One of the most disorienting aspects of anxious moments is the way our thoughts and physical sensations can race ahead of us. In these instances, we typically can’t quite catch up to our minds and bodies long enough to make sense of what we’re experiencing, which only serves to add to our already heightened feelings of worry and distress. Frustratingly, while everything is moving quickly on the inside, we often simultaneously find ourselves paralyzed on the outside.
A powerful strategy for overcoming anxiety consists of learning to play back these internal hyperspeed moments in slow motion. We’ll look at how to do this, but first let’s examine why this is so effective. For an illustration, we turn to a brilliant music video by the always inventive band, OK Go.
In their video, “The One Moment,” OK Go takes 4.2 seconds of footage and extends it in slow motion across the length of their song, which lasts nearly 4 minutes. When you first watch those 4.2 seconds in real-time, it’s almost impossible to make sense of what you’re looking at. It’s a head-spinning, chaotic blur of colors and explosions. But when you see the same moment slowed down, you begin to experience wide-eyed awe and wonder at every detail as it unfolds gracefully in time with the music.
At the end of the video, the same 4.2 seconds plays again, in reverse. When you see this “one moment” the second time around, suddenly it begins to make more sense. You can now pick out and appreciate individual elements (like bursting water balloons, shattering glass, and exploding guitars) to an extent you couldn’t before.
The same thing can happen for us after we’ve practiced putting our moments of anxiety into slow motion: we can begin to make better sense of all the fast moving pieces in ways that shift our entire experience and empower us to generate new responses.
Back to the question of “How?” Just as we can only put a moment caught on video tape into slow motion after the fact, we can only put anxiety into slow motion retroactively. In a calm, quiet moment, we can return to a recent experience of anxiety and review each detail of what happened, effectively slowing it down before our very eyes.
I created an easy format to help you practice this, you’ll find ithere.
Once we’ve replayed the details of one anxious moment in slow motion, we begin to find a new ability to attend to all kinds of aspects of our experience that might have moved too quickly for us to observe before. The next time an anxious moment comes to visit, we are better prepared to pick out individual elements — even as they play out in real-time speed.
This gives us a new competitive edge in the games anxiety likes to play, because now we can more quickly make sense of what we’re experiencing. We gain a greater sense of control and mastery amid the chaos when we can say, “Aha, I know what is happening here!” As we feel more sure of ourselves, anxiety loses its grip on us. Disoriented and powerless feelings move to the background, replaced by a growing confidence that enables us to step forward into new possibilities for calming our thoughts and feelings.
Your most recent anxious moment can be the “one moment” that matters. Go ahead, play it back in slow motion. Trust me, you’ll be glad you did.
— Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear
A couple of months ago, I found myself painting an elephant. It was one of those events with an instructor taking a sizable group of us through the intricacies of elephant portraiture stroke by stroke. You can see the end result for yourself — this canvas will not be finding its way into any fine art galleries any time soon!
But you know what? I enjoyed the heck out of creating that ill-proportioned, awkward-looking behemoth. I savored the feeling of the brush squishing in fresh paint and the whispering sound it made as it whooshed across the textured canvas. I marveled at the colors I created on my paper plate pallet; the way such a tiny drop of white could shift the entire vibrancy of a hue.
Meanwhile, all around me, my table mates could be heard grunting and grumbling, with mounting frustration and discouragement. Harsh self-judgments, embarrassment, comparison, and shame echoed all around. I found myself feeling sorry for these disenchanted artists. They were so busy holding themselves to lofty standards of elephant painting that they were missing out on all the joy I was relishing. But I could well identify with their plight: how often have I found myself similarly criticizing my imperfect efforts when I could have been having fun with my shortcomings instead?
It was a moment that crystallized for me the importance of focusing on being present to the process over evaluating the outcome. The difference between me and the grumblers wasn’t that I was a better painter or a more naturally cheerful person, it was simply that I had set a different focal point for my experience. Being present to the process set me up for joy and wonder; focusing on the outcome set them up for frustration and disappointment.
The holidays are coming, and with them increased opportunities for grunting and grumbling. Between social pressures and self-imposed expectations, we often hold unexamined, lofty goals that turn our attention toward evaluating outcomes. Such an outcomes-over-process perspective sets us up for anxiously trying to avoid perceived failures and harshly criticizing ourselves when we fall short, both of which make it more difficult to relax and enjoy the (supposedly) “most wonderful time of the year.”
What might happen if we could apply the same principle that leads to joyful elephant painting to our holiday endeavors? As you anticipate upcoming holiday plans, which ones are most likely to bring out anxious thoughts or self-critical feelings? What are the outcomes on which you might tend to focus, distracting yourself from opportunities for finding joy? Now take a moment to shift your focus to aspects surrounding the process of those activities that you are most likely to enjoy. Imagine what it might be like to hold those life-giving elements of your experience in the forefront of your attention. How might your experience shift as your focus shifts?
As Elizabeth Gilbert aptly stated, enjoying anything in life is often a courageous act that sets us apart. When the expected stress of the season arises within and around us, “paint the elephant” can serve as a motto that redirects our thoughts and restores our sense of calm.
“Paint the elephant.”
Bring your attention to being present to the process instead of worrying about outcomes.
“Paint the elephant.”
Relish whatever goodness you can cling to in your experiences, even when they fall short of your hopes or expectations.
“Paint the elephant.”
Allow yourself to make mistakes, to get it wrong, and yet … to have a grand time anyway.
As a young child, I once darted away from my parents and gleefully jumped into the deep end of a pool. I had done this many times before with my water wings on to keep me afloat, but this time was different: I jumped in bare armed with no inflated support to buoy me. Fortunately, my folly was spotted quickly, and I was fished out of the water before I could quite comprehend what had happened. In time, with support and swimming lessons, navigating the deep end on my own became second nature.
As adults, few of us would jump into the deep end of a pool if we hadn’t learned to swim, and yet we conceptualize change as requiring that we “take the plunge,” ready or not. We often view change as an all or nothing prospect, requiring grand gestures that lead to dramatic results. Once we are fed up with the way things have been, we can can trick ourselves into believing that the only way forward is to dive immediately headlong into everything different.
When we approach change this way, we unintentionally set ourselves up for frustration and self-doubt. If we try to take on too much change too quickly, we may end up thrashing about haphazardly while gasping for air, like a child in the deep end of a pool. Once we’ve experienced that kind of unpleasantness, it becomes a lot more appealing to sit by the side of the pool than to get back in it. We start to tell ourselves that change is too scary, or that we don’t have what it takes, or that it’s not really going to be that great after all.
That’s why it can be helpful to think about making change a little bit at a time, like dipping toes into the shallow end. Once we get a feel for the water, we are more comfortable wading in a little deeper, and a little deeper, and a little deeper. Perhaps we can even find a trusted teacher or friend to model strokes for us. If we take our time, not only are the changes we are making more enjoyable, but we might even take off swimming before we are fully aware that we’ve learned the motions.
You have probably heard that change is difficult and that we have a human tendency to resist anything new; yet, some schools of thought embrace change as a natural process and view people as inherently wired for transformation. Solution-focused therapists, for instance, believe that change is “inevitable” and “always happening” (Gehart, p. 337). Similarly, collaborative therapists observe that “we are never at a standstill; our meanings, our bodies, and so on are always in motion” (Anderson & Gehart, p. 11). In other words, perhaps change is already in us, and all around us — not something “out there” that we have to “make happen.” In fact, an underlying thread throughout postmodern methods of counseling is the notion that we are likely already living into the changes we wish to make to a greater degree than we realize.
A favorite metaphor of mine for change is sailing into the wind. When sailboats are heading in the direction that the wind is blowing, they can move quickly and easily toward a destination. But often a sailboat needs to move against the wind. It seems impossible, doesn’t it? Yet experienced sailors tackle this feat regularly. How? The practice is called “tacking upwind,” and you can watch a quick illustration of it here.
When a captain tacks the sailboat upwind, she moves the ship forward in a gradual zigzag pattern — back and forth, back and forth, a little bit closer to her endpoint with each turn. Click here for a diagram. If the captain were to attempt to sail directly upwind, she wouldn’t move an inch; she would be stuck. Sailors have a name for this experience: “caught in irons.”
Whatever the change you are wanting in your life, it may help you to make your way forward one zig or zag at a time. Be patient with yourself and with those around you. Take a moment to notice and celebrate even the smallest steps you make; recognizing one experience of success, however small, lays the foundation for your next move. If you have already found yourself floundering in the deep end, or “caught in irons,” that’s okay, too. Step back, calmly take stock of your surroundings, and look for a gentle entry point to try again. If you don’t see a way forward immediately, allow yourself to rest and come back to your goal in a few days.
Wherever you are at right now in the process of change, congratulate yourself for being brave enough to start the journey. You have already begun to make a change, just by deciding where you would like to go. Keep at it, no matter which way the wind may blow — the change you are seeking is already unfolding.
Mr. Wing’s grandson: Look Mister, there are some rules that you’ve got to follow.
Rand Peltzer: Yeah, what kind of rules?
Mr. Wing’s grandson: First of all, keep him out of the light; he hates bright light, especially sunlight — it’ll kill him. Second, don’t give him any water, not even to drink. But the most important rule, the rule you can never forget, no matter how much he cries, no matter how much he begs: Never feed him after midnight. (Gremlins, 1984)
Today, I offer the fifth and final post in a series that I began back in June, with Through a Glass Darkly. Throughout this series, I have been playing with the idea that all of us go through our lives wearing pairs of invisible eyeglasses with lenses comprised of thoughts and beliefs that we have come to hold about ourselves, other people, and the world. I have suggested that some of these thoughts and beliefs make for “dirtier” lenses than others, in that they restrict — rather than expand — our sense of what is possible for us, and in our lives. We can talk about these restrictive thoughts and beliefs as contributing to moods and behaviors that resonate with catabolic/negative energy, which weighs or even breaks us down, rather than anabolic/positive energy, which animates us and builds us up. In Energy Leadership: Transforming Your Workplace and Your Life from the Core (2008), Bruce D. Schneider writes about catabolic thoughts and beliefs as “energy blocks” that get in our way of making conscious choices, and prevent us from reaching our potential (129); he identifies four of these obstacles, and calls them limiting beliefs, assumptions, interpretations, and gremlins (with “gremlin” simply being another way to reference what many of us call our inner critic). In previous blog posts, we have looked at limiting beliefs, assumptions, and interpretations; today, we explore the last of the four “energy blocks” — gremlins.
Schneider defines a gremlin as that part of us that fears in some way (or many!) that we’re just “not good enough to cut it” (141); we may worry, for instance, that we’re not smart enough, attractive enough, and/or experienced enough — the list can go on and on, as most of us know. “Your gremlin,” Schneider writes, “tells you not to try, never to take a risk, always to take the safe road, and to compromise your life by playing small” (140); left unchecked, your gremlin can begin to convince you that you are small. As examples of gremlin activity, he points to thoughts that he has heard Richard, his fictional client in Energy Leadership, express during their conversations together. Richard, the owner of a small business that has fallen on hard times, has told Schneider that he feels like a failure, and that he has let his employees down, because his company is currently struggling (141). Schneider asserts that Richard is giving voice to his inner critic in thinking, feeling, and speaking of himself in this way, as “not good enough” (i.e., a “failure”). This kind of negative self-talk resonates with catabolic, rather than anabolic, energy; Richard feels beaten down, hopeless, and could tend to shrink from opportunities for improving the situation — after all, what’s the use?
As another example, on a personal level, I’ll confess that I wrestled with my own gremlin when I was thinking about leaving my salaried job as a therapist to go into private practice as a therapist and coach. While I believed that I was good at what I did, part of me wondered if I should take the risk, if it wasn’t better for me to remain where I was (with the steady paycheck!), rather than to follow my dream of having my own business (setting my own schedule; seeing clients that I wanted to see and who wanted to see me, specifically; etc.). As someone who identifies as an introvert, and also struggles at times with a sense of anxiety in social situations, I worried that I wasn’t “good enough” socially to network successfully, or to communicate effectively to potential clients the benefits that they could experience through our work together. I fretted that if I couldn’t network or communicate in the ways that I imagined necessary to cultivate a thriving private practice (anyone also hear a limiting belief in this idea?), I wouldn’t be able to “cut it” on my own. I’m so happy now that I didn’t let my gremlin hold me back!
There are ways for us to challenge our gremlins, of course, which will likely sound familiar to anyone who is already familiar with cognitive-behavioral responses to anxious thinking, especially to those patterns of thought we can call negative core beliefs. The first step, in my own view — as with any of Schneider’s “energy blocks” — is to recognize that we do not have to accept everything that we think, even about ourselves, as “true.” We don’t have to believe everything we think! When we are able to hear the pronouncements of our inner critic as beliefs about ourselves that we have developed over time, based on what we have been seeing through the lenses in the invisible eyeglasses that we wear — rather than as “facts” — we create new possibilities in thought, feeling, and behavior for ourselves. When we catch our gremlin telling us that we’re “not good enough” in some way, and experience even the vaguest sense of dissonance reminding us that another part of us — our “inner genius” (142), Schneider says — knows better, we can begin to hear the voice of our inner critic more objectively, then, as saying less about us, and more about a habit that we have and can change of seeing ourselves in an unhelpful way. Some people find that naming their gremlin and describing it in physical terms helps them objectify it — separate from it, get some distance from it — more effectively. I once attended a training in which, as participants, we had the assignment of drawing, sculpting, or creating in some other fashion a physical representation of our gremlin. This was not long after I had undergone surgery for a salivary stone, an experience that I had decided to refer to as “having some of my fear removed” (at the time, I was working through those apprehensions I mentioned about leaving my job to start a private practice!). I used white Play-Doh to give my gremlin the shape that I imagined a large salivary stone to have, and put it in an empty medication bottle. I still keep this physical representation of my gremlin around to help remind me that my gremlin is only a part of me, not all of me, and not even the strongest or most influential part of me — not any longer.
In responding to your own gremlin over the next couple of weeks, should you choose to do so (the key to your cage is in your own hand!), I invite you to think about the three rules that Mr. Wing’s grandson passes along to Rand Peltzer in the movie, Gremlins (1984), when he sells Rand the creature that we later come to know as Gizmo: “First of all, keep him out of the light; he hates bright light, especially sunlight — it’ll kill him. Second, don’t give him any water, not even to drink. But the most important rule, the rule you can never forget, no matter how much he cries, no matter how much he begs: Never feed him after midnight.” Like the creatures in this movie, our own gremlins multiply, wreak havoc, take over our lives, and even get vicious towards us when we “give them water” with unquestioned acceptance and “feed them after midnight” with unchallenged influence over what we think, feel, and do. When we expose them to the light of day, on the other hand — that is, become aware of them, identify them as negative core beliefs to which we don’t have to (and won’t!) ascribe any longer, and challenge them with alternative, more helpful ways of seeing ourselves — they begin to lose their power.
In a previous blog post, Through a Glass Darkly, I proposed that all of us go through our lives wearing pairs of invisible eyeglasses with lenses comprised of thoughts and beliefs that we have come to hold about ourselves, other people, and the world. I suggested that some of these thoughts and beliefs make for “dirtier” lenses than others — they restrict, rather than expand, our sense of what is possible for us, and in our lives. We can talk about these particular thoughts and beliefs as contributing to moods and behaviors that resonate with catabolic/negative energy, which breaks us down, rather than anabolic/positive energy, which builds us up. In Energy Leadership: Transforming Your Workplace and Your Life from the Core (2008), Bruce D. Schneider writes about catabolic thoughts and beliefs as “energy blocks” that get in our way of making conscious choices, and prevent us reaching our potential (129); he identifies four of these obstacles, and calls them limiting beliefs, assumptions, interpretations, and gremlins (with “gremlin” being another way to reference what we often call our inner critic). In past blog posts, we have looked at limiting beliefs and assumptions; today, we explore interpretations.
If you take myth and folklore, and these things that speak in symbols, they can be interpreted in so many ways that although the actual image is clear enough, the interpretation is infinitely blurred, a sort of enormous rainbow of every possible colour you could imagine. — Diana Wynne Jones
Schneider defines an interpretation as an opinion that we create to explain an experience that we have had (137). For an example, he refers back to the scenario that he used to illustrate assumptions, in which he has asked a woman on a date, and she has declined: he interprets her “no” as meaning that he does not dress well enough (138). Cue Sharp Dressed Man from ZZ Top’s 1983 album, Eliminator! If he decides to act on his interpretation, Schneider may spend money on a new wardrobe, which — if his own idea about why the woman has declined a date with him does not reflect the reasons that she herself might cite — could constitute “‘marching off in the wrong direction'” (138), and even set himself up for frustration when she still says “no” as he stands before her in a new (and expensive!) Armani suit. When we allow ourselves to believe that our interpretation is the only possible explanation for what we have experienced, we close ourselves off from other options that may be very helpful for us to consider. Personally, I think of every experience in our lives as generating the “enormous rainbow” of possible interpretations that the late British children’s fantasy writer, Diana Wynne Jones, associated with myth and folklore. I view interpretations as stories that we tell ourselves to help us make sense out of our experiences and the world around us; others may sometimes agree that these stories are “true,” but even this social construction of a certain “validity” does not make interpretations facts.
There are ways for us to challenge interpretive “energy blocks,” of course, and the approaches will likely sound familiar to anyone who is already familiar with cognitive-behavioral responses to anxious thinking, especially to those patterns that are often referred to as mind reading and personalization. The first step, I contend, is to recognize that we do not have to accept everything that we think as “true,” that our ideas about what we experience are not facts (whatever those are), but beliefs based on what we see through the lenses in the invisible eyeglasses that we wear. When we catch ourselves making an interpretation, then, we can ask ourselves, very simply, as Schneider suggests, “‘What’s another way to look at that?'” (140). Just posing this question to ourselves can defuse the power of our own particular perspective, and diminish what — borrowing from Nigerian novelist, Chimamanda Adichie — we can call “the danger of a single story”; we acknowledge that other (and potentially more helpful!) meanings are possible. We may even decide to go a step further, and ask another person, whether or not that person is involved, about his or her interpretation of an experience. Or, we can play around with challenging ourselves to argue what we would identify as the exact opposite of our first interpretation. There is a rainbow of possibilities!
I have proposed before, and will do so again, that we give ourselves the chance to think more realistically, with greater balance, when we challenge our often all-too-automatic anxious thinking. If, after exploring other possible meanings of an experience, we decide that we want to stick with our original interpretation, we can do so, and then shift into conscious consideration of how we want to respond. In the process of responding consciously to any interpretation we have, I suggest that we remember how long we have been looking through the particular set of lenses that supports this interpretation; initially, we may find ourselves still tending to perceive (or even look for) what we are used to seeing. In my own experience, interpretations can be at least as emotionally charged as the assumptions that we explored in the last post, and so also difficult for us to let go. Just imagine a history for Schneider, in his dating scenario, in which he grew up poor and was teased as a child for not having the popular clothes that so many of his peers were wearing! To help us loosen our grip on a “stubborn” interpretation, I suggest echoing the approach that Schneider recommends for responding to assumptions — validating our perspective as absolutely “normal” given what we have experienced previously, and how we have learned to think about those experiences (136). How else could we think — until we challenge ourselves to think differently?
Over the next couple of weeks, I invite you to notice when you are making interpretations, creating opinions to explain your experiences (I think of human beings as meaning-making creatures — we engage in this activity all the time!). Your boss may come into work and head straight to her office without saying “Good morning!” to you, shutting the door hard behind her. You think that she must be angry with you, though you don’t know why she would be; you steer clear of her for the rest of the morning, trying to figure out what you did to upset her, instead of talking to her about the assignment she gave you, and which you have finished — early! You may be feeling nervous about how a classmate is looking at you as you give a presentation, wondering what he is criticizing about you, or about what you’re doing, as he watches. Consider whether or not such interpretations of your experiences are helpful to you, whether they resonate with catabolic energy, that distracts and drains you, or anabolic energy, that supports you in moving in the direction that you want to go. What are other ways of looking at these experiences? Perhaps your boss has had a tough morning with a sick child, or is grouchy about spilling coffee on herself in the Starbucks drive-through (her mood may have nothing to do with you!). Maybe that classmate is thinking how nervous he is, imagining that you might be feeling similarly, and admiring how you are forging right along in your presentation. The key, I think, to challenging interpretations, is in a variation on the Skittles candy ad campaign — “Experience the Rainbow! Taste the Rainbow!” Your interpretation is only one possible color of meaning for the experience that you have had. Think the Rainbow!
In a previous blog post, Through a Glass Darkly, I proposed the notion that all of us go through our lives wearing pairs of invisible eyeglasses. The lenses in these glasses, which impact what we see, are composed of thoughts and beliefs that we have come to hold about ourselves, other people, and the world. Some of theses thoughts and beliefs are helpful to us in that they have an anabolic or positive influence on our mood, energy, and actions — they expand what is possible for us. Others limit our view, and so our experiences of life — they resonate with catabolic or negative energy that can have distracting, draining, and even destructive effects on our sense of ourselves; our physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual health; our work lives; and our relationships. In Energy Leadership: Transforming Your Workplace and Your Life from the Core (2008), Bruce D. Schneider identifies what I’m describing here — the thoughts and beliefs of dirty lenses — as four kinds of “energy blocks” that prevent us from making conscious choices in our lives, and reaching our potential; he calls them limiting beliefs, assumptions, interpretations, and gremlins (with “gremlin” being another way to reference what we often call our inner critic) (129). In my last blog post, I explored limiting beliefs; today, I’m turning our attention to the next menace in the list — assumptions.
Schneider defines an assumption very specifically — as “a belief that, because something [has] happened in the past, it’s going to happen again” (134). To provide an example, Schneider references a scenario in which he has asked someone on a date, and that person has declined; he believes (assumes) that because this one person has said “no” that anyone else he may ask will also turn down his invitation. As a result, he may either decide not to try again (since he already “knows” what will happen), or to allow his expectations of “rejection” to affect the energy with which he asks the next person, potentially setting himself up in a kind of self-sabotage, then, for the very experience that he fears. When we permit our assumptions to determine what we decide to do in our lives, we let a past experience control what is possible for us in our present and future. With this idea in mind, I have come to think of an assumption as a ghost or phantom of a past “negative” experience that we allow to haunt us, to intimidate us out of taking positive action in our lives.
There are several ways for us to challenge any assumption that we make. These ways may sound very familiar to those who are already acquainted with cognitive-behavioral responses to kinds of anxious thinking like catastrophizing and probability overestimation — what are often called “cognitive distortions.” The first step, I suggest, is to remind ourselves that we do not have to believe everything that we think, that our beliefs are not facts, though we often proceed, of course, as if they do reflect a natural order of things (when we say to ourselves, for example, “That’s just how it is!”). When catching ourselves in the midst of making an assumption, then, we can ask, very simply, “‘Just because that happened in the past, why must it happen again?'” (136). In posing this question to ourselves, we open space to examine the evidence for the assumption that we have made, and to find evidence that contradicts it, that reminds us that other outcomes are possible. We actually give ourselves the chance to think more realistically, I contend, in being less unconsciously dominated by our anxious thinking. If, after we have examined the evidence, we decide that our assumption still has merit, we can then shift into strategies of response that echo those that are useful for countering catastrophic thinking. We can ask ourselves, “So what if that happens?” and “How would I like to respond to that, if it does occur?” In the process of responding consciously to an assumption, whatever tactic we take, we may want to keep in mind that we have been seeing through the particular set of lenses that supports this assumption for a long time, and we may still initially tend to see (or even look for) what we are used to seeing. Schneider notes that because assumptions are based primarily on personal experiences, they are “internalized” and more “emotional” than limiting beliefs; as a result, they can be difficult for us to release (136). He suggests that validating our own perspective as absolutely “normal,” given what we have experienced and how we have learned to think about what we have experienced so far in our lives, can help us loosen our grip on the belief that is holding us back (136).
Over the next couple of weeks, I invite you to examine the lenses in your own invisible eyeglasses of perception for the “phantom menace” of assumptions. Look for thoughts and beliefs related to what has happened in the past that you expect to happen again, that restrict rather than expand your sense of what is possible for you and in your life as a result. These thoughts and beliefs will be ones that contribute to moods and behaviors that resonate with catabolic or negative energy, which breaks you down, instead of anabolic or positive energy, which builds you up. Once you notice an assumption, question it, ask yourself what thoughts and beliefs would be more helpful to you, and decide how you want to “clean your lenses” so that your invisible eyeglasses of perception work for you rather than against you. These glasses can support you in taking positive action with a sense of calm and confidence — in whatever direction you want to go.
Our thoughts and imaginations are the only real limits to our possibilities. —Orison Swett Marden
In my last post, Through a Glass Darkly, I introduced the notion that all of us go through our lives wearing pairs of invisible eyeglasses. The lenses in these glasses, which impact what we see, are made up of the thoughts and beliefs that we have come to hold about ourselves, other people, and the world. Some of these thoughts are helpful to us (in that they have an anabolic, or positive, influence on our mood, energy, and actions — what is possible for us); others dim our view, and so our experiences of life (the energetic consequences are negative, or catabolic — distracting and draining — with destructive effects on our sense of self, health, work life, and relationships). In Energy Leadership: Transforming Your Workplace and Your Life from the Core (2008), Bruce D. Schneider identifies examples of what I’m describing here — the thoughts and beliefs of dirty lenses — as four kinds of “energy blocks” (129): limiting beliefs, interpretations, assumptions, and gremlins (with “gremlin” being another way to reference what we often call our inner critic). In my post today, I’d like to explore the first of these blocks — limiting beliefs.
Schneider defines limiting beliefs as ideas that we have about our situations, surroundings, other people, or the world that restrict our sense of what is possible. Most often, we have come to accept these ideas as true because they are communicated to us as true by some source that we have invested with authority — someone we know, the media, or a book we have read, for instance. As an example of a limiting belief, Schneider references the idea that before 1954, running a mile in under four minutes was considered “impossible” for a human being, and even “dangerous” to attempt (129). On May 6, 1954, at a meet in Oxford, England, a 25-year-old junior doctor named Roger Bannister ran his way into the record and history books with a time of three minutes and 59.4 seconds. Schneider contends that such an achievement required Bannister’s rejection of a prevailing and limiting belief of his era, and the creation of a new belief for himself — that running a mile in under four minutes was possible. While I do not know enough to claim that a sub-four-minute mile was considered impossible and dangerous at the time, it does seem to me that Bannister would have had to believe that breaking the four-minute mile was possible for him (no limiting belief there!); otherwise, would he have even tried?
From my own perspective, another example of a limiting belief that may resonate with many of us who identify ourselves as anxious is the view of our anxiety as a curse or a wound, something “bad,” a way in which we’re broken (and so “bad” ourselves, perhaps). In terms of a limiting belief, this view of anxiety is complicated because it is often not simply based on something that we have been told, but on our own unpleasant personal experiences of the emotional and physical pain of anxiety; moreover, our gremlin or inner critic frequently gets involved. As absolutely valid as this take on anxiety as a curse or wound may be, given what those of us who experience anxiety can go through, it is not helpful to us. This particular way of seeing sets up a relationship between us and our anxiety that is dominated by feelings of antipathy, resentment, and fear. In this kind of relationship, we tend to polarize with our anxiety, identifying it as an enemy and taking up a defensive position against it; as we do so, we generate an even greater amount of tension (catabolic energy) for ourselves, and not the increased sense of calm and confidence that we desire. Personally, I wonder how our experiences of anxiety might be different if we were able to see anxiety not as a curse or a wound, but as a blessing, a source of healing — a gift, even. While I acknowledge that this idea may strike some as sounding ridiculous, at least initially, I get very excited thinking about what a different kind of relationship between us and anxiety this energetically anabolic perspective makes possible, and with this different relationship, what becomes possible for us.
There are several ways for us to challenge our limiting beliefs, whether the beliefs concern how we think about anxiety or anything else in our lives. These ways may sound very familiar to those who are already acquainted with various cognitive-behavioral responses to anxious thinking. First of all, we recognize that we do not have to believe everything we think, that our beliefs are not facts, though we often proceed, of course, as if they do reflect a natural order of things (when we say to ourselves, for example, “That’s just how things are!”). If we inventory and evaluate the influence that a particular belief has had on our life (look at the cost, and ask ourselves, “Is that all right with me?”), and decide that we want to change what we have been experiencing, we can begin by choosing an alternate belief for ourselves, a way of seeing that helps us rather than hurts us. We can then examine the evidence for the limiting belief (question the proof of its “truth,” in other words), and ask ourselves questions like, “How true do I believe this idea is … really?” and “Where did this limiting belief come from for me?” (Schneider, 134). In answering the first question, we may realize that our buy-in to the belief is not as complete as it had seemed; in answering the second, we allow ourselves the opportunity to create a context for the belief, which may help us conceive that we need not see it as fact, but simply as something that we have come to accept as true (and so, as something that we can decide to reject). We can also explore supporting evidence for the alternate idea that we have developed. In the midst of all of these responses, it may be helpful for us to keep in mind that we have been seeing through this particular set of lenses for a long time, and we may still initially tend to see (or even look for) what we are used to seeing. Change takes time. Or is that just another limiting belief … if it’s not helping us?
Over the next few weeks, I invite you to examine the lenses in your own invisible eyeglasses of perception for limiting beliefs. Look for thoughts and ideas that restrict rather than expand your sense of what is possible, that contribute to moods and behaviors that resonate with catabolic energy, which breaks you down, instead of anabolic energy, which builds you up. There are times that all of us could use an extra “someone in our corner” who wants us to be able to see all the possibilities for thought, feeling, and action that are available to us, so that we can pick which among these will help us move in the direction that we want to go. I would like, in some small measure, to help you in this way; perhaps, one day, you will pass the help along to someone else!
How is the way that you are seeing things influencing what is possible for you? What are alternate thoughts and beliefs that would be more helpful than some of the ones that you are currently using? How can you “clean your lenses” so that your invisible eyeglasses of perception work for you rather than against you?
