Anxiety? Toss the Safety Behaviors

During the height of my fear-and-anxiety driven existence, I would often seek to employ “safety behaviors” in my daily life as a kind of buffer against all the bad things I imagined were out there, just waiting to happen.

What are some examples of safety behaviors? Have you ever selected an aisle seat close to an exit, or better yet, the window seat in the exit row, when you purchase an airplane ticket, just in case you needed to get off that aircraft in a hurry?

How about pre-medicating yourself when there was the possibility you might find yourself in an anxiety-causing situation, like giving a presentation before a large group or going to an event where you didn’t know anyone.

Do you ever follow superstitious routines that seem pretty ridiculous, but decided there’s always the possibility that something could go wrong if you did something differently, so why chance it?

The point is, relying on these safety behaviors does nothing to improve your situation or help you cope with functioning with anxiety. Quite the opposite – you develop this invalid crutch that you lean on to help you through, which means you never regain the strength or muscle memory you once had before fear and panic got in the way.

If you say the same words over and over, and nothing bad happens when you do, it’s easy to believe that repeating that mantra is what helped you survive the anxious situation, but nothing could be further from the truth. People who sit by exit doors die in plane crashes. Sorry to be the one who breaks that to you, but it’s true.

What, then, are we anxious folks to do? One idea is to expose yourself to the very things that make you nervous or anxious, and consciously toss away the safety behaviors, reminding yourself that they are a sham. Feel the dread and discomfort that this causes, and deal with it using whatever tools you’ve happened to pick up along the way.

Let the worry and fear pass through you and out the other side. Accept it for what it is, embrace it, understand it, and then let it evaporate away, like a cool morning mist.

It won’t be easy at first, and you probably won’t be successful, but that’s okay. It’s alright to fail.

What you will be able to say is that you made it through on your own, with no crutches, and you’re prepared for the next practice. Soon, you’ll be saying “Hi!” to Mr. Anxiety Monster, giving him a wink, and waving him past. Well…mostly.

For more of my blathering on these kinds of things, check out my posts Anxiety Can Lead to Gift Giving , Compassion for Self-Healing and What To Fear?

Stop Being a Jerk in 5 Steps

ZenHabits has a cute entry on how to stop being a jerk in five tiny steps.

Why would I link to such a thing here? Because some of the concepts are very applicable to developing a clear mind, free from worry, dread, and anxiety, and these things can help us improve our behavior and how we interact with others, all of which will serve to introduce a sense of peace and calm. And who couldn’t use a little of that?!

1. Admit you’re not perfect – now, it’s not like any of us control freaks and anxiety sufferers are perfectionists or anything. Right? We all find it incredibly easy to just say, “Whoops, messed that up! My bad!” And we never beat ourselves up afterwards, right? Bueller? Bueller?
2. Place  yourself in the shoes of others – that one is pretty obvious, but let me add a twist to it. When we spend time and energy learning different perspectives, it also gives us insight into how we might be seen by others. The results are often interesting.
3. Act with compassion and kindness – we’ve already had some discussion about self-compassion and how often we’re willing to cut others slack but not ourselves. So practicing kindness toward others is a good way to develop a sort of psychological muscle memory to remind us to do it all the time – and not just with others.
4. Practice, practice – again, a no-brainer, but persistence is really important, especially in dealing with panic and anxiety. We’re not always going to be successful. We’re not always going to get it right. But the old sports adage is that you play like you practice, because it becomes habit.
5. Do 5 little things – ZenHabits refers to performing 5 simple acts of kindness each day as a way to ward off your inner-jerk, and that’s good advice. Can you commit to performing a couple of kind acts for yourself everyday too?

5 Tiny Steps to Quit Being Such a Jerk