Long-Term Goal: Get Rid Of My Anxiety
Whenever I ask teens or adults I’m working with what their long-term goal is for therapy, aka, what they want to be different 6 months from now, the answer I usually get is, “I want to get rid of my anxiety,” without hesitation and very matter-of-factly. I get it, I mean, if I could wave a magic wand and make every ounce of your anxiety go away, I would! (…despite the fact that we need a little bit of anxiety to help us detect threats and prepare for danger)
Unfortunately, I can’t abracadabra your anxiety away, but here are a couple things you can do that will give your anxiety less power.
1) Start using the word AND!
I first heard of this concept while studying about Dialectical Behavior Therapy. ‘Dialectic’ means that two things that seem to oppose each other can be simultaneously true. (READ THAT SENTENCE OVER AGAIN & let it change your life.)
To really give you a feel for the difference, let’s start with some BUT vs. AND examples:
The BUT tends to negate the truth you said first in most sentences like this. If you say it with AND instead it genuinely feels and sounds different. Our anxious thoughts are usually FILLED with black-and-white, all-or-nothing, either-or thinking. We are constantly BUT-ting on our good vibes AND we can practice new ways of going about it! (See what I did there..)
When we add an AND it can help us reframe our anxious thoughts so they’re a little more forgiving, a little less black-and-white, and a little more realistic.
2) Step back & play the name game
In the book, The Happiness Trap they talk about defusion. This is the process where you mentally “step back” from your thoughts to gain perspective.
- For example, if I’m thinking “I’m just not good enough” I can take one step back from it by changing it to, “I’m having the thought that I’m just not good enough.” Then, I can take ANOTHER step back by saying, “I’m noticing I’m having the thought that I’m just not good enough.” Every time I’ve done this with a client, without fail, they say the end up feeling lighter and less emotionally activated by their negative thought.Now, to step back even further, I have to first tell you about a blog I read by Breanna, a licensed therapist who is also in therapy (INSERT PRAISE HANDS) and weaves her real life experiences into her mental health posts. She wrote about “The Name Game” in one of her recent blogs and shares what she named her anxiety and depression. This is a game that allows you to take several steps back from your anxiety (or depression, or anger, or guilt, etc.) by giving it a name.
- “I have named my depression Drizella and my anxiety Anastasia. Sound familiar? These are the names of the two evil step sisters in the story Cinderella. I named them so because they put her down, they tell her lies, they’re manipulative, and they’re just all around kind of a drag.” (INSERT MORE PRAISE HANDS)
So, can therapy get rid of your anxiety? The short answer is no, therapists can’t get rid of your anxiety and being in therapy will not make your anxious feelings disappear forever. AND, you will learn different ways to interact with your anxiety and new patterns of thinking that will help you muster the courage to challenge your own Drizella & Anastasia.
- Comment below if you want to share the name(s) you’ve chosen or an AND statement you came up with! And to read more from Breanna, check out her blog here.
Be well.
