Calm the Fuck Down

by Sarah Knight

In this section I’ll take you through a practice round of “Can I control it?” But first, I want to examine the different kinds of control you may or may not be able to exert on any given situation. It’s a sliding scale, and you’d be well served to understand the nuances.

  Out of your hands: These are the things you can’t control at all—such as the weather, other people’s actions, the number of hours in a day, and the number of chances your boyfriend is going to give you before he gets sick of your What if he’s cheating on me bullshit and dumps you anyway because you’re needy and untrusting.*

  Make a contribution: You can’t control the larger underlying problem, but you can do your part to minimize its effects. For example, in terms of the weather, you can’t control the rain, but you can control whether or not you suffer its effects to the fullest if you bring an umbrella. You can’t control the number of hours in a day, but you can control whether you spend too many of them watching online contouring tutorials instead of hand-washing your delicates like you should be. And you can’t control Randy’s ultimate level of tolerance for your “WHO IS SHE???” comments on his Facebook page, but you can control whether you keep using your fingers to tap out those three little words. (Or you could just break up with Randy because, let’s face it, where there’s smoke there’s fire.)

  Under your influence: This stuff, you can heavily influence if not completely control—such as “not oversleeping,” by way of setting an alarm. Is it possible that something will prevent your alarm from going off (like a power outage or a mouse gnawing through the wire), or you from heeding its siren song (like accidentally pressing OFF instead of SNOOZE)? Sure, but that’s a Category 1 Highly Unlikely Shitstorm and you know it. Or… am I to infer from this line of questioning that you don’t really want to calm the fuck down?

  Uh-huh. Carry on.

  Complete control: This is shit you are always 100 percent in control of, such as “the words that come out of your mouth” and “whether or not you are wearing pants.”

  As I have stated and will continue to drill into your skull like an old-timey lobotomist, worrying is a waste of your precious time, energy, and money. And worrying about things you CAN’T CONTROL is the biggest waste of all. This is true of low-level anxieties and high-probability shitstorms, from existential angst to all-out catastrophes. Whether they be problems with your friends, family, boss, coworkers, car, bank account, boyfriend, girlfriend, or tarantulas—the ones you have the power to solve, the worries YOU can discard and the responses YOU can organize are the ones to focus on.

  The One Question to Rule Them All, in action

  • What if I tell my bestie Rachel what I really think of her new bangs and she never forgives me?

  Can I control it? Completely. Keep your trap shut and your friendship intact.

  Or:

  • What if I accidentally shout another woman’s name in bed with my new girlfriend?

  Can I control it? Yes. For God’s sake, Randy, get ahold of yourself. No wonder your new girlfriend doesn’t trust you.

  How about:

  • What if rumors of a union dispute come to pass and force the cancellation of that monster truck rally next Wednesday that I was all excited about?

  Can I control it? Unless you also happen to be the Monster Truckers Union president, unequivocally no. Which means that this is a worry you should ideally DISCARD. (I’ll move on to “Okay, but how do I discard it?” in a few. Be patient—it’s not like you have a monster truck rally to attend.)

  Or:

  • What if something bad happens to people I give incorrect directions to?

  Can I control it? Yes, by telling the next nice young couple from Bismarck that you have a terrible sense of geography and they’d be better off querying a fire hydrant. This what-if is supremely easy to snuff out in its inception—take it from someone who thinks turning right automatically means going “east.”

  And sometimes, you might have to break a big worry down into smaller components—some of which you can control and some of which you can’t.

  • What if I laugh so hard I pee my pants during my friend’s stand-up gig?

  Can I control it? First of all, lucky you if your stand-up comedian friend is actually that funny. If you’re prone to laugh-leaks, you may not be able to control the bladder, but you can make a contribution to your overall preparedness. There are many options in the personal hygiene aisle that were invented expressly to assist you in dealing with this issue.

  This is so much fun, I think we should try a few more—this time, on what-ifs pulled directly from the pulsating brains of my Twitter followers.

  Shit people in my Twitter feed are worried about. Can they control it?

  • I’m happy and in a good relationship, but what if we wait too long to get married and never have kids?

  Can I control it? This is one you can heavily influence. You don’t necessarily have full control over whether you get pregnant, but in terms of this specific what-if, you can control “not waiting too long” to start trying. You know how this whole aging eggs thing works, and if you have to, you can explain it to Dan. However, if you have to explain it to Dan… maybe Dan should have paid more attention in tenth-grade bio.

  • What if I never find the escape hatch from my soul-sucking day job?

  Can I control it? Yes. You can only never find what you stop looking for. I think it was Yoda who said that. Bit of an anti-guru himself, that guy.

  • What if I’m failing as an adult?

  Can I control it? Yes. Adults do things like pay taxes, take responsibility for their actions, make their own dinner, and show up on time for prostate exams. Do these things and you will be succeeding as an adult. If your what-if is more existential in nature, perhaps you should get a hobby. Adults have those, too.

  • What if I choose not to go home and visit my family this weekend and something bad happens to them and then I regret it forever?

  Can I control it? Yes. If your goal is not to have to worry about this, go visit them. If what you’re really asking for is permission to not drive six hours to DC in holiday-weekend traffic and you also don’t want to worry about the consequences of that decision, bust out your trusty probometer. How likely is it that something bad is going to happen to your family, this weekend of all weekends? It’s a Category 1, isn’t it? You know what to do.

  • What if my son doesn’t have the developmental problems his doctors think he has and he’s just a budding sociopath?

  Can I control it? Yikes. I’m sorry to say, you can’t control whether the kid’s a sociopath. You can’t even heavily influence it, if we’re talking a DNA-level shitstorm. But you can contribute to the overall cause by continuing to seek help for him. (And maybe a second opinion while you’re at it. Seems prudent in this case.)

  • What if all my friends secretly hate me and I don’t know it?

  Can I control it? I refer you to your internal whetherperson to determine the probability of this scenario. Assemble all the available data. If your friends are nice to you on a regular basis and don’t avoid your calls or talk shit about you in group chats that they think you’re not going to see except they don’t know that Sondra is always leaving her phone unlocked and sitting on the table when she goes to pee, then they probably don’t hate you. If they do do these things, I don’t think they’re keeping it much of a secret? I’m not sure I understand the question.

  • What if I have an ugly baby?

  Can I control it? No. And besides, all babies are ugly. You’re not going to get a real sense of how that thing turned out until much later in life, and even then, puberty does terrible things to a human.

  • What if democracy is failing and my kids are in mortal danger because of that?

  Can I control it? Not really. But please vote. Or run for office. We all need you.

  • What if I get laid off without warning?

  Can I control it? Being laid off? As in not fired, but rather let go without cause, and as you said,
“without warning”? No. (Come on, the answer was right there in the question!) On the other hand, if you’re asking what if you get fired without warning, well, I bet that if your boss plans on firing you, he or she has actually given you plenty of warning—you just weren’t listening.

  • What if my aging parents start to fall apart?

  Can I control it? Ultimately, no. You can encourage them to get checkups and fill prescriptions and maybe sign up for a light water aerobics class to stay limber, but you’re not in control of anyone else’s health or related decision-making. If they do go ahead and fall apart, you can worry about it then.

  • What if I get bitten by a raccoon?

  Can I control it? Yes. By not hanging out with raccoons. Who are you, Davy Crockett?

  Last but not least, a query that stood out to me for an oddly personal reason:

  • What if my teeth fall out?

  Can I control it? You can heavily influence your teeth staying put by brushing regularly, swigging mouthwash, flossing (eh), going to the dentist, wearing a night guard, and steering clear of ice hockey and guys named Wonka. However, this particular tweet gave me pause not because I’m consciously worried about the fate of my bicuspids, but because I happen to have a teeth-falling-out dream every few months. And when I looked it up in one of those dream interpretation books I learned that lost or crumbling teeth in your dream indicates a feeling of powerlessness in real life. In other words, a loss of control. Apparently my anxiety runs so deep, I’m what-iffing in my sleep. So meta!

  If the answer is no, this is how you let it go

  What may come as a surprise to you after reading the previous section is that NONE OF THIS SHOULD COME AS A SURPRISE TO YOU.

  Can you control it (or aspects of it)—yes or no? You already have the answers, friend.

  We’ve established that you cannot, for example, control being suddenly laid off. But if you’re worried about this, I understand where you’re coming from. Throughout my twenties, my ability to perform my job well was not in question. I was not in danger of getting fired for cause. Still, I worried passionately about losing my job due to cutbacks or other factors at the corporate level that I definitely could not control.

  I remember having these worries. I remember people telling me that everything would be fine and that I couldn’t control it anyway, so I should let it go and stop freaking out about it.

  And I remember thinking EASY FOR YOU TO SAY, JERKFACE McGEE.

  Or, as one of my Twitter followers more politely articulated, “How do I get from understanding that worry is pointless to actually not worrying?”

  Excellent question. Once you’ve ACKNOWLEDGED the problem, you begin to let go of your worries about said problem by ACCEPTING the things you can’t control—a skill that over 60 percent of my anonymous survey takers have yet to master, by the by.

  I hope that the same 60 percent are reading, because it’s actually easier to do than they—or you—might think.

  Reality check, please!

  Please note: I am not using the word “acceptance” in the sense that you’re supposed to suddenly become happy about whatever shit has happened that you can’t control. It’s totally understandable—especially in the short term—to be very fucking upset by shit we can’t control, as Ross was when Rachel broke up with him on Friends using the very words “Accept that.”*

  But if you’ve been dumped, duped, or dicked over, facts are facts. Continuing to spend time, energy, and/or money—in the long term—being anxious, sad, or angry about it (or avoiding it) is a waste of freakout funds.

  Girl, don’t act like you don’t know this. We’ve been over it multiple times.

  For the purposes of this book and execution of the NoWorries Method, I’m using the word “accept” to mean “understand the reality of the situation.”

  That’s not so hard, is it? If you can accept that the sky is blue and water is wet and macarons are disappointing and borderline fraudulent as a dessert, you can accept the things you can’t control.

  And when you answer the One Question to Rule Them All with a No, you have already accepted reality. You have admitted that you can’t control something—it’s that simple. HUZZAH! Sarah Knight, dropping commonsense knowledge bombs since 2015.

  Let’s be real

  A frequent precursor to the Freakout Faces is an inability to accept reality. In one sense, you may be worrying about something that hasn’t even happened yet, which means it is literally not yet “real.” A what-if exists in your imagination; only when it becomes real is it a problem you can acknowledge, accept, and address. Or you may be freaking out because you can’t force the outcome you want, e.g., one that is not “realistic.” I’ll go over that more in part III, in the section aptly titled “Identify your realistic ideal outcome.” Meanwhile, chew on this:

  The path from what-ifs and worrying to calming the fuck down is a straight line from “things that exist in your imagination” to “things that exist in reality” and then “accepting those things as reality.”

  Maybe reread that a few times just to be sure you’re smelling what I’m cooking. In fact, see the next page for a graphic you can photocopy and keep in your wallet or bring down to Spike at the Sweet Needle so he can tattoo it across your chest for daily reaffirmation.

  And just like that, you’ve nearly calmed the fuck down—all that remains to complete Step 1 of the NoWorries Method is to DISCARD that unrealistic, unproductive worry like the good little mental declutterer I know you can be.

  To do that, you have a couple of options.

  Option 1: Just fucking let it go

  You still think it’s easier said than done? Fine. But I encourage you to consider everything we’ve talked about so far and apply your new tools and perspective on a case-by-case basis.

  For example, if you’re working those shitstorm categories like I taught you, you should be able to reduce your worry load immediately, and significantly.

  If something is highly unlikely to happen, why are you worrying about it?

  And if it’s far off in the distance, why are you worrying about it NOW?

  Oh, and is this something you can control? No? Hm. Then there’s no reason you should be spending your precious time, energy, and money on it at all.

  Seems pretty straightforward, doesn’t it? Like… maybe the kind of stuff you should already know?

  Well, I think you DO know it, somewhere in your palpitating heart of hearts—I’m just helping you access that knowledge. No shame in a little teamwork. I’ve found that in times of stress, people can’t always make the commonsense connections that others can make for them, if others are granted a reasonable deadline and unlimited Doritos to sit down at their laptop and spell it all out.

  It’s a symbiotic relationship, yours and mine.

  Which is to say, I’m not at all surprised that you couldn’t just fucking let go of any of your worries before you picked up this book—but I’d be really surprised if by now, you can’t just fucking let go of, like, a bunch of them.

  Option 2: Houdini that shit

  Unlike Bryan Cranston, whose character starts out enraged by but eventually comes to like the guy who’s trying to marry his onscreen daughter in the criminally underrated movie Why Him?, you cannot count on becoming happy about the thing that, right now, has you very fucking upset.

  But you CAN become happy (or calm or proactive, etc.), right now, about something else entirely—which in turn causes you to stop worrying about the original thing.

  Ta-daaa! I call this technique “sleight of mind.”

  It’s like when I’m freaking out about a deadline, so I go for a bracing dip in the pool to clear my head. That doesn’t change the fact of five thousand words being due in someone’s inbox tomorrow, but it does temporarily change my focus from I’m a fraud and will never write another syllable to Ooh, that feels nice.

  Just like sleight of hand enables a magician to perform his thrilling act, sleight of mind is how we’ll m
ake your worries disappear—at least temporarily, and maybe even for good. (And don’t come at me with “That’s cheating!” I promised you tricks all the way back on page one. You should really start taking me at my word.)

  Now, recall, if you would, the Flipsides of the Four Faces of Freaking Out:

  ANXIOUS?

  FOCUS

  SAD?

  REPAIR WITH SELF-CARE

  ANGRY?

  PEACE OUT WITH PERSPECTIVE

  AVOIDING?

  ACT UP

  This is where the magic happens, people. I now present you with a collection of simple, elegant tricks you can tuck up your voluminous sleeve for when the worrying gets tough and the tough need to STOP WORRYING.*

  How to stop being anxious about something

  The what-ifs are multiplying on the radar screen. Your nerves are frayed, your teeth are ground to nubs, and you can’t stop overthinking whatever shit is about to go or has gone down.

  You need to FOCUS, Jim! (On something else.)

  GIVE ANXIETY THE FINGER(S)

  When I’m anxious, I walk around the house wiggling my digits like I’m playing air piano or doing low-key jazz hands. My husband calls them my “decluttering fingers” since they always signal a prelude to some semimanic tidying. But in addition to clearing out the kitchen cabinets or denuding the coffee table of old magazines, what I’m doing is temporarily channeling my anxiety into something productive and, to me, comforting.