Chapter 1: What is Worry? “Worrying is carrying tomorrow’s load with today’s strength—carrying two days at once. It is moving into tomorrow ahead of time. Worrying doesn’t empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its strength.” — Corrie Ten Boom
You know this presentation is important and you have put a lot of time into preparing well. None of that matters now though. Just like last time, your thoughts are all jumbled up, your heart is racing, you are having a hard time catching your breath, your palms are sweaty, you know that soon you will start to feel nauseous. That unpleasant voice in your head snaps “I’m such an idiot, what is wrong with me, why am I the only one who can’t do this, this is going to be a disaster”. Even when your friend tells you “you’re going to do a great job” you barely hear them and know they don’t really mean it, they are just trying to be nice. If you have ever faced stress or anxiety (which is pretty much everybody), you’ll notice that the example above captures some of the most recognizable aspects of anxiety including changes in your thinking, the emotions you feel, the sensations in your body, and how you relate to others. Anxiety is an all too common mental health struggle that affects people no matter their age, gender, financial background, culture, geographic location, and more. Anxiety interferes with how you want to live, with how well you perform, and with how you think and feel about yourself. Imagine how you and your life would be different if anxiety was not there, lurking and threatening, reminding you of everything out there in the world you should be afraid of, including yourself. There’s a lot of information out there about anxiety, what it is, what causes it, what to do about it. For some, this mountain of information can add to feeling overwhelmed instead of helping find the solution. Part of the challenge is much of available the information is missing the rationale of why to use a particular strategy and when to use it. In this workbook, an integrative framework will be used to provide you with a clear understanding of what anxiety is and what to do about it. You will learn how and when to use a range of strategies that will shift anxious thinking, help you to calm your body, and consider how you relate to others and yourself. We will be working together to help you build a personal toolkit to help you shrink stress and anxiety in your life. Defining Stress and Anxiety In very simple terms, a stressor is anything that requires us to burn energy in order to keep internal systems running smoothly. The experience of stress can be both positive and negative, overt or hidden, physiological and psychological, internal or external, self-imposed, or forced upon us. When we are talking about stress in our everyday lives though, we usually think about only the negative experience of stress.
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