The Worry Trick

by David A Carbonell

  So, okay—you can simply acknowledge that you’re having another occurrence of a worrisome thought. Maybe you recognized it by the “what if” introduction, or maybe you didn’t catch on until you considered the content it was offering you, but okay. You have a brain, so you have thoughts. No need to try to ignore it, or pretend it’s not there. There’s nothing wrong with ignoring it, really—but if the effort you make to ignore the thought keeps bringing it back to your attention, then trying to ignore the thought isn’t helping. Here you are, having another one of the many, many thoughts you will have today, and this one happens to be a loser.

  Whom do you acknowledge it to? Usually just yourself. This is an internal process in which you briefly notice the presence of the worrisome thoughts, acknowledge them without resistance or suppression, and move on to the next thing. Sometimes you might have reasons to mention the worrisome thoughts to others, and we’ll take a look at that in chapter 12.

  What’s to accept? The fact that you’re having a thought you don’t like! You may or may not agree with the content of the thought. You may find it reasonable or you might find it repulsive. It doesn’t really matter! You don’t get to pick and choose which thoughts you’ll have and which thoughts you won’t have—nobody does! There’s no need to try to contradict the thought, to disprove it, to make it go away, or to reassure yourself. There probably won’t be any benefit if you do.

  No one expects you to control your thoughts. You’re accountable for your actions, and you’ll be judged by your actions. Not by thoughts! You can have a worrisome thought, same as you can have an angry thought, a jealous thought, a sexy thought, a wacky thought, a kind thought, an unkind thought, a shameful thought, a compassionate thought, a murderous thought, or whatever. To say that worries are a dime a dozen would be to greatly exaggerate their value.

  So, okay—you can allow yourself to have whatever thoughts happen to come to mind, same as you’ll allow yourself to have whatever noises your stomach might make, same as you’ll allow yourself to have whatever reactions you might have to an unpleasant odor. If someone else hears your stomach grumble and you feel embarrassed, you can go ahead and say “excuse me” if you wish. No one can hear your thought, so there’s no occasion for apology; you don’t control your thoughts, so there’s no need for judgment. Here you are, having a thought that you wouldn’t choose to have, if you could make the choice. Which you can’t.

  Recently a client, who tends to be a little perfectionistic and demanding of herself, asked me, “But what can I say to myself when I notice I’m having one of these thoughts again?” I suggested, “Oh well.” She had thought something more complicated, more powerful and cleansing would be necessary. Nope! This is not, as the saying goes, rocket science. You don’t control your thoughts, nor do your thoughts control you. When it comes to automatic thoughts like these, you’re more like the reader of a book than you are like the author, so no need to engage in a prideful struggle to control your thoughts. You don’t get to pick the thoughts you have or exclude the thoughts you think should be excluded. Oh well! When I get to design the world, there’ll be some changes made!

  This first step—acknowledge and accept—is probably the most important and powerful of the three. I describe it as simply as possible, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. Some people may be able to simply acknowledge and accept the unwanted thoughts and move on to the activity step without the use of any other techniques or responses. That’s great! If that works for you, just move on without spending any time on this step.

  That tends to be the exception, though. Most people find that the thoughts are a little “stickier” than that, that they can’t move on so quickly because they find that they’re still arguing with Uncle Argument, still wishing the thought would cease and desist. Cultivating an accepting attitude toward thoughts you detest and fear is usually a long, gradual process, a task we work on all our lives rather than a specific goal we attain quickly and completely. It’s something that you practice and acquire over time, not something that you simply “do.”

  It reminds me of the slogan on the box of the Othello board game. Othello is a deceptively simple game with pieces like checkers, with a black side and a white side. You win by outflanking your opponent’s pieces and flipping them over to your color. Sounds simple, but the game is actually quite complex, and the slogan is “a minute to learn, a lifetime to master.”

  If you became dehydrated, perhaps because you played too much tennis on a hot, sunny day without adequate liquids, you could drink more water and solve the problem. If you were severely dehydrated, you might require intravenous fluids. That’s all it would take—resupply your fluids and the problem is fixed.

  Training yourself to handle your worrisome thoughts differently is not like the problem of resupplying your water. It’s more like the process of exercising to get yourself back into shape, or of dieting and losing weight. You will need to learn, practice, and continually follow some steps in order to improve and get the results you seek.

  What’s most important about dieting is acquiring, and following, the habit of eating a healthy menu each day and getting regular exercise. That’s more important than whatever you happen to weigh today, because if you continue with your good habits, your weight and physical condition will generally fall into line. In the same way, what’s most important here is acquiring a regular habit of how you respond to worrisome thoughts, not how many worrisome thoughts you have today. What’s really important is moving in the right direction. It’s much less important how fast you go, or how gracefully.

  In order to figure out some good ways to respond to a worry, first clarify the kind of situation you confront now. You can do this by using the two-part test from chapter 2, which asks:

  Is there a problem that exists now in the external world around you?

  If there is, can you do something to change it now?

  If you get anything other than two “yes” answers—two “no” answers, one “no” and one “yes,” maybes, or whatever—then you don’t have a problem in your external world that you can solve right now. You have the problem of worrying. You’re being “baited” by Uncle Argument.

  The experience of getting baited and bothered by worrisome thoughts is similar to what you see if you hold up a small mirror to an aquarium containing a Siamese fighting fish. These fish are kept alone because the males fight to the death if they’re housed together. When I was a kid, we would hold up a mirror and watch the fearsome display this fish would put on when he saw himself. Thinking the image was another fish, our fish would prepare for combat, turning a bright red with gills out, fins waving, mouth opening wide, and so on. Of course, there wasn’t any other fish to fight, and after a while the fish would calm down; but for a few minutes he’d get really riled up, the same way you might if bothered by a worrisome thought. The reaction is real. The threat is not. It’s a fake fish!

  When this happens, keep two points in mind. It might help to put these on your electronic device or a 3 by 5 card until you get in the habit of remembering.

  What you have is the emotion of feeling nervous.

  It’s okay to feel nervous. You probably really, really dislike the emotion, but it’s like the experience of sitting in an uncomfortably warm room, not like camping in a forest fire. It’s discomfort, not danger. You might be sitting in an uncomfortably warm room and reading about a forest fire, or watching a movie about a forest fire, but it’s still just discomfort, no matter how realistic the film is or how vivid the description.

  The problem you face is not the problem described in the catastrophe clause of your worry. The problem you face is the discomfort you experience in response to the worrisome thought, and your natural inclination to take that thought seriously and resist it. When you resist the thought with your usual selection of anti-worry responses, this is when you once again experience the difficulty of The harder I try, the worse it gets.

  That’s the first step, acknowledge and a
ccept. If you find that you frequently take the bait and get caught up in arguing with Uncle Argument, then this second step will be probably be helpful.

  Humor the Worrisome Thoughts

  Having acknowledged the temporary presence of the thought, and accepted its presence as best you can, you might now find it helpful to respond to the worrisome thought in a playful, counterintuitive style.

  So do something very different. Employ the Rule of Opposites. Here are some ways you can respond, in a playful or silly manner, to the problem of getting “hooked” by Uncle Argument’s efforts to get you embroiled.

  Sing a worry song. You can make a song of your worry. I have some examples of this on my website, songs about panic attacks, sung in my own dreadful voice. Pick a catchy tune that’s easy to sing to, and create your own worrisome lyrics about the disasters that are waiting for you around every corner.

  Here, for instance, is the first verse of one of my songs about panic attacks. It’s sung to the tune of “Camptown Races”:

  I’ll go crazy, then I’ll die

  Doo dah, doo dah

  Panic gonna get me by and by

  Oh, doo dah day

  Make my head feel light

  Make my heart race all day

  Run stark naked through shopping malls

  Doo dah, doo dah day

  Write a haiku. If you don’t feel like singing, you can write a haiku. Haiku is a traditional Japanese poetry form. There’s a lot to learn about haiku, but for our purposes we’ll just focus on one simplistic aspect of it.

  It’s a three-line poem, without rhymes. The first line is five syllables. The second is seven. The third is five. You simply write a three-line unrhymed poem of your worries that fits this format.

  Let’s suppose you have a bothersome thought and recognize it for what it is, but still can’t simply dismiss it. You’ve tried to reason your way out of it and you’ve tried to distract yourself. Your usual ways of interrupting the thought don’t seem to be working for you. You’re still trying to fight the fake fish! This would be a good time to haiku.

  Here are some haikus I’ve received.

  I feel dizzy now.

  I’ll probably go insane.

  Please water my plants.

  I’m on the plane now.

  They will see me shake and cry.

  Please pass the barf bags.

  If haiku is a little too exotic for you, how about a limerick?

  Write a limerick. A limerick is a five-line poem that you probably first encountered when you were a child. The first, second, and fifth lines rhyme with each other and have the same number of syllables (usually eight or nine). The third and fourth lines rhyme with each other and have the same number of syllables (usually five or six). This structure sounds complicated, but it’s easier than it sounds! And it gives a limerick its characteristic rhythm. Limericks often start with the line “There once was a…” or “There was a…”

  Here’s a sample limerick.

  A woman from near Cincinnati

  Thought, What if I turn out real batty?

  It’ll ruin my brain

  They’ll declare me insane

  And my friends will all be so catty

  Worry in your second language. Are you bilingual? Even if you just have high school training in a second language, that might be enough to enable you to do your worrying in your second language.

  Or, if you don’t know a second language at all, you can use pig latin. Pig latin is just a simple way to transform English words into something that sounds quite different. Parents use it to talk in front of their children about topics they want to keep secret.

  There are two rules to basic pig latin. For words starting with consonants (or consonant clusters), move the consonant to the end of the word, followed by “ay.” For words starting with vowels, simply add “ay” to the end of the word. There are a few other rules for special cases, and you can find those on the Internet if you want. So, for instance:

  What if I freak out? atWhay ifyay Iyay eakfray outyay?

  What if I left the stove on? atWhay ifyay Iyay eftlay ethay ovestay onyay?

  As with haiku and limericks, we’re not changing the content of the worry thoughts here. We’re just changing the format, and that can really change your response to the worry. When you try to remember how you might say “choke to death” in German, it often produces a very different result!

  Worry in a fake foreign accent. Yes, it’s silly, but why not? Silly can help you keep a good perspective on the worry. No need to give the worry content more respect than it deserves.

  List your worries. Make a list of your chronic worries. Start with a basic list of the ones that frequently occur to you, and add to it over time as you notice new ones. Once you have the basic list, you can get into the habit, each time you notice a worry, of quickly checking to see if it’s on your list. If it’s not, add it. Once you see it on your list, go on about your business, secure in the knowledge that you have recorded this worry and can return to it at any time. You don’t have to keep thinking about it right now, because it’s recorded on your list.

  This list will be useful when you work with the exercise I’ll discuss in chapter 10.

  Record your worries. You can make audio recordings of your worries, on your smart phone or other digital device. The idea here is to mimic the process that occurs in your head as you worry. This usually involves a lot of repetition of a couple of simple “what if” thoughts.

  There are several ways to do this. One is to make a short recording, perhaps thirty to sixty seconds, of a single “what if” worry. Say it several times, as many as will fit in the short recording. You can then set aside times during the day—ten-minute periods—when you can set the device to continually play and replay the recorded worry. The effect is similar to what you would get if you could eavesdrop on someone’s thoughts while they were engaged in worry.

  People are often concerned that if they do this, the worry will somehow become more compelling, and they will be unable to stop. However, think back to the experiment with the twenty-five repetitions in chapter 8—hopefully you did that experiment—and be guided by the results you got with it. When people do that experiment, they almost always find the worry loses its emotional punch and hold on their attention as they do more repetitions.

  Another way to use recordings is to record a longer worry session, one that’s more like an argument with Uncle Argument, in which you go back and forth with the worry, trying to disprove it, to silence it, to calm it, and so on. Play both parts of the argument—Uncle Argument as he tries to get your goat, and you as you try to calm and reassure yourself. You might want to make a recording of thirty minutes with this approach, and set aside time to listen to it regularly.

  Do You Worry about Playing with Worries?

  These suggestions are probably very different from what you’ve been trying. They involve accepting and playing with your worrisome thoughts rather than resisting and taking them seriously.

  What reactions do you have to the idea of humoring your chronic worry?

  People are often nervous at first about humoring their worrisome thoughts. It seems risky to them, like they’re tempting fate. They may have certain beliefs about worry that suggest the worry needs to be treated very seriously, and carefully, as if chronic worry were itself dangerous. I’ll take a look at some of these beliefs in chapter 11.

  If you prefer to treat these worries more formally, you can use the Worry Journal that’s available on the New Harbinger website (http://www.newharbinger.com/33186). It’s simply a questionnaire you can use while you are caught up in the worries. Take a little time to observe your worries, and answer the questions listed in the Journal. This will train you to be a better observer of your worrisome thoughts and will help you detach from arguing and resisting. If a bull simply observed with interest the antics of the bullfighter with the red cape, there wouldn’t be any gory bullfights!

  The Worry Journal can be
quite helpful. However, I encourage you to experiment with the more humorous, playful responses as well, because I think they will bring you greater rewards over the long run.

  When are you done with this second step? Don’t keep repeatedly humoring the worry, again and again, waiting for it to go away. That’s too much like arguing with Uncle Argument! Instead, take a humoring stance with the thoughts and then move on to the third step, allowing them to follow you as you get back into the external world, if that’s what they do.

  Activity—Resume Doing Things That Are Important to You (and Take the Worries with You If Necessary)

  If you’ve ever had an eye exam, you’re probably familiar with the part where the doctor switches through pairs of lenses, asking you “Better here…or better here?” while you try to decide which lens gives you better vision.

  You face a similar choice when you’re caught up in worry. The choice is this: “Better here (in your internal world of worry)…or better here (in your external world)?”