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Tame Your Anxiety: Powerful Tools You Can Use Today
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00:00:52.430 5. MAKE A MIND MAP
00:08:27.270 6. PLAY MIND GAMES
00:15:07.110 7. USE THE ABC MODEL TO UNDERSTAND YOUR STRESS
• Making a mind map gives us perspective and clarity on the chaos that may be in our minds. Start with a single word or phrase and do a “brain dump,” then look for patterns and themes, asking what you can control and what you cannot. One of the best cures for anxiety is to ask what you can realistically do about your situation.
• The ABC model helps us understand the antecedents, beliefs, and consequences of our stress reaction, and allows us to re-engineer our perspective and behave differently.
• One option is to simply distract yourself by giving your brain an engaging “mind game.”
#Consequence #Fantasize #INVESTIGATE #MAKEAMINDMAP #MicheleMcDonald #PLAYMINDGAMES #THEABCMODEL #UNDERSTANDYOURSTRESS #RussellNewton #NewtonMG #AnxietyistheEnemy #YourAnxietyManagementToolkit-PartII #NickTrenton
Transcript
Hello listeners, it's March 11, 2024, a Monday of course, and you're tuned in to The
Speaker:Path of Calm, the podcast dedicated to helping you stop overthinking, become present, and
Speaker:find peace.
Speaker:In part two of our series based on Nick Trenton's book, Anxiety is the Enemy, we're building
Speaker:your Anxiety Management Toolkit.
Speaker:Today we pick up with tool number five and finish out the section, so if you're ready
Speaker:to take control of your anxiety, grab your headphones and let's dive in.
Speaker:For more from Nick Trenton, take a moment and hold on a bitly slash Nick Trenton.
Speaker:Thanks for joining us today.
Speaker:What does anxiety and overthinking look like?
Speaker:Close your eyes right now and visualize how rumination and stress look.
Speaker:If you're like most people, you might imagine one thing, chaos.
Speaker:Anxious thoughts are characterized by never ending loops, knots, tangles, and too many
Speaker:thoughts piled up on top of each other in a complete mess, right?
Speaker:Brain dumping is a seriously useful tool for cutting through this mind clutter and finding
Speaker:sweet, sweet clarity.
Speaker:Think of it as an organized brain dump.
Speaker:Instead of letting that plate of crazy mental spaghetti swirl around in your head, you put
Speaker:it down on paper.
Speaker:From there, you can get some relief, start to organize things, claim back a little control,
Speaker:solve problems, take action to improve what you can, and let go of those things you can't
Speaker:change.
Speaker:It's as though you're in a crowded and chaotic train station, running around, getting freaked
Speaker:out about every tiny detail, but when you make a mind map, you zoom out and get a bird's
Speaker:eye view of everything.
Speaker:Suddenly you don't feel so overwhelmed, and you can also start to see how things can be
Speaker:simplified, decluttered, and slowed down.
Speaker:The technique is very simple.
Speaker:First get out a piece of blank paper and a pen or pencil, and sit somewhere you'll be
Speaker:undisturbed for a while.
Speaker:Begin with a focus word or phrase.
Speaker:You don't have to nail down the single big issue that's worrying you.
Speaker:Just put down the first main problem that springs to mind.
Speaker:Importantly, you don't want to get distracted by doing it right or analyzing at this stage.
Speaker:Just give yourself permission to put everything you're thinking of onto the page.
Speaker:Overthink it.
Speaker:For example, you sit down and imagine your head is a jug and you're pouring everything
Speaker:out.
Speaker:The first word that comes out is deadline.
Speaker:You scribble this in dark menacing letters at the center of the page, then draw some
Speaker:branches around it.
Speaker:On these branches, you explore different aspects of this main nub of anxiety.
Speaker:You could explore, for example, how you feel about it, the people involved, physical sensations
Speaker:the history of this idea or feeling, events in the past, thoughts about this idea, related
Speaker:areas of concern, why it's a problem, other complicating factors.
Speaker:From each of these branches, you extend more details.
Speaker:For example, branching from deadline could be, I feel resentful and obliged and exhausted
Speaker:as feelings about an upcoming tight deadline.
Speaker:With the resentful branch, however, you may discover you have even more mental material
Speaker:to dump and draw more subbranches.
Speaker:I agreed to this when I knew I shouldn't have.
Speaker:This may lead to some other branches to do with your job or boundaries that need strengthening.
Speaker:More on this in a later chapter.
Speaker:Now for the second part.
Speaker:Once you've put everything down, just pause for a moment to see if there's anything else
Speaker:in there.
Speaker:Remember that you're not in problem solving, judging or organizing mode just yet.
Speaker:You are in brain dump mode.
Speaker:And yes, it will be messy.
Speaker:That's the point.
Speaker:How do you organize the mess?
Speaker:Well, take a breath and consciously ask your brain to go into a different mode.
Speaker:When we overthink and ruminate, we're in a state of mind where we're constantly distracted
Speaker:by endless detail and irrelevant minutia.
Speaker:To get out of anxiety, we need to stop being at the mercy of these meaningless details
Speaker:and start instead to take control of them.
Speaker:Cut through the clutter with these four questions.
Speaker:What can I control?
Speaker:What can I not control?
Speaker:What can I do to improve my situation?
Speaker:What really matters to me most?
Speaker:When we focus on control, concrete action and our values, it's as though we have a
Speaker:sword that cuts through mental confusion and overwhelm.
Speaker:Let's go back to our example.
Speaker:You look at the resulting mind map and ask first what you can control.
Speaker:You see that you cannot change the fact of the deadline or the fact of what you have
Speaker:already done in the past, but you see that you can control what you do right now.
Speaker:You have a look at your mind map and see some patterns.
Speaker:In previous maps, you might have made two.
Speaker:You keep turning these questions over and over again and the issue begins to take a
Speaker:simpler, clearer shape.
Speaker:It seems that every time you agree to act against your own principles or values and
Speaker:any time you take on work you think you should be doing rather than the work you can realistically
Speaker:do, then you feel stressed and resentful.
Speaker:Still, what to actually do with this insight?
Speaker:Well, you can make sure you act differently next time.
Speaker:But what about now?
Speaker:Perhaps you take a yellow highlighter and highlight only those parts of the mind map
Speaker:that you can reasonably do anything about.
Speaker:When you're literally staring at a page of clutter with only one or two yellow lines
Speaker:through it, you can see for yourself how much of your thoughts are useful and how much is
Speaker:pure distraction, stress, and overthinking.
Speaker:It sounds too simple, but sometimes if we can visually see how much of our stress is
Speaker:unnecessary, we can more easily let it go.
Speaker:The stressed mind loves vague, general visions of doom, but if you can narrow things down
Speaker:to specifics, put words to them, and start ordering your thoughts, you start to see how
Speaker:insignificant most of your thought traffic actually is.
Speaker:Mind mapping takes a little practice.
Speaker:Be careful that you don't inadvertently give yourself another tool for rumination.
Speaker:If you're feeling overwhelmed, go back to the four questions above.
Speaker:If you feel a little lost, look for patterns.
Speaker:For example, even though it feels like you have three dozen separate things to worry
Speaker:about, could they really all be versions of the same thing?
Speaker:And if you're feeling bad, try to find specific words to describe it.
Speaker:Everything is wrong and I hate my life is so big and overwhelming, but I'm overwhelmed
Speaker:right now by the number of tasks I feel people expect me to do is smaller and more manageable.
Speaker:Once you've gotten the hang of mind maps for stress management, you can incorporate other
Speaker:techniques covered in this book.
Speaker:For example, you can use a mind map to help you identify false beliefs you want to rewrite,
Speaker:ask questions of yourself, or put labels on the emotions you're feeling.
Speaker:Finally, it's worth remembering that sometimes a mind map alone won't magically solve all
Speaker:your problems or shine a light out of a dilemma.
Speaker:But what it will always do is put you in a proactive, rational and conscious frame of
Speaker:mind and this will make you feel calmer and more in control whether you solve the problem
Speaker:or not.
Speaker:6.
Speaker:Play mind games.
Speaker:One powerful weapon we have against useless overthinking is distraction or, as TS Eliot
Speaker:phrased it, distracted from distraction by distraction.
Speaker:Here's the thing, if you already know logically that your rumination does not serve you in
Speaker:any way, then you know you can safely ignore it.
Speaker:Fighting with overwhelming thoughts just makes them stronger.
Speaker:What you need instead is a complete break and to completely take your mind off things.
Speaker:Being distracted is sometimes the perfect and only way to short circuit rumination and
Speaker:give yourself enough of a break to gain mental serenity again.
Speaker:Yes, distraction has a bad reputation, but if we use it consciously and deliberately,
Speaker:it can be a way to quickly escape a runaway brain when things like mindfulness are just
Speaker:not going to work.
Speaker:Playing mind games with yourself is a little like catching an unhappy child's attention
Speaker:by waving a stuffed toy around.
Speaker:You can't rationalize with a two-year-old having a tantrum about something that makes
Speaker:no sense in the first place.
Speaker:All you can do is cleverly pull attention away long enough to get them to calm down.
Speaker:Think of your anxious brain the same way, it's just a child having a tantrum, it's
Speaker:just gotten stuck in the mud and needs a quick shove to loosen it again.
Speaker:Here are a few ideas to help you do just that.
Speaker:Game 1.
Speaker:Fantasize about the perfect day.
Speaker:If there were absolutely nothing to stop you, what would your perfect day look like?
Speaker:If you had all the money, time, and energy in the world, what would you get up to from
Speaker:the moment you opened your eyes in the morning?
Speaker:Have fun with it, if you like, you can construct your own imaginary hypothetical society or
Speaker:dream up the perfect home, it doesn't have to be realistic or make any sense, it just
Speaker:has to be entertaining.
Speaker:Game 2.
Speaker:Get lost in questions.
Speaker:Anxiety and curiosity are mutually exclusive experiences, you can't be both at the same
Speaker:time.
Speaker:Get in your child again and looking at the world with completely fresh eyes.
Speaker:What stands out to you?
Speaker:What's really weird when you start thinking about it?
Speaker:What have you always secretly wondered but never actually investigated?
Speaker:You don't have to come up with any profound insights or do anything to find out the answers
Speaker:to big questions, just playing around with being open and loose, like, who decided where
Speaker:the borders of countries go?
Speaker:What was it like when there were no countries?
Speaker:What was the first time they even used that word?
Speaker:Has there ever been someone born exactly on a boundary?
Speaker:Game 3.
Speaker:Go on a mental walk.
Speaker:One sneaky way to distract yourself is simply to give your poor, overworked brain a job that
Speaker:is pretty simple yet engrossing.
Speaker:You can displace anxious thoughts with neutral or pleasant ones that require your full attention,
Speaker:close your eyes, and picture a favorite place, a holiday you've gone on, or a well-known
Speaker:route you've traveled in the past.
Speaker:Now, mentally walk through this visualization, taking plenty of time to flesh out the details
Speaker:on each of the five senses.
Speaker:See how much you can remember from your childhood home or classroom, or try to reconstruct the
Speaker:layout of the supermarket you used to go to in another town.
Speaker:This is a great exercise when you're trying to fall asleep.
Speaker:Game 4.
Speaker:The alphabet game.
Speaker:This one is simple.
Speaker:Pick a broad category, like animals, food, or movies, then move through the alphabet,
Speaker:thinking of an item that starts with that letter.
Speaker:For example, ardvark, baboon, camel, dinosaur.
Speaker:You could make yourself think of three items before moving on, or make a special rule where
Speaker:you can avoid tricky letters like Q if you want to, or when you get to Z, go around the
Speaker:alphabet again and repeat the process with new items.
Speaker:Game 5.
Speaker:Build your mental museum.
Speaker:This is a little like going on a mental walk, except instead of fleshing out a memory you
Speaker:already have, you build something from scratch.
Speaker:Start by imagining that you're in a completely empty room with bare white walls, or go a
Speaker:step further and imagine no walls at all.
Speaker:Remember that scene in The Matrix?
Speaker:Now assemble a collection of things exactly as you want them.
Speaker:Maybe you could gather up a few favorite images or paintings, or make an exhibition of all
Speaker:your favorite items, or for that matter your favorite people.
Speaker:Get little mementos that remind you of happy memories, or of things you care about.
Speaker:You can make the theme of the museum anything you like, it can be personal, or simply a
Speaker:fantastical vision of a hypothetical museum you'd love to visit.
Speaker:Game 6.
Speaker:Memory Game.
Speaker:Give your brain the task of remembering a speech, poem, pattern, or sequence.
Speaker:Challenge yourself.
Speaker:You could also play counting games where you count backward, or skip ahead in fixed intervals,
Speaker:or go backward in fixed intervals.
Speaker:Game 7.
Speaker:People Watch If you're feeling anxious when away from
Speaker:home and need a distraction in a public place, try people watching.
Speaker:Watch people walk by, and try to guess their names, their occupations, their ages, or even
Speaker:their deepest secrets.
Speaker:See if you can imagine what each person is thinking at that very moment, or where they
Speaker:may be headed to.
Speaker:It's true that distraction can be harmful if done compulsively or unconsciously, but
Speaker:it can certainly be a clever way to manage stress if used wisely.
Speaker:You can even try inventing your own distraction games.
Speaker:The only aim is to find a mental activity that is absorbing it enough to pull your mind
Speaker:away from compulsive rumination.
Speaker:The idea is that once you've played the game for a while, you'll come back to the
Speaker:real world and discover you're feeling much more relaxed.
Speaker:7.
Speaker:Use the ABC Model to Understand Your Stress You're probably beginning to notice a few
Speaker:themes here.
Speaker:It seems that for all methods for tackling anxiety, we need to do the opposite of what
Speaker:our stressed and ruminative mind wants us to do.
Speaker:For example, where it wants to be general and vague, we can be specific.
Speaker:Where it wants to jump to conclusions, we can slow down and look at the facts.
Speaker:Where it wants to be irrational and panicky, we can be deliberate, conscious, and in control.
Speaker:One great framework for understanding a whole range of approaches to stress reduction is
Speaker:called the ABC Model.
Speaker:It pulls you out of the reactive unconscious frame of mind that is anxiety and puts you
Speaker:in a position to move forward.
Speaker:A is for adversity, or sometimes activating event, or antecedent, i.e. what came before.
Speaker:B is for beliefs that are triggered by the adversity.
Speaker:C is for consequences, our behavioral and emotional response.
Speaker:If we can understand the events that trigger certain thoughts and beliefs, and how these
Speaker:then in turn create consequences for us, i.e. stress, we can work backward to create a
Speaker:life that is closer to what we want.
Speaker:Let's start with the activating event.
Speaker:This can be internal, for example, a headache, or external, for example, a comment from someone
Speaker:else.
Speaker:Now, these stimuli in themselves mean nothing.
Speaker:We come in with certain beliefs and interpretations about them, and these can be rational or irrational.
Speaker:Let's say you have a headache, and this activates certain, usually automatic beliefs, just my
Speaker:luck.
Speaker:I'm not going to be able to work today.
Speaker:This is bad, and it's going to get worse.
Speaker:I can't believe this is happening to me.
Speaker:These thoughts then trigger certain emotions, in this case fear and worry.
Speaker:Importantly, it's not the event itself, but our interpretation of it that creates anxiety.
Speaker:But as you can see, the beliefs above are not exactly based in objective reality, they're
Speaker:distortions.
Speaker:When we're stuck in anxious rumination, we think we're solving a problem by dwelling
Speaker:on our beliefs themselves.
Speaker:For example, we might think at length about how bad the headache is, or how we're going
Speaker:to deal with the catastrophe it will turn out to be.
Speaker:But with the ABC model, what we do is examine the beliefs themselves.
Speaker:Who says the headache will be a catastrophe anyway?
Speaker:We don't take for granted that our beliefs are always accurate.
Speaker:If we feel anxious, it's usually because we hold beliefs, assumptions, and biases that
Speaker:trigger and maintain this anxiety.
Speaker:Change those beliefs, and we remove the anxiety.
Speaker:Here's another example.
Speaker:You find out that two of your friends are hanging out, but didn't invite you to join
Speaker:them.
Speaker:Activating events.
Speaker:You think, they've excluded me on purpose.
Speaker:Maybe they're talking about me right now.
Speaker:Beliefs.
Speaker:And as a result, you have trouble falling asleep that night and the next morning, you're rude
Speaker:to both of them, causing upset consequences.
Speaker:Now the ABC model helps us understand what has happened, but it also helps us go back
Speaker:and re-engineer situations so that we get the outcomes we want.
Speaker:One, first, identify the activating event, trigger, or antecedent, not being invited.
Speaker:Two, next, identify how you feel about this event or situation, ashamed, excluded, rejected.
Speaker:Three, then, see if you can find the belief behind this response.
Speaker:If they didn't invite me, it must be because they disliked me.
Speaker:Four, take a close look at this belief and ask whether it's really true.
Speaker:Is it rational?
Speaker:The belief is not really rational, since they could fail to invite you while still liking
Speaker:you.
Speaker:You realize that you have also spent time with them individually without inviting the other
Speaker:without intending any offense.
Speaker:You also realize that they are actually closer to one another than to you and that this isn't
Speaker:the end of the world.
Speaker:Other people can have close connections without it threatening you in any way.
Speaker:Five, try to recognize alternative interpretations of the situation or modify your belief.
Speaker:Your friends have not done anything to you.
Speaker:There isn't really a problem.
Speaker:In fact, seeing as they're doing a hobby you don't really like, you're a little relieved
Speaker:that they didn't invite you.
Speaker:Everyone has different reactions to stress, and we may ourselves vary in our responses
Speaker:over time, but we can always become aware of and moderate these responses.
Speaker:The ABC model helps us identify and change those irrational beliefs that cause anxiety.
Speaker:It's worth starting with emotions, because they're usually at the forefront of our experience.
Speaker:If you feel angry, investigate whether a boundary or right has been violated.
Speaker:If you're sad, look at what has been potentially lost.
Speaker:Fear and anxiety can point to beliefs that dwell on threat, real or imagined.
Speaker:Let's be honest, it's often imagined.
Speaker:Guilt comes from the knowledge that we've violated someone's boundary.
Speaker:Now, laying out examples on paper like this can make it seem fairly straightforward, but
Speaker:life is usually a bit more complicated.
Speaker:There are many ways we can use the ABC model.
Speaker:We can use it for small individual scenarios as they unfold in the moment, or we can use
Speaker:it retroactively to dissect recurring overall themes and patterns in our lives, or both.
Speaker:When you're exploring antecedents, bear in mind that there could be many.
Speaker:It could be a person, an event, or just a situation.
Speaker:Whether the setting or environment, timing, the hour, day, time of year, what sensory
Speaker:information is coming in, what isn't happening, people's behaviors or words, memories.
Speaker:Sometimes we don't even realize a memory has triggered us and instead think our anxiety
Speaker:has to do with what's happening in the present, or certain relationship dynamics.
Speaker:Likewise, there may be many resulting beliefs and thoughts that are triggered.
Speaker:You may find that a surface level belief, they've excluded me, sometimes conceals a
Speaker:deeper, more lasting core belief.
Speaker:There's something wrong with who I am.
Speaker:It's worth taking your time to dig a little.
Speaker:Finally, consequences can be varied and play out on different timescales too.
Speaker:We can ask what effects our beliefs have on us, either in the short term or the long term.
Speaker:In our example, the short term consequence is to lash out at the two friends, but in
Speaker:the longer term, you may discover that your core beliefs are actually getting in the way
Speaker:of your relationships in general.
Speaker:How you use insights gained from the ABC model is up to you, but here are three questions
Speaker:that can help you reprogram your conditioned response from each level, A, B, or C.
Speaker:A, is it possible to change or remove certain triggers and antecedents?
Speaker:How?
Speaker:B, if your resulting belief is irrational, how can you modify or completely replace it?
Speaker:C, can you change the consequences of your behaviors so that you reinforce the more
Speaker:rational beliefs?
Speaker:If the ABC model doesn't quite work for you, take a look at the RAIN framework created
Speaker:by Michelle MacDonald, a renowned meditation teacher.
Speaker:It's simple.
Speaker:Recognize or relax into what is emerging in your awareness, for example, your anxious
Speaker:feelings.
Speaker:Accept or allow it to simply be what it is.
Speaker:Investigate the thoughts and emotions that emerge.
Speaker:This includes bodily sensations too.
Speaker:Accept what is unfolding from one moment to the next.
Speaker:Here's how that could look, written as an inner self-dialogue.
Speaker:So I feel some stress coming on.
Speaker:I know this feeling.
Speaker:It's okay.
Speaker:I can let it happen, and it's not a problem.
Speaker:It really isn't.
Speaker:I'm going to relax and let this wave just pass, and it will pass.
Speaker:Oh, what's happening to me?
Speaker:I feel a weirdness in my chest.
Speaker:I recognize those core beliefs coming up in me, but I also notice that I'm not following
Speaker:that path into fear either.
Speaker:I'm having an anxiety experience right now, and it's okay.
Speaker:In fact, I notice that it's already waning.
Speaker:The reason this RAIN technique works is because it puts us in a frame of mind that cannot
Speaker:coexist with anxiety.
Speaker:When we are open, curious, and relaxed, we simply can't feel anxiety.
Speaker:So what happens if we relax into our stress response and just become curious about it
Speaker:rather than fearing it and resisting it?
Speaker:Most of us know what it feels like to fear the fear, but what does it feel like to be
Speaker:curious about it instead?
Speaker:Summary
Speaker:Whatever form stress and anxiety take in your life, it's worth having some psychological
Speaker:tools to help you manage it mindfully.
Speaker:Build more self-awareness by learning to label your emotions and noting how they feel on
Speaker:your body in the moment.
Speaker:You can also build self-awareness by keeping a regular thought diary or by taking psychometric
Speaker:tests.
Speaker:We don't have to accept our anxious thoughts as gospel.
Speaker:The Socratic Questioning Method asks us to look for evidence, become curious, and deliberately
Speaker:seek out alternative interpretations.
Speaker:We can likewise test our false beliefs by reappraising our assessment of the situation
Speaker:and the threat we see.
Speaker:Making a mind map gives us perspective and clarity on the chaos that may be in our minds.
Speaker:Start with a single word or phrase and do a brain dump.
Speaker:Then look for patterns and themes, asking what you can control and what you cannot.
Speaker:One of the best cures for anxiety is to ask what you can realistically do about your situation.
Speaker:The ABC model helps us understand the antecedents, beliefs, and consequences of our stress reaction
Speaker:and allows us to re-engineer our perspective and behave differently.
Speaker:One option is to simply distract yourself by giving your brain an engaging mind game.
Speaker:Remember, listeners, the path to calm is there for you one step at a time.
Speaker:Thanks for joining us today.
Speaker:If you found today's episode helpful, consider leaving us a review and sharing it with a friend
Speaker:who might also benefit.
Speaker:We'll see you next Monday.
