To Be or Not To Be

To be or not to be. Many people say that is the question. At least for me, the question that usually drives many of my decisions is: To engage or not engage? When you have OCD and anxiety issues, your brain is always on high alert for potential danger. Big or small. Usually both but that in and of itself is irrelevant. Everyone's brain has a built in imperative to be on the lookout for danger. It's how people survive. We may not have saber tooth tigers around every corner anymore but we still haven't stopped looking for potential pitfalls. Will I lose my job? Do people like me? What if someone I love gets sick? Human beings have been surviving by asking the simple question: What if? It has it's usefulness. You may have a careful budget because you know what it's like to go through lean times. It's helpful when it is adaptive and actually beneficial. But what do you do when it goes beyond that?

Some people are worriers and planners. It's just part of their personality.  And some of us have OCD and Anxiety Disorders that take it to a clinical level. There are a whole bunch of clinical evaluations that you can do to see if you are a part of the latter. Or you can just answer this one simple question. And if you answer ,yes, it doesn't mean you have a disorder. You might just need to shift your perspective. Does worry ,anxiety,excessive problem-solving and never being able to be present in the current moment cause distress in your life? Do you miss out on things because you are too scared?  Are you miserable because even when you are doing something important to you, you feel as if you are trying to dodge invisible saber tooth tigers? Are you so caught up in preventing a catastrophe that you don't actually live? There are many levels of severity, as I have mentioned before, but if  it is true to you on any level, there are things you can do.

Behavioral Therapy(used for anxiety disorders, PTSD and many others) is interesting because it is so complex and so very simple. Tons of books have been written on the subject.  I've read a lot of them and they have really helped. But I like the simplified "anxiety for dummies" track and that's what I like to explain in my blog. Simple, personal things I have learned and find personally beneficial.

There has been a myth circulating that humans have more control than they actually do.  I'm not sure when this started but if I had to guess it was pretty early on. The truth is you can't control everything. But you can control some things. And that's where people get caught. But there's another myth that has been been floating around. And that is that you have to control everything you can. And if you can't control it,  you can plan for every eventuality. And of course worry and agonize over it. Cause that usually helps any situation:) I kid.

But the truth is you don't have a choice of how you feel. Emotions are like breathing. They are just there and a natural response to life. But you do have the choice of whether you engage in a worry. If you cultivate it and nurture it. To care for it like a fragile seed and see it to fruition.  It's a simple concept that is complex in application. It takes practice.  I am finishing up my 9th week at an intensive OCD treatment. I am flying home on Friday. And there is a snow storm blowing in on Thursday.

The old me would have said that I didn't have any choice in the matter. As of yet, I can't control the weather. But I would have engaged. I would have agonized over my plans and began to plan for every eventuality. I would have kept careful tabs on the weather. I would have contacted the taxi and the airport until they hung a picture of me on their bulletin board to warn future employees about the obnoxious girl who was 'just checking'. But most of all I would have ruminated over it day and night. I would have trouble falling asleep. And by the time Friday came I would be drained and I would be loathing my misfortune. Why couldn't this one little thing be easy?

Call it the intensive nine weeks of behavioral therapy and my renewed interest to trust God in all things but I am choosing not to engage this time. I still hope my flight doesn't get delayed. I still have the desire to worry on it and play that particular screen play through my mind.  But I'm not going to cultivate it.  Under the guise of control we nourish a worry. What it going to happen will happen either way. I'm either gonna have a miserable-the-earth-is-ending-and-I-have-to-prevent-it mentality or I'm gonna make a decision to not engage the worry. To not help it grow.

So many of you might be asking if I just told you to just 'not to worry' about it. You have probably heard that before. Heck, I've heard it a million times myself. But I'm not telling you not to have a desired outcome of the situation.  I'm not even telling you not to make some reasonable plans like leaving half an hour early for the airport.  Ask yourself this: What are you actually trying to control by nourishing a worry? In this instance I wasn't trying to prevent a snow storm. I was trying to prevent negative feelings that might occur if the a snow storm happened. I would be trying to prevent the inconvenience. I would be trying to prevent my own loss of control.

Feelings of worry and anxiety aren't harmful. They can sure be unpleasant but they won't actually hurt you. But spending your life trying to prevent the feelings of worry, anxiety, fear, loss and whatever else you can think of, actually will. It's not the feeling that is so bad. It's the struggle to avoid it.  Friday will happen either way.  Have you ever noticed that the preparation to prevent harm was often much worse that the actual fear? I have no guarantee that I will be on that plane at 11:15 on Friday morning. But I do know if I spend the next 2 days engaging the worry and nurturing it, it won't really matter what will happen on Friday. The next two days would have been a stressed out mess.

So I'm not telling you not to worry. I'm telling you to do some reasonable prep and then let go of the reins.   It is much easier said than done. But when I start thinking of the what-if's of Friday I shift my focus back to the present. What is meaningful to me in this very moment? Right now, it is writing this blog. Later I might distract myself with a friend. Maybe you have to shift your focus 100 times just today. But each time you do that you are giving meaning to this day. To this moment. In case you haven't noticed, sometimes bad things happen. I can't stop the storm. But I can keep from  wasting  the calm before the storm.  Choose to make today meaningful instead of preventing harm tomorrow.


P.s. The concept may sound easy but it takes a lot of everyday practice. Don't give up! I'm not going to either.  Keep practicing and in case you read my previous post, practice doesn't make perfect. It makes progress.