BEYOND SHYNESS
Page 12
Step 1: Talk about your fears and conflicts.
Step 2: Develop strong motivations. Believe it’s the right thing to do.
Step 3: Establish a budget and work to save enough money for a deposit.
Step 4: Stop procrastinating; look for a place.
Step 5: Do it!
Step 6: Keep doing it!
Now it’s your turn. Use the following guidelines to chart your goals and create a map for change:
My Long-Term Goal(s) (again, consider Career/School, Family, Friends, Relationships, and Other):
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In order to achieve them, I must accomplish the following Short-Term Goal(s) (again, consider Career/School, Family, Friends, Relationships, and Other). But this time, cite specifics: Find an apartment; change jobs; have at least one social engagement per weekend; meet new people, and so on:
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For each goal, write down steps, as Alan did, and establish a planning date. Then note the following:
What will I do?
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When? Where?
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What do I have to learn?
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What difficulties may I encounter?
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How will I handle them?
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Follow-up
Later, use these questions to guide you through the assessment stage of your progress:
What things went well?
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What things need further work?
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Am I ready to work toward the next goal?
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If you feel you would like to set goals specifically related to your dependency issues, use the following as a guideline to work toward changing your relationships with those on whom you depend:
In My Relationship With
Goal
What I Will Do Differently
Mother
Father
Sibling
Sibling
Sibling
Others
As you plan for change, work out a step-by-step map that tells you what you need to do. Without such a map, you may veer off the track in your quest for independence. George, a client of mine, was unable to stick to his goals because he lacked such a plan of action. An attractive young man, he was all set to become independent at age twenty-seven and was fortunate enough to have his family’s support in this goal. His aunt gave him a house she had purchased on foreclosure, with the understanding that he was responsible for all expenses related to it. These expenses totaled about $12,000, not an unreasonable sum for a working person with George’s qualifications. Unfortunately, George was unwilling to take the extra step toward finding permanent employment. He usually dressed in sloppy jeans and T-shirts and refused to cut his long ponytail, despite the negative responses he had received on the few job interviews he was willing to go on. Although he sometimes worked as a carpenter, he was essentially unemployed. George refuses to recognize his lack of motivation, and tends to blame his family for all his problems. With only a small savings account, and no job prospects, George would be in dire financial straits if not for his well-meaning (but enabling) family. Eager to escape the trap George’s dependence has locked them in, his family members have tried to confront him about the practical issue of how he plans to support himself and meet his end of the bargain with the house. But when they do try to discuss his map for change, George blows up, accusing them of lacking confidence in him. The truth is, George is having trouble staying on track. Having no map for change can mean a lot of trouble.
Moving Forward
Throughout this first section, you have completed a number of profiles to help you determine your degree of sociability, the extent of your social fears, the ways in which avoidance and dependence have affected you, and to establish your goals. Your step-by-step outline of what you must do both in the short and long term to achieve your interactive goals is your map for change. Refer to it, as I will, throughout the rest of the book. If necessary, update your goals as you learn more of the skills it will take to meet them. But save your original maps; they will be valuable tools for reviewing your progress and giving yourself credit for your true commitment to changing the way you interact. Remember, this book is constructed
as a step-by-step process. You must complete each step before moving forward. If you haven’t given this chapter all you should have, please complete the exercises again.
The next chapter is designed to provide you with the stress management techniques that will allow you to make your goals become reality. Again, it will be helpful for you to refer back to previous chapters from time to time to reflect on your specific symptoms. As you do so, you can explore the ways in which your newfound skills can help control or alleviate your anxiety responses. And, as always, keep that positive mental attitude. You can have a healthy, fulfilling, productive life!
CHAPTER SIX
Managing Stress and Controlling Anxiety
By conservative estimates, at least 70 percent of all visits to physicians are stress-related. What exactly is stress? It is not something abstract. It is not something up in the sky. According to the late psychologist Hans Selye, who was perhaps the world’s leading authority on the subject, stress is best thought of as “adaptation”—immediate or long term. Think of stress as the result of emotional, psychological, physiological, situational, and environmental stressors. When these stressors appear, they require you to adapt—physically and emotionally. Most indexes designed to assess your likelihood of serious physical illness list major life changes such as marriage or divorce, new residences or jobs, birth or death of a child or other relative, and fluctuations in financial status as the most profound stressors. The more major changes, good or bad, the more likely you are to suffer a stress-related physical illness such as hypertension, diabetes, asthma, ulcers, or even cancer. It follows, then, that the more adaptable you are, the better equipped you will be when stressors do arise.
Adaptation takes on special meaning for the individual who is struggling with social anxiety. For a person who has any degree of social anxiety, interaction represents change or newness. Avoidance and dependence may have limited the socially anxious person’s interactive experiences. Poor self-esteem may cause him to doubt his instincts, second-guess his words and perceptions, and finally, in many cases, to allow his body to begin the fight-or-flight response that typifies anxiety. This sequence—where initial experiences lead to increased anxiety and then low self-esteem and even avoidance—develops in different degrees depending on an individual’s background and experience. Again, for the socially anxious person, the key is adaptation. A new or unfamiliar situation usually takes longer to adapt to, and mind and body may overreact. Where stress is adaptation, anxiety is overadaptation—an overreaction of mind and body. The result? Symptoms can include irregular breathing, rapid heartbeat, cold, clammy hands, tense muscles, and recurring negative thought patterns. Without frequent, successful interactive contacts, these symptoms perpetuate themselves, and any situation can become a new and threatening entity to which the mind-body has to adapt.
Stress is adaptation. Picture yourself on a busy street. As you step off the curb to cross, a car appears as though out of nowhere, narrowly missing you. You didn’t see it coming, and you’re startled. There is no time to think, only to react: Your pulse quickens, your muscles tense up, you start to perspire—your body is focused on adapting to that moment. The anxiety response to interaction is no different, though there are varying degrees of severity. For example, a person who has muscle tension as a result of anxiety may develop a tension headache. Another person whose anxiety manifests itself in recurrent thought patterns related to unresolved emotional issues can develop insomnia. Symptoms vary from person to person, but the cause is the same: anxiety.
To explain the way in which your personality adapts to change, I am going to draw on some concepts from a form of psychotherapy known as “transactional analysis”: the Parent, Adult, and Child within you. The Parent is the part of you that is both critical and nurturing. The Parent develops and teaches values, and plays a major role in both finding fault and promoting growth. The Adult is objective—think of it as an energy source that processes information like a computer; you use the Adult for logic and precision. The Child is full of feeling and emotion. Like the Parent, it has two roles: the free child, fun-loving and spontaneous, and the adapted child, conforming, compromising, and manipulative.
Understanding these three components of our personalities helps us, in calmer moments, to review anxiety-filled situations objectively (using our Adult component) for the purposes of problem solving and stress control. It is the objective Adult who will recognize the motivations of the Parent and the Child within you. No doubt you have already used the Adult to answer some of the indexes in previous chapters. In the stress management arena, the Adult is responsible for the following:
1. Identifying the stressor or problem
2. Identifying the cause
3. Identifying choices
4. Setting priorities
5. Making decisions
6. Following through
The Adult is the keeper of your problem-solving method, and an essential part of a healthy personality. Why? The more control you have, the less stress and anxiety you have. Wouldn’t it be nice if our Adult were always in control? How easy problem-solving looks on paper! But at the very least, we can train our Adult to step in and follow these steps when anxiety starts to build. Think of your Adult as a trusted friend whom you can count on to see through the emotions or logistics of the problem to the bare facts beneath. Let your Adult be the foundation of future change.
Caroline used her Adult problem-solving method to resolve a conflict she was having at the office. As executive secretary to her company’s vice president, Caroline had a lot of responsibility and generally liked her job. But when Mitch, a mid-level executive, was transferred from another branch, things got complicated and Caroline’s anxiety rose. While Mitch’s job description included preparing his own reports and proposals on computer, he routinely requested that Caroline handle them, even though she was assigned exclusively to the vice president. Soon, Caroline found herself falling slightly behind in her own duties. Worse than that, she left work every day feeling angry and resentful and powerless. What complicated matters was that Mitch seemed to have a close friendship with the vice president; Caroline even wondered whether they were dating. How could she approach her supervisor about this problem when she might well side with Mitch? This only added to Caroline’s feelings of helplessness.
Here’s how Caroline solved the problem, using the Adult problem-solving method outlined here:
1. Identify stressor:
Mitch gets me to do his work for him.
2. Identify cause:
I can’t seem to say no.
3. Identify choices:
a. Keep doing the work.
b. Tell the vice president it’s a problem.
c. Go over vice president’s head to discuss with president.
d. Get feedback from other colleagues.
e. Flatly refuse to do the work.
f. Do it, but make it clear that it’s extra.
g. Tell Mitch I’d be glad to, but I have to check with my boss.
h. Tell Mitch I’ll do it as soon as I’m finished with my other work.
4. Set priorities:
a. Keep my job!
b. Get my own work done first; do it as well as I can.
c. Maintain good relationship with the vice president.
5. Make decisions:
After weighing the choices, I decide to keep it between Mitch and me and I will tell him I’m glad to help out once my own work is done. Going to my supervisor could have backfired (she could say she wants me to help him!). And refusing to help could get back to her through Mitch. If I’m lucky, Mitch will probably get the point and do it himself, rather than having to wait for me to be ready for him.
6. Follow through:
The last time Mitch asked for help, I did just as I planned, and he went ahead and did the work himself. No hard feelings. Actually, he was pretty nice about it, so if I ever do have time, I really won’t mind pitching in—though I think I will let my bos
s know what a good team player I am.
Caroline succeeded in allowing her Adult to step in and nurture her Child to provide a solution that proved workable and productive. To do so successfully, you have to perceive the emotions and the reality clearly, as Caroline did, before you decide on a solution.
As you can see, recognizing the stressor and determining choices does not mean removing stress from your life by running away. In fact, it is impossible to remove stress from your life. You can, however, control stress by mastering techniques for relaxation and incorporating stress management strategies into your life. By gaining control of the anxiety symptoms, a socially anxious person will be able to step forward and adapt to “new” interactive situations in much more comfort than before. And then, with practice, the situations will seem less threatening, and less difficult.
Relaxation and internal self-regulation have many payoffs for those who learn to incorporate them into their lives:
• Lessening of stress-related symptoms
• Increased feeling of well-being and self-esteem
• More mental and physical energy
• Increased feeling of self-control
• Increased productivity and even creativity
And remember, anxiety is incompatible with relaxation.
Anxiety can produce some extremely debilitating symptoms. Renata was a thirty-three-year-old homemaker or “domestic engineer,” as she called it, when she came to me with all the classic signs of anxiety and panic disorder: heart palpitations, dizziness, increased muscle tension, fear of passing out, fear of losing control. Sometimes, she did lose control, and, at her worst moment, refused to leave the house for three weeks, cutting off all social contact and becoming totally dependent on her husband. Her physical symptoms were so severe that she made appointments with ten different specialists who put her through almost every test imaginable. She was convinced that her problem was physical and was terrified of what the tests would show. But every test came back negative.