Think about this. Lets pretend I am a mad scientist and i love conducting experiments on people. And somehow I have persuaded you, or maybe I have kidnapped you, to take part in my experiment.
I hook you up to test my invention which is the worlds best lie detector machine. It measures your breathing rate, your blood pressure, your heart rate, your brain activity and your cortisol and adrenaline levels. Its entire job is to detect the tiniest amount of anxiety, and when it does it gives you an electric shock.
But thats okay right. Your only job is to switch off your anxiety, so theres not even the smallest amount, and you will be spared the electric shock.
How do you think you would do?
What would happen if cranked up the electric shock so high it would likely fry you? Then what? Even though your life depends on you not feeling any anxiety, could you?
I’m sure most people have said, impossible. its an anxiety provoking situation so I am going to feel some anxiety, I just can’t turn it off.
You are going to find yourself in situations where you feel anxious, and when that anxiety shows up you are not going to be able to just turn it off.
In previous videos we have discussed that avoidance does not work in the long term.
You could avoid the situations that make you anxious, but then you find your world shrinks down.
There is often a message in our emotions, I am anxious or I am worried because I care. You are supposed to feel your feelings.
We also know that getting caught up with and struggling with the anxiety does not work either.
You might feel overly anxious in social situations because you feel you may be judged and rejected. You don’t want that feeling of anxiety so you avoid socialising. You don’t take people up on invitations to go out, which impacts relationships and friendships. When it comes to an event that really is unavoidable then the anxiety is even worse. Plus having little in the way of friends or relationships, due to avoidance, maintains that feeling of being rejected.
Or perhaps you feel anxious in social situations and, instead of avoiding them completely, you cope by drinking alcohol to get through it. And this probably works in the short term. But you wake up with a hangover, you feel tired, you check your wallet or your banking app and realise you spent far too much money - so you now have to deal with all of those unpleasant feelings. And there will be times when alcohol isn’t available somewhere, and tha'ts going to make the anxiety even worse as that's the coping strategy taken away from you.
So what can we do instead?
Lets try and demonstrate this with another experiential exercise. This will be in two parts. One part now and another a little later in the video.
I am going to invite you to hold your breath, and you are going to need something to time yourself with, so a watch, a clock, a phone, something like that.
I want you to hold your breath as long as you can and time it. And once you have finished please write down the time you held your breath for.
So pause the video here, start a timer, hold your breath, write down how long you did it for, then come back and resume this video.
Thanks for coming back.
Write down your time if you havent already. How did you find that? On a score of 0-10 with 0 being completely relaxed and 10 being very unpleasant how was that overall experience for you?
Lets talk willingness.
Lets think of our earlier examples of going to the party. You want to go. its your friends party, they want you there, you want to see them, you want to see some other friends that are there too, or maybe meet some new your friends. You know anxiety is going to show up. You know your mind is going to be racing. What if they don't like me? What if i say something stupid? What if I don't know what to say at all? And you might get some physical sensations - you might blush and everyone will see, you might get sweaty, you might need the toilet lot. As before you could avoid it, anxiety drops almost immediately but in the long term this doesn't help. You could go and decide to drink alcohol to help cope but we discussed why that isn't the best idea earlier.
But there's a message in this anxiety. A message that you care about your friends and being there for them, you care about connection with others. There is a value hidden under that pain, hidden under the anxiety.
And this is where we can think of something called the Willingness formula.
There are two parts to the willingness formula.
The first part is
I am willing to have _____ (fear, anxiety, sadness, anger)
And the second part is In order to _______ (do something you care about)
So for example
I am willing to have fear in order to ask that person out
I am willing to have sadness and visit my sick relative in hospital
I am willing to have some discomfort in order to write my essay
I am willing to have anxiety in order to go to my friends party.
So you allow yourself to feel anxious, because you value being a good friend.
And this example you go to the party, you experience the anxiety. You dont like the experience, you dont want the experience, but you let it in and are open to it happening when it shows up. You dont put all your energy into pushing it away, or struggle with it.
Maybe use some of the skills learned in these videos to turn that anxiety down a bit, to maybe focus more on the present moment. And then maybe you’ll get to the end of the party and think, that wasn't so bad.
If there's two things I've learnt from working with many many people. That is they usually overestimate the threat, and underestimate their ability to cope. Let me just repeat that as its important. People usually overestimate the threat (meaning in their mind the threat is worse that what actually occurs in real life) and they underestimate their ability to cope. Meaning that in their minds they cannot cope at all, this is anxiety of anxiety or fear of fear but actually they cope far better than they thought they would.
So lets do part 2 of our exercise.
I am going to invite you to hold your breath again. But this time I want you to think about the following things. Try to describe what you are feeling and add some curiosity about your experience. Here are some things that might help you do this, dont worry you wont have to remember these as ill put them on the screen for you when it comes time to do the exercise.
When you want to breath notice where in your body that urge is coming from? Try to be a bit curious about it. If it is coming from your body, then which part. Is it your chest, or your stomach or your throat?
Try to use describing words like tight, tense, relaxed, uncomfortable instead of evaluating or judging words like good, bad, right or wrong.
Once you have identified whereabouts in your body it is, see if you can allow that feeling to be there, in that place, and at the same time remain holding your breath. Feel the feeling, have willingness to let that be there and do not take a breath.
Notice what your mind is doing. What thoughts are coming up? Maybe thank your mind for giving you those thoughts and for most likely trying to keep you safe and reduce the unpleasant feelings. You don’t need to follow that advice right now.
Notice any emotions that come up. Perhaps fear, maybe some anxiety. Maybe even anger is showing up. Again, be curious as to what is coming up and allow space for that to be there. You can notice that and experience that without taking a breath.
Other than noticing the urge to breathe, your body is doing other stuff. What else can you feel. Can you feel the chair you are sitting on? Can you hear anything? What can you can see around you?
Think about the Willingness Formula. I am willing to have these feelings in order to hold my breathe for as long as I can. Or you could go bigger, I am willing to have these feelings in order to get better at experiencing discomfort and unpleasant thoughts, feelings and emotions so I can live the life I want. And even go as far as shifting it as an unwelcome experience to a welcome one. Acknowledge that when an urge to breathe comes - you are not breathing on purpose, you are owning that urge, you are creating that urge on purpose.
So when you are ready get your timer ready, pause the video, take your breath, hold it, ill put some questions on the screen, then when you are done please come back to the video.
Welcome back. I will start by saying it doesnt matter whether you held your breath longer or not than the first time. The point was to learn what it feels like to want to breathe but not breathe, what its like to sit with painful or uncomfortable feelings without trying to escape from them.
Were you able to sit there with a small amount of discomfort and not act immediately in a way to make go away? Did that desire to breathe come and go, did the need to escape the discomfort come and go, did it go up or down?
Did your mind try to talk you into breathing before you really had to? What kind of things did it say? Did it try to be a bit sneaky. Did it say anything like ‘just breathe, no one will know, just add 10 seconds to your time you write down”
Can you see how this fits in with how your life has been going. Our strongest desire when we are faced with unpleasant emotions is to escape from them. That is an absolutely normal thing to want to do.
This is a skill, like learning the piano you need to practice to get better. You can learn to read music, you can identify the correct notes, you know where they are on the piano, youve seen videos of playing the piano, but until you actually lay your fingers on the keys and start playing you arent going to improve.
There are going to be more skills and exercises videos coming along which can help build this skill. This is probably the one thing that I have seen make the biggest difference to people living more meaningful lives, this skill to be able to make space and experience these feelings that show up for us. This is what psychological flexibility is all about.
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