Tag Archive - anxiety

Embracing Powerlessness, prt. 2

December 8, 2011 in COUNSELING, GODSTUFF with 0 Comments

In my previous post I tried to clearly show that the path to peace is to embrace powerlessness. I showed that we have very little power over most of the things we care most deeply about. The question is how do we actually embrace powerlessness? The answer is as common as it is profound: by acting powerless.

Gestalt Therapy uses a technique called “acting as if.” This is where the therapist tells the client to act as if he/she is already the person he/she wishes to be. If he struggles to speak to women, he should act for a while like men act who do not struggle to speak to women. If she struggles with confidence, she should act like women who have confidence. This is what is often called, “fake it ’til you make it.”

If what I wrote yesterday is true, and we actually are powerless over a great deal of our lives, then the sooner we embrace this the better. And the way we embrace powerlessness is by acting powerless. Continue Reading…

Responsible TO or Responsible FOR?

May 26, 2010 in COUNSELING with 4 Comments

I used to nearly puke when I was grading papers.  In every class, there are always a few students who just don’t follow directions, and thus end up destroying their grade.

I am a firm teacher.  I write down requirements in the syllabus and expect students to do exactly what I have asked them to do.  But I am also clear.  I go over instructions again and again and again, which of course never stops one or two students in every one of my classes from completely disregarding them.  Students who do this simply cannot get a good grade in my classes.

A while ago I worked through a stack of final papers, and came to “one of those.”  I could tell right away my syllabus had been at the bottom of this student’s reading list.  I could also tell I was probably going to spend longer grading this mess than the student may have spent writing it.  I dutifully graded the paper, slapping a D on it.  But I did not do it happily. In fact, I did it with a sick feeling in my stomach.  I realized this grade would probably cause this student to fail my class, which meant it would have to be repeated, which would mean a few thousand dollars on top of an already expensive education bill.  I worried.  I fretted.  I played it over and over again in my mind.  I looked for ways to grant a few more points without violating my conscience and being unfair to the students who had actually attempted to meet requirements.  I lived under a dark cloud for several weeks, feeling upset and frustrated at this student for putting me in such a terrible position.  Next time I saw this student I struggled to make eye contact, even though I had done nothing wrong.  In the middle of this, I talked to a friend about how sick I was feeling about the whole situation.

“That’s because you are taking responsibility FOR these students, rather than simply being responsible TO them,” she said.

I dismissed her.  “I’m a counselor.  I know the difference.  I’m not bearing this student’s burden, I’m just fretting over whether or not I did right by him.”  A few hours later she shot me an email.

When I FEEL responsible FOR others: Continue Reading…

Meditation (anxiety, prt. 3)

October 26, 2009 in COUNSELING, GODSTUFF with 3 Comments

DON’T STOP READING!!

No matter how much the word “meditation” makes you want to tune out, I encourage you to hang in there.  Hang in there, even though meditation is seen by many as some esoteric practice, meant only for a) monks, nuns, and the hard-core religious; b) kooky, or touchy-feely people, both of which probably watch way too much Oprah.

Meditation, in fact, can be a critical practice in  helping us to relieve much of our anxiety.  Although it should not be viewed only as an anti-anxiety tool, it certainly can play a signfiicant role there.  In this post I am going to attempt to explain the reason why meditation is needed, and I will do this primarily from the perspective of alleviating anxiety.

I have established in previous posts that the root of anxiety is our thinking.  Anxiety is what results when the basic fear response, common to all sentient beings, joins up with imagination (as far as we know, found only in humans).  In other words, without imagination, there can be no anxiety.  Anxiety is always fear of this or that possibility, and a possibility, by definition, is something that 1) has not yet happened, and therefore; 2) is imagined.  Since anxiety is the result of the fear response combining with imagination, then learning to focus on the present moment will alleviate anxiety.  Meditation (called by Christians “pure prayer,” or “silent prayer”) teaches this in a way so profoundly simple that it seems almost too good to be true — or too easy to be effective.  But it is both true and effective.

Have you ever been completely lost in the present moment?  I mean so absorbed in a moment that you completely forgot about yourself and your own existence?  Perhaps you were watching your children play, or maybe you were having sex that took you to a place beyond all thought, or completely immersed in something funny, or just having so much fun you were simply enjoying it.  There is never anxiety in those moments, because we are simply in the moment.  No conscious “thinking” is going on, we’re just riding that wave — whatever it may be — and loving it.  Though we will often think about these moments afterwards, the thinking was not necessary for enjoyment of these amazing moments.

Normally we think in order to solve problems.  We think in order to make plans.  We think in order to do our jobs.  We think in order to do well in school, and have good conversations, and raise our children prudently and skillfully.  We think in order to analyze our situations and make good decisions.  These are all healthy ways of thinking.  But when thinking runs amuck, you have anxiety.  Continue Reading…

Anxiety, prt. 2

October 16, 2009 in COUNSELING, GODSTUFF with 0 Comments

In my last post I mentioned that the best way to overcome anxiety is not to face it head-on, but to undermine it — to subvert it.  This is just a way of saying that the old advice, “Try not to worry,” could not be more useless than it is.  When we try not to fall, we pay more attention to our balance, and thus we are less likely to slip up.  When we try not to look stupid, we pay more attention to our behavior and may be less likely to do something socially unacceptable.  But when we try not to worry, we pay more attention to what we are thinking, and this is the last thing we should be doing.

The kinds of things that work best for anxiety are things that keep you in the present moment.  Anxiety is nearly always about the future, so the more focused you can stay in the present moment, the better.  The follow four techniques came from my good friend Tim McVay, a practicing psychologist, who specializes in treating people with anxiety.  Tim shared these techniques with me when I called him in desperation a while back, and they are effective. Continue Reading…

Anxiety

October 15, 2009 in COUNSELING, GODSTUFF with 2 Comments

Anxiety, by Stathis Stavrianos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/stathis1980/

Anxiety, by Stathis Stavrianos

Comedian Steven Wright describes chronic anxiety better than anyone else I’ve ever known.  I will paraphrase him loosely here:

You know that feeling when you’re sitting in a chair and you rock back on two legs and you go back too far and you start to fall, then at the last minute you catch yourself?  I feel like that all the time.

That’s it.  That’s what it feels like to live with anxiety.  It’s a feeling I wouldn’t wish on anyone I deem to be a basically valuable person my worst enemy.

I have worried for most of my life.  And I don’t mean worrying about normal stuff, like sliding into a ditch during a snowstorm, or about one of my kids when they are sick.  I mean making up stuff to worry about.  I mean watching the news (which, if you haven’t noticed, is always bad — and if it’s not, it’ll be spun that way anyway) and then taking it even further in my mind, spinning it into nightmares more horrible than any that would be spun on the AGBATT (All Glenn Beck All The Time) Channel.  Incidentally, this is how you get to have your own show on CNN — take a headline, run the story out to its ultimate dreadful conclusion, speak loudly and urgently, have experts on your show to agree with you or, hopefully, tell you that it’s probably much worse than you think, and combine it with flashy graphics and other high intensity entertainment pieces.  (If you’re unsure how to do any of this, from the fear-mongering to the flashy and entertaining graphics, simply visit most contemporary churches to learn how).

What was I talking about?  Oh yes, anxiety.  It’s amazing how our minds can take us from one thread to another to another, until eventually the stream of thoughts take on a life of their own and carry with them all the force of reality.  I am an expert at this.  I have seen things that would scare most people half to death.  I mean I’ve SEEN them.  In living color.  Playing on the screen of my mind.  Engulfing my emotions in wild flurries of helpless panic.  I have lived in this state for hours, sometimes days, sometimes weeks, at a time.  It doesn’t matter that they weren’t “real.”  My brain obviously didn’t know the difference, and generated the adrenalin and dread anyway.

Tons of people live with chronic anxiety and panic.  Some are reading this post, and I have a message for you.  You don’t have to live that way.  Continue Reading…