Injunction [What to do]:
- Identify the activities that you do that soothe you when you are anxious.
These may be actions that are ways of being that are intrinsically relaxing
or they may be actions that are a form of acting out or an addiction. - Before you do the activity that soothes you, feel the anxiety until you can
clearly name what you are anxious about. If you can’t identify it, try to
stay with the feeling for a while and just let yourself feel the anxiety. - If the feeling gets too strong, simply do what soothes you
Why do it [Rationale]:
We all feel anxious. From time to time, the anxiety gets so strong that we act in
ways to soothe the anxiety…to make it go away.
Anxiety is a natural and normal response to our inability to resolve
problems in our life. The purpose of anxiety is to draw our attention to the
problem so that we can give it attention and solve it. But sometimes the anxiety
gets so intense that it gets in the way of our ability to act creatively. At these
times, we need a break from the anxiety.
We all have ways to soothe ourselves. Some of these strategies are ways
of being that offer a genuine alternative to the way of being that generated the
anxiety. But some of these strategies are things we do to mask or mute the
anxiety itself. In any case, we are not going to address and resolve the problem
until we know that we have a problem and we know what the problem is. The
point of this discipline is to stop the self-soothing until we are sufficiently aware
of the problem such that we can do something to address it, rather than simply
masking the symptoms of the problem.
What it will get you [Promises]:
You will feel more anxious. We are mostly unaware of our anxiety. As we pay
attention to it we discover that we always have at least a low level of anxiety.
This is perfectly appropriate. If you have no anxiety at all, you are dead. But
when you pay attention to it, you will notice it more and more. So the first
promise is that you will become more aware of your anxiety. That doesn’t
really sound like a good thing.
You will be less anxious. But the second promise comes from the awareness.
That is, the more aware you are of your anxiety, the less of it you will have.
You will naturally mobilize your resources to address the problems that are the
sources of the anxiety in the first place. Alternately, the less attention you give
to your anxiety, the more of it you will have.
You will have more energy. The third promise is that, as you become more aware
of the anxiety, you will put more of your time and attention to addressing the
problems, and you will spend fewer of your resources on avoiding the anxiety
in the first place.
Suggestions:
Notice what you find boring. Boredom is the feeling we have when what we
have been doing to avoid the anxiety isn’t working any more. Just notice:
are you ever bored watching TV? How can that be? They spend millions on
making every instant powerfully engaging. But when we are choosing to watch
TV as a way to not feel the anxiety, after a while the anxiety builds up and the
TV watching doesn’t work anymore to mask the anxiety. We feel bored with it.
Whatever you are bored with is something that you are doing to mask anxiety
or it is something that generates anxiety. Try to notice when you are bored and
to find the source of the anxiety.
Keep a list of what you do to self-soothe. You probably have many things
that you do. Some of them are just ways of being [taking a walk, listening
to music] but some of them are ways of doing that are designed to hide the
anxiety [eating compulsively, smoking cigarettes]. Try to identify as many of
the strategies that you use to self-soothe as you can.
When you notice yourself using one of the strategies, stop yourself and see
if you can identify what you are anxious about. Practice feeling the anxiety and
work on being able to tolerate more and more of it until you can feel it very
clearly. Remember, you can always return to what you do to self-soothe if the
anxiety becomes too much for you.
When you do use one of your strategies to self-soothe, don’t be critical
of yourself. You are just doing what you do to care for yourself. It isn’t
bad to care for yourself. Simply notice what you are doing. Don’t beat up
on yourself.