Someone recently gifted me and my son with water balloon sling shots and we launched our epic battle in the yard. In his eagerness to pelt me, he would often fail to pull the band back far enough and his balloon would fall to the ground. In my effort to take revenge on all his pre-teen challenges of my authority, I would often pull the band so far back that I would shoot far past my taunting target.
The slingshots are a good metaphor for the role of anxiety in our lives. Anxiety produces tension that can motivate us to action. But too much tension leaves us unable to direct our energies effectively and too little can leave us stuck. Therapies to relieve anxiety may deny us the chance to harness the tension and use it to propel us towards change. Awareness of how we become anxious, what supports our worries and the type of anxiety we have can help us to cope with the symptoms and listen to the cues for what we need in the moment.
Anxiety occurs in two general categories, anticipatory – worrying about what has not yet happened, and ruminative – dwelling on the past. Of course many of us move between the two. While there are benefits to planning ahead and learning from past mistakes, our only real opportunity to make a change is in the present moment and the more awareness we can direct towards the here and now, the more choice and flexibility we can have in how to respond to life’s pressures.
Here are a few tips to help you get started on experiencing the present. See our courses on anxiety for more.
- Live here, deal with what is present, not absent
- Stop imagining. Experience the real
- Stop unnecessary thinking. Rather taste, smell, see, feel…
- Take full responsibility for your actions, feelings, and thoughts
- Surrender to being as you are