Top Tips June 2023

Often when we feel anxious or panicky we think that what we really need is to feel calm and peaceful, and we try to create this state using the various tools we’ve learned.
What I’ve noticed, though, is that it doesn’t always work easily either for me or for those I work with.

Because anxiety often creates adrenaline, and because adrenaline doesn’t disappear immediately from our system, it can take a little time to regulate ourselves.

If you have a tendency towards ‘What If….’ and catastrophizing the potential outcomes of something you are about to do – and if moving towards feeling calm and peaceful doesn’t always seem to work for you….try this….

I’ve worked with people in anxious states for many years now. What they often have in common is a wish to try and control what happens in the future by imagining all the potential things that could go wrong, just so they can predict what to do in each of these scenarios, or indeed predict what a bad idea it is to do the thing at all.

So looking to be calm about the future will be useful

But what if you also had access to feelings of CURIOSITY and FLEXIBILITY?

What if you could move into these future scenarios with a sense of curiosity, wondering what might happen and being interested to find out

And also knowing you could navigate them easily whatever happened?

How can you do this?

Firstly, cast your mind back to a time you were curious about something, interested to find out more. Maybe you were little and investigating a beetle, maybe you were trying out a new recipe or perhaps you were wondering how many miles it is to Timbuktu

When you’ve found that time, imagine it’s happening right now in the present and you can see what you see, hear what you hear and feel what you feel. Breathe in this feeling and give it a colour. Fill yourself up with the colour and flow it into the future scenario you’ve been worrying about. How does that change how it feels?

Secondly, do the same with a time you felt flexible, or something you do in your life where you remain flexible. Maybe it’s when you’re playing with small children, or you really don’t mind what kind of chocolate you eat as long as it’s chocolate, or perhaps you don’t care what you’ll have for dinner as long as it’s food. Get in touch with this feeling of flexibility/not caring/going with the flow. Flow this feeling into your future scenario in the same way as before.

See yourself in the future with these colours and feelings of curiosity and flexibility, as you are interested to navigate this situation in a new, interested and interesting way.