I figured my last “Lessons learned from” blog post was rather serious (find it here). So, I thought why not do a slightly lighter one, although still rather important. During my work with individuals who have anxiety, I often use this metaphor when describing our relationship to anxiety.
Let me say, at the onset that this metaphor is only one step in helping to live with symptoms of anxiety, and is not intended to be perfect for every situation. Therefore, please do not consider this a cliché meant to oversimplify or underestimate the difficulties in living with anxiety. If this is not helpful to you, or you need more tools in your toolbox, reach out to a professional to help you locate tools that will work for you.
Back to the metaphor! I remind my clients (of all ages) of the movie Monsters, Inc., by Pixar. If you are having difficulty recalling it, check out this video link to the trailer. Once we’ve established the movie we’re discussing, I begin to ask these questions.
- What was the Monsters’ job? To get energy for the energy plant.
- How do they get the energy? By scaring children.
- At any point in the movie does a Monster hurt the children? No
- Not even the bad guy? No
- What happens when Sully goes and visits Boo? She laughs at him. They become friends. He’s confused that she’s not scared.
- So, the Monsters’ job is to SCARE children, not to actually hurt them. it makes them believe they are in danger, and then they scream. But to be successful, the Monster never has to touch a child, in fact in the movie they are afraid of children.
You see, this is Anxiety’s job too! Anxiety is our body and mind’s natural way of trying to tell us, “Hey, I’m pretty sure we’re in danger!” Usually anxiety comes along with a thousand thoughts. Among those thoughts are “We’re going to die,” “Panic attacks will kill you,” “Something horrible is going to happen.” The thing about thoughts is, as I’ve said before, they aren’t all true, they aren’t all important and they don’t all have to be acted on.
Anxiety is an emotion that’s closely tied to our sympathetic nervous system. Yep! It’s our BODY and our mind telling us we’re anxious. When this gets kicked in, we can experience symptoms like dilation of pupils, increased heart rate, increased blood pressure, difficulty breathing. The BRAIN (our biological organ) will send all of its attention to these things making sure it gives us what we need to respond to the “danger” that our mind alerted us to. When it does this, other parts of our BRAIN get less attention, primarily the cerebral cortex. and frontal lobe. For those of you whose human anatomy and biology terms are a little rusty. This is the part of our brain that does the “thinking.” So, in other words, we’ve got a ton of physical stuff going on and our thinking brain can’t get through all of that to even figure out if we are actually in danger or not!
So when I work with a client who is living with anxiety, one of the things we look at is “What would you do if anxiety WERE’NT an issue?” Answers vary wildly: Go shopping alone, try out for a play, go on a date, ask for a promotion, fly in a plane. Then the important question: “Why do you want to do that thing?” (You see if it’s not important to you, you’re unlikely to actually do that even if anxiety doesn’t come along for the ride). Answers again vary wildly: I want to be self-sufficient, I want to belong, I love music, my grandkids live across country, being successful is important to me. Once we’re sure it’s important to them then comes the VERY important question, “What small step are you willing to do even if anxiety comes along for the ride?”
Sometimes we start with thinking about thinking about it. Sometimes even just imagining getting on that plane is so overwhelming that they can’t possibly do it without experiencing a panic attack. So, we start with thinking “What would it feel like to sit here and know that next week I am going to ask you to think about flying; not committing to it, just thinking about it.” And we sit with those thoughts and feelings together. What we learn in that moment, together, is that the anxiety does come. It does say that it’s so painful the person can’t abide it. AND they do abide it. AND they can do it.
By learning to take VALUE DIRECTED steps even when anxiety is present, we add a huge tool to our toolbox of living the life worth living! We begin to realize that I can’t control what thoughts may come. I can control what thoughts get my attention and I can choose my responses. There is great power in that.
DISCLAIMERS:
Here are my disclaimers. Some disorders are a result of even further biological imbalances that create a chemical salience to thoughts. Others are complex and tied in to other disorders both physical and mental. Such disorders may require further intervention, to include medication. This ability to recognize the above tools and capabilities is not intended to diminish the other interventions available. Instead, it is to add a tool to your toolbox. For some, this tool will be the only one they need to access. For others, they will use many tools in their lifetime. Our journeys don’t look the same, our bodies and brains are not identical. AND our minds can all benefit from learning these coping skills.
Final disclaimer: sometimes we feel similar to anxiety when we have made a choice that’s not in line with our values, or we have hurt someone close to us. If when your “thinking brain” is working again you realize this has occurred, stop and make amends if possible.
For more thoughts along these lines, check out our blog post What’s So Wrong with Avoiding?
I own no rights to any of the pictures or clips of Monsters, Inc. They are property of PIXAR. Care was taken to use promotional images on the internet. for public consumption.