Overcoming Anxiety For Dummies, 2nd Edtion
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Running into judging words
You must read this book more carefully than you have been. Not only that, but you should have read more of it by now. And you should have taken the exercises more seriously. You're a pathetic jerk. Shame on you!
We're just kidding.
What authors in the world would take their readers to task like that? None that we can think of. That sort of criticism is abusive. People react with dismay when they witness parents humiliating their children by calling them stupid or rotten. Many would view a teacher who calls his students fools and describes their best effort as awful or pathetic as equally abusive. That kind of harsh judgment hardly inspires; berating crushes the will.
However, many people talk to themselves this way or even worse. Some hear a steady stream of critical commentary running through their minds. You may be your own worst critic. Many folks take the critical voice that they heard in childhood and turn it on themselves, often magnifying the critique in the process. Critical words come in three varieties, although they overlap, and sometimes a particular word can belong in more than one category:
Judgments: These are harsh judgments about yourself or what you do. For example, when you make a human mistake and call it an utter failure, you're judging your actions rather than merely describing them. Words like bad, inadequate, stupid, pathetic, or despicable are judgments.
Commandments: This category contains words that dictate absolute, unyielding rules about your behavior or feelings. If you tell yourself that you should or must take a particular action, you're listening to an internal drill sergeant. This punishing drill sergeant tolerates no deviation from a strict set of rules.
Labels: Finally, self-critical labels put the icing on the cake. Words like loser, pig, monster, jerk, and failure come to mind as disturbing labels people sometimes put on themselves like a name tag worn at a party.
Consider Steve, who makes a minor mistake in his checkbook and launches into a self-critical tirade.
Steve, balancing his checkbook, discovers that he neglected to enter a check a few days ago. Fretting and worrying about the possibility that the check he wrote will bounce, Steve thinks, "I should be more careful. It's pathetic that someone with a master's degree could do something this stupid. I ought to know better. I'm such a jerk. I disgust myself. I must never, ever make this kind of mistake again."
By the time he finishes his self-abuse, Steve feels more anxious and even a little depressed. His mistake leads him to make all three types of condemnations: He judges his error as stupid, he says he shouldn't have allowed it to happen, and he declares himself a jerk when it does. It's no wonder that Steve feels anxious when he works on his checkbook. Ironically, the increased anxiety makes further mistakes more likely.
See the later section "Judging the judge" for ways to replace these words with more positive language.
Turning to victim words
You may remember the story The Little Engine That Could by Watty Piper, about the train that needed to climb a steep hill. The author of the book wisely chose not to have the engine say, "I think I can't; I'll never be able to do it; this hill is impossible."
The world feels like a much scarier place when you habitually think of yourself as a victim of circumstance. Certain words can serve as a flag for that kind of thinking, such as these victimizing words: can't, defenseless, frail, helpless, impossible, impotent, incapacitated, overwhelmed, powerless, and vulnerable.
Victim words demoralize. They offer no hope. Without hope, there's little reason for positive action. When victims believe themselves defenseless, they feel vulnerable and afraid.
However, people who describe themselves as victims do enjoy a few advantages: They don't feel compelled to do much about whatever predicaments they face; people express sympathy for them; and some people offer to take care of them. Yet these advantages become self-defeating in the long run. To help yourself overcome the victim mind-set, flip to the later section "Vanquishing victim words."
Tracking Your Worry Words
You probably don't realize how often you use worry words inside your head. Because worry words contribute to stress and anxiety, performing a checkup on your use of these words is a good idea. You can start by tuning in to your self-talk that works like a play-by-play sports announcer in your mind. Get a small notepad and carry it with you for a few days. Listen to what you say to yourself when you feel stressed or worried. Take a few minutes to write the internal chatter down.
Now, check your internal monologue for worry words. You may discover that you use a few worry words that we haven't listed, and some words could fit into more than one category. That's okay. Just look for the relevant themes. Underline them and then put them into these general categories:
Extremist: Words that exaggerate or make something seem catastrophic
All-or-none: Polar opposites with nothing in between
Judging, commanding, and labeling: Stern evaluations and name-calling
Victim: Words that underestimate your ability to cope
In the following example, Frank discovers how prevalent his use of worry words really is:
Frank, a talented mechanic, is promoted to shop supervisor. Frank's punctuality, attention to detail, and perfectionism reflect his stellar work ethic. Unfortunately, Frank's perfectionism goes too far. He obsesses over the quality of his employees' work. He checks and rechecks everything. In order to feel like he's doing his job properly, he starts working 60 hours or more each week. His blood pressure starts to rise, and his doctor tells him that he needs to reduce his stress and anxiety. So Frank picks up a copy of Overcoming Anxiety For Dummies and decides to try tracking and trapping his worry words. This is what he writes; then he underlines each worry word he detects:
The workload is dreadful. It's impossible to keep up; I'm overwhelmed. But I should be able to do everything. I'm an absolute failure if I can't get the work out. Because I'm the boss, I must be responsible for all the workers. If everyone doesn't do his job, I'm totally responsible. If someone else makes a mistake, I should be on top of it. I can't stand the idea of a dissatisfied customer. When someone complains, it feels like a calamity. I feel like a loser and a jerk if I can't make things right.
Frank categorizes the worry words he discovers as follows:
Extremist words: dreadful, calamity, can't stand
All-or-none words: totally, absolute
Judging, commanding, and labeling words: loser, jerk, should, must, failure
Victim words: overwhelmed, impossible
Frank is surprised to see how many worry words pepper his mind. He vows to try and replace his extreme words with more moderate words. The next sections show you how to revise your own internal language.
Refuting and Replacing Your Worry Words
Ask yourself how you truly want to feel. Few people like feeling anxious, worried, and stressed. Who would choose those feelings? So perhaps you agree that you prefer to feel calm and serene rather than wound up.
A good way to start feeling better is to change your worry words. However, you aren't likely to stop using worry words just because we told you that they create anxiety. That's because you still may think that these words accurately describe you and/or your world. Many people go through life without questioning their self-talk, simply assuming words equate with reality.
In order to refute the accuracy of your internal chatter, consider a small change in philosophy. This shift in philosophy entails questioning the idea that thoughts, language, and words automatically capture truth. Then substitute that idea with a new one: using logic and evidence-gathering to structure your reality (Chapter 5 has more on this). At the same time, keep in mind that your goal is to experience more calm.
In the following sections, we look at each category of worry words and show you how to replace them with words that more accurately represent the situation.
Exorcising your extremist words
The vast majority of the time when people
use extremist words, such as intolerable, agonizing, horrible, awful, hopeless, and ghastly, they use them to describe everyday events. When you hear yourself using those words, subject them to a logical analysis.
For example, few events in life are unbearable. After all, you've managed to get through every single difficult time in your life up to now or you wouldn't be alive and reading this book. Many circumstances feel really bad, but somehow, you deal with them. Life goes on.
When you think in extreme terms, such as unbearable, intolerable, can't stand it, awful, and disastrous, you lose hope. Your belief in your ability to manage and carry on diminishes. Consider whether your unpleasant experiences are actually described more accurately in a different way:
Difficult but not unbearable
Uncomfortable but not intolerable
Disagreeable but not devastating
Distressing but not agonizing
Remember your goal of feeling calmer. When you drop extreme language from your vocabulary, your emotions also drop. Moderate descriptors soften your reactions. Less-extreme portrayals lead you to believe in your ability to cope. Humans have a surprising reservoir of resilience. You cultivate your capacity for problem-solving and survival when you have hope.
Disputing all-or-none
People use all-or-none words, such as never, always, absolute, forever, unceasing, and constant, because they're quick and easy and they add emotional punch. But these terms have insidious downsides: They push your thinking to extremes, and your emotions join the ride. Furthermore, all-or-none words detract from coping and problem-solving.
Rarely does careful gathering of evidence support the use of all-or-none words. Many people use all-or-none words to predict the future or to describe the past. For example, "I'll never get promoted," or, "You always criticize me." Whether you're talking to yourself or someone else, these words hardly produce calmness, nor do they describe what has happened or what's likely to happen in the future. So try to stay in the present. Table 6-1 illustrates the switch between all-or-none words and calm, evidence-gathering words that keep you in the present without distortion.
Judging the judge
Words that judge, command, or label, such as should, must, failure, fool, undeserving, and freak, inflict unnecessary pain and shame on their recipients. You may hear these words from others or from your own critic within.
Labels and judgments describe a person as a whole, but people usually use them to describe a specific action. For example, if you make a mistake, you may say to yourself, "I can't believe that I could be such an idiot!" If you do, you just made a global evaluation of your entire being based on a single action. Is that useful? Clearly, it's not accurate, and most importantly, the judgment doesn't lead you to feel calm or serene.
Like the other types of worry words, commandments don't inspire motivation and improved performance. Yet people use these words for that very purpose. They think that saying "I must or should" will help them, but these words are more likely to make them feel guilty or anxious. Self-scolding merely increases guilt and anxiety, and guilt and anxiety inevitably decrease both motivation and performance.
Try replacing your judging, commanding, and labeling words with more reasonable, accurate, and supportable alternatives. Consider the following examples:
Judging: I got a pathetic score on my ACT test. I must be stupid.
Reasonable alternative: It wasn't the score that I wanted, but I can study more and retake it.
Commanding: I must have a happy marriage. I should have what it takes to keep it happy.
Reasonable alternative: Much as I'd like to have a happy marriage, I was okay before I met my wife, and I can learn to be okay again if I have to. Being happily married is just my strong preference, and I don't have complete control over the outcome — it does take two, after all.
Vanquishing victim words
Victim words, such as powerless, helpless, vulnerable, overwhelmed, and defenseless, put you in a deep hole and fill you with a sense of vulnerability and fear. They make you feel as though finding a way out is impossible and that hope remains out of reach. Yet as with other worry words, only rarely do they convey absolute truth.
Nevertheless, victim words can become what are known as self-fulfilling prophecies. If you think a goal is impossible, you're not likely to achieve it. If you think that you're powerless, you won't draw on your coping resources. As an alternative, consider the logic of your victim words. Is there anything at all that you can do to remedy or at least improve your problem?
Gather evidence for refuting victim words that appear in your self-talk. Ask yourself whether you've ever managed to cope with a similar situation before. Think about a friend, an acquaintance, or anyone at all who has successfully dealt with a burden like yours.
After you consider the logic and the evidence, ask whether victim words make you feel better, calmer, or less anxious. If not, replace those words with new ones, as in the following examples:
Victim: I have a fatal disease, and I'm totally powerless to do anything about it.
Reasonable alternative: I have a disease that's indeed often fatal. However, I can explore every avenue from new experimental treatments to alternative treatments. If that doesn't work, I can still find meaning with the rest of my life.
Victim: I feel overwhelmed by debt. I feel helpless and have no options other than declaring bankruptcy.
Reasonable alternative: I do have a considerable debt. However, I could go to a credit-counseling agency that specializes in renegotiating interest rates and payments. I may also be able to get a second, part-time job and chip away at the bills. If I ultimately do have to declare bankruptcy, I can slowly rebuild my credit.
Chapter 7: Busting Up Your Agitating Assumptions
In This Chapter
Understanding how some beliefs make you anxious
Discovering your agitating assumptions
Challenging your anxious beliefs
Replacing your worry convictions
Some people love to speak in front of crowds; others shake at the very thought of public speaking. Ever notice how people respond to criticism? Some blow it off, some get angry, and others are extremely embarrassed. While one person may become anxious about traffic, airplanes, or health, another becomes anxious about finances, and still another feels anxious only around bugs. A few people rarely become anxious at all.
This chapter explains why different people respond to the same event in extremely different ways. We show you how certain beliefs or assumptions about yourself and the world cause you to feel the way you do about what happens. These beliefs are also called schemas. One way to think about these schemas or beliefs is to think of them as lenses or glasses that you look through. As you know, sometimes lenses can be cloudy, dirty, smoky, cracked, distorted, rose-colored, or clear. Some schema lenses make people scared or anxious when they see their world through them. We call those anxious schemas or agitating assumptions.
We show you how certain anxious schemas generate excessive worry and anxiety. These beliefs come primarily from your life experiences — they don't mean you're defective. Of course, as discussed in Chapter 3 and elsewhere, all aspects of anxiety are also influenced by biological factors. The questionnaire in this chapter helps you discover which assumptions may agitate and create anxiety in you. We provide ways for you to challenge those anxious schemas. Replacing your agitating assumptions with calming schemas can reduce your anxiety.
We consider the terms anxious schemas and agitating assumptions equivalent, but we get bored easily, so we like to mix them up.
Understanding Agitating Assumptions
A schema is something that you presume to be correct without question. You don't think about such assumptions or schemas; rather, you take them for granted as basic truths. For example, you probably believe that fall follows summer and that someone who smiles at you is friendly and someone who scowls at you isn't. You assume without thinking that a red light means st
op and a green light means go. Your assumptions provide a map for getting you through life quickly and efficiently.
And that's not necessarily a bad thing. Your schemas guide you through your days with less effort. For example, most people assume their paychecks will arrive more or less on time. That assumption allows them to plan ahead, pay bills, and avoid unnecessary worry. If people didn't make this assumption, they'd constantly check with their payroll department or boss to ensure timely delivery of their checks to the annoyance of all concerned. Unfortunately, the schema of expecting a paycheck is shattered when jobs are scarce or layoffs increase. Understandably, people with expectations of regular paychecks feel pretty anxious when their assumptions don't hold true.