I visited The Science Galleries exhibition, 'On Edge, Living in an Age of Anxiety' recently – it’s beautifully done if you get a chance to see it for yourself.
Some of our coaching clients experience high levels of anxiety in their professional and/or personal lives. When this is deep seated and beyond the boundaries of coaching we often refer them to specialist support, such as CBT.
What we tend to see much more of in coaching is the pervasiveness of worry in our clients’ everyday lives. These clients always wish they did not worry so much because they know worry is not serving them well. Worry can be a significant interference, a niggling voice that takes away their energy and, crucially, their presence right there in the moment when they just want to enjoy, say, a family day out or, very commonly, a dread-free Sunday evening.
There are those people who genuinely don’t worry about very much at all. They often give the impression of having a sense of balance and perspective. Yes they worry, but only about critical issues and even then they quickly apply logic and take action. Worry does not consume them; it does not hold them back. My offer is if you are not one of these people, rest assured that you are in the majority!
What can we do to get more control over excessive worry? The good news is that there are plenty of options and I want to offer just one approach that is not widely used, but seems to be highly effective with those clients who commit to it:
Setting aside worry time
Put aside a period of time, say 30 minutes, each day. This is the time to permit yourself as much rumination and worry as you want – to let out all the concerns that are niggling away in your head.
To do this, find a place where you will not be interrupted and write down all your worries, ideally as a stream of consciousness. Include how you feel about the worries – what emotions are tied up in all this? Don't spell check or correct your grammar and let any words come out, however random they may seem – only you are going to see this. Evidence shows that applying words to our feelings is a tremendously useful way to deal with worry and stress. There is nothing magical about writing by the way – you can achieve the same results by talking out loud – they key is to get the words out of your head and into the world.*
Having completed your 'worry time', worry will still try to creep in at other times in the day. When this happens practice telling yourself, “I have time to worry about this later, but for now worrying is a distraction and not the best use of my time. What is the next action I now need to take?”. Note the focus on action here.
When you have practiced this and got into a rhythm, you might want to go a step further by setting aside a whole day in the week when worry is simply not permitted. When you wake up on this day notice how it feels to remind yourself that this is a day when you have decided that you are not going to worry. At any moment when worry creeps in immediately remind yourself that today you have given yourself permission to not worry. Tomorrow you have time set aside to worry and can deal with these thoughts then.
How liberating would this be?
What would you be capable of if you were worry-free for an entire day?
This approach is not about stopping worrying – this isn't attainable, nor is it healthy, but it's about taking control of when and how much we worry.
As Alain de Botton tells us: