in her stomach (not the warm and fuzzy kind), her chest tightens up, it feels like her face is going to melt right off her head. Janet wants to be in a relationship. She wants to be married and start a family. But she can’t get past the paralyzing anxiety that consumes her.
So what’s the deal with anxiety, anyway? What is it? Why do we feel it? Where does it come from? And just what in the heck can we do about it? For most of us, anxiety rears its ugly head when we’re trying to control something that’s completely out of our control. When we focus on some painful experience from our past (like an immature A-hole using you to make his girlfriend jealous) we’re putting our attention there in order to avoid or prevent a similar experience from happening again. Problem is, it’s hard to move forward when we’re constantly focusing on painful things from the past. In fact, it usually draws us toward the very thing we’re trying to avoid.
If you’ve ever learned to snow ski, you were probably told to always look at the gap between the trees. Don’t look at the tree or you’ll run into the tree. Because you’re going to go to the place where you’re looking. You probably thought, that’s ridiculous, I’m not going to run into a fricking tree if I’m looking right at it! Then you’re out on the slopes, first time on your own, you’re a little scared, the adrenaline’s pumping, and here comes a tree. You hear the instructor’s voice, “Look at the gap! Don’t look at the tree!” But you’re looking at the tree because you don’t want to run into the tree and if you take your eyes off the tree how are you supposed to avoid the tree and now you’re throwing yourself to the ground because if you don’t you’re going to go face first into the tree.
Anxiety’s kind of like that. The tree is the bad thing that happened in the past. It’s there, it’s not going anywhere, and as long as you’re focused on it, you’re going to keep running into it. But with some training, intention, and practice, it’s possible to turn anxiety off and start creating the results you want. The next time Janet decides to jump into the dating pool and she feels that old anxiety bomb starting to tick, she can learn to stop and ask herself: Am I focused on the past? What am I apprehensive about? What bad or painful thing am I concerned is either going to happen or is going to reoccur? Oh yeah, that time Brad Bowman shattered my soul. But she doesn’t have to get stuck there. She can use some simple techniques to calm the nervous system, acknowledge the emotions that are present, then shift her focus to the outcome she would like to create instead. Remember, we can’t control or change what happened in the past. The past is a done deal, in the books, a tree that isn’t going anywhere. But we can control what we choose to do in the moment.
So, when we’re talking about anxiety, rule number one is that when we focus on some past event or experience with the hope that we can avoid or prevent it from happening again, the result will almost always be an onset of anxiety. Rule number two is the other side of that coin: focusing on the future.
Oscar is a small business owner. He set out on his own five years ago and, even though it’s always been his dream to be his own boss, he spends most of his time in a constant state of anxiety. Is the supply order going to arrive on time? Am I going to meet my expected sales? Am I going to be able to cover my overhead? As a kid, Oscar watched as his parents always fretted over money. It seemed the family was always one step away from complete disaster. Eventually, the stress brought the marriage to an end. Oscar’s nervous system was programmed to react to financial insecurity like a nuclear bomb that’s about to detonate.
The problem, like Janet focusing on her past, is that Oscar has no control over what happens in the future. Stewing over his supply order isn’t going to make it show up any sooner. The brain, or the unconscious self, wants to focus on the bad things that might occur in the future, or how things aren't going to go our way, with the idea that if we name those bad things, we'll be able to do something to avoid it. But then the opposite ends up happening. We’re back on the ski slope, staring down that tree barreling toward us.
In some ways, focusing on the future can be even more insidious than focusing on the past. At least Janet can point to Brad Bowman and say, That guy really did a number on me. But Oscar’s focus is on things that might happen. And that can make for a rough slog. I mean, we might all wake up tomorrow to news that a meteor the size of Detroit is hurtling toward Earth. Probably not going to happen, but try to spend the rest of your day absolutely convinced that it will.
So whenever anxiety is present, notice that the mind is focused on something bad or painful from the past with the idea that we're going to make sure it doesn't happen again, or we're focused on the idea of something bad that is going to occur in the future, and therefore we're going to try to avoid it. But the reality is we can't do anything about the past or the future. You can't control tomorrow as it has not come yet, and you can't do anything to change the past as it's already happened.
Instead of focusing on what we can't control, we want to bring our attention to vision. We want to fulfill the outcome that we want to achieve, which is going to ignite a sense of inspiration, joy, and excitement within us. When we focus on what can be done right now, what actions we can take in the moment that move us toward fulfillment of vision, we're going to train and condition empowerment and strength and inspiration, rather than anxiety.
So don’t let anxiety be the defining emotion in your life. Join us for our Power Series and learn the tools, techniques, and strategies for recognizing when anxiety is present and how to shift your focus to the here and now. Click HERE to learn more about the Power Series and sign up today!