How to Worry Less and Not Panic : /

I wrote this post on how I see life like a river where each of us is on a kayak and we need to learn how to navigate difficult waters to learn key lessons. Obs said Glen this is great, but what we need is a post on how not to panic when you are starting to go through the rapids! So, as promised, here is a sort of Part 2 to the river post.

Let’s zoom back and look at panic as an extreme form of anxiety. All of us are wired for anxiety because we have ancestors that interpreted the rustle in the bushes as a predator and NOT just wind. The ones that interpreted the leaves moving as wind mostly died off. The ones that ran like crazy survived and we can all trace our lineage back to those more cautious, and anxious (!), people.

We don’t see predator animals these days except behind a fence at the zoo. However, we are still wired the same way. Now, our anxiety response gets triggered with fears around not passing tests, not being liked by friends, difficult relationships, or problems at work.

Anxiety surfaces when we think we are too small for the challenge or that the challenge is too big. Panic happens when we think we are way too small or the challenge is way too big. If you are a worrier, then you know how anxious thinking can snowball. Not passing a test snowballs into thinking that we’ll never graduate. A little tiff or disagreement with a friend can snowball into thinking the person is going to leave you forever.

Another word for this is catastrophizing. Or sometimes it is called making a mountain of a molehill. We talk much more about how to manage anxiety here and specifically what to do with panic attacks here.

I’ll share four things that help me not to panic. The first is to ask myself “What are the odds? On a scale of 1-100%, how likely is this to happen?” Once I get that number I can then ask, “Okay, if I had $1000 in my pocket now, would I bet that $1000 that this would happen?” If the answer is no, then it is likely that I am worrying too much about it. This helps me get out of my own head to see the situation in a more realistic manner. When I start to worry about the same situation again, I can just do the same exercise to help make the fear smaller and more accurate.

A second thing that I do is ask myself, “Glen, what is the worst thing that could happen?” Even if the odds are low - like let’s say less than 10% - I still want to know what is the worst thing that could happen if this very low odds situation happens? Then, I imagine what my life would look like if that happened. I let my mind marinate on that for a minute. Then, I begin to accept that outcome. I can see that even if this horrible thing happens that I’ll end up being okay or the person I love will also be okay. It will be painful and difficult, but I’ll survive and get to the other side.

A third thing I say to myself is, “Glen, what is your hit rate? How often are your worries correct?” I am now 46. I unfortunately spent a good chunk of my life being something of a champion worrier - like black belt level. That means I’ve got a lot of practice on you all and have had plenty of opportunities to learn coping skills :).

Back to the point - how often am I correct? The answer is that my worries are often completely incorrect - like less than 2% of the time they are accurate and that might even be lower. If I had a friend or an expert I was consulting with and they were wrong 98% of the time, then I wouldn’t worry too much about what they were warning me about. The worrying part of ourselves is not a great judge of life and doesn’t carry too much wisdom, so it is often safe to say that they might be making things sound worse than they really are.

Last, as outlined in the river post, I realize that my own take on things or what I want to happen is often limited. I have had things not work out as I imagined plenty of times and the majority of those times they work out better than what I had originally planned. Sometimes "good things" that I want to happen don't end up being good and sometimes "bad things" end up being good! I also know that life is a complicated process and that it is hard for me to fully comprehend all that is going on. What is not so great now can end up being good for someone else or even for me down the road. Things often have to evolve for me to see how the water breaks or life unfolds.

Obs, I hope this helps! And I hope any of you reading this find it helpful too. What have you found that is helpful? Let’s share ideas and support one another so we worry and panic less when life brings the rapids our way.

See you on the river,
Glen