I’ve been noticing that there are some days when I can be completely waylaid by things I see on social media in as little as 5 or 10 minutes. Someone I think I can trust reports on the news and immediately predicts catastrophe that we won’t be able to come back from unless something is done to stop it. Do they have any good ideas about how this might happen? Typically not or not something they can control. So they focus on spreading the fear they hope will motivate enough people to do it instead. They’re just the “reporter”—they don’t know how to organize anything!
So then I’m infected by their fear and, damn, I don’t know how to organize anything either! Not that I haven’t tried. But after 20 years I still don’t know how to market my own business effectively a lot of the time, never mind organize a whole movement, say, on TikTok or some other venue I know nothing about! 30 “Likes” on a Facebook post about my cat always gets my attention as some sort of record. I might have had 80 “likes” on a topic or two. But enough to get a movement started? (Well, I suppose I could ask someone who does know.)
Which brings me to my next point. How does overwhelming anxiety start, breed, and go out of control? Cognitive behavioral therapists often describe this cycle as
- Predicting something bad will happen based on a piece of information that may or may not be true (harder to determine these days than ever before),
- Assuming the worst—this will be a catastrophe!
- Assuming you/we won’t be able to cope. And I’ll add
- “Help! Help! I’m ringing the alarm! Someone has to do something!” And now their anxiety is spread to anyone in earshot worried, vulnerable or empathetic enough to ingest it in a single big gulp!
A lot of this is related to fear of things breaking down and being out of control combined with pessimism about being able to handle it. The contagion part could be seen as a separate issue but if those fear buttons weren’t already there, you wouldn’t get sucked in so much.
Flower Essence Assisted Strategies
I just stocked up on my version of Rescue Remedy (dosage strength, infused with Reiki and called Emotional Recovery in my Etsy shop). It combines five flower essences for: soothing feelings of shock and trauma; calming panic or overwhelming fear (especially fear of you or outer things being out of control; countering responses that make you want to hide away or float into some other avoidance state; and calming frustration about not being able to stop or fix things right this instant! The essences are Star of Bethlehem, Cherry Plum, Rock Rose, Clematis and Impatiens. When it is the right combo for you, it can be almost instantly calming and grounding.
That’s where I usually begin because getting grounded makes everything else easier to figure out. But after that, I think taking the time to take a good hard look at your assumptions can really help.
For example, last night, just as my head hit the pillow, I had the sudden thought that something Paul and I have been anxiously struggling with in our financial lives might have been based on false assumptions. The thought wouldn’t let me sleep so I got up and did some research. And guess what? My intuition was correct: we’ve been mistakenly operating on partially true information that no longer needs to apply today. There are specific steps we can take to remedy this problem. It might even be EASY! I still have a little bit of anxiety that what I read on the internet might not be accurate. But I know who to call! (My bank.) And I know they have been very very helpful, courteous and kind whenever I have talked with them in the past. I wish I could say my anxiety is completely gone, but I know I just need to follow through. (And that thought alone just dropped my anxiety down to zero.)
So now I’ve addressed steps two and three above. This situation does not have to lead to catastrophe. We are not alone. We can get help and we can follow a plan (possibly a short one) to set things right. We CAN cope. (We can even thrive.)
Does This Apply to Our National Anxiety?
The American Psychological Association reported in May of this year that 2/3 (about 67%) of all Americans say they were anxious about current events. 62% were worried about their or their family’s safety, 61% were anxious about economics and 59% worried about their health. In other words, try not to feel bad about yourself for feeling anxious—you’re not alone!
But since contagion tends to breed fear, with numbers like that it’s even more important than ever to get grounded, check assumptions, and strive for a more realistic way of thinking about things. Realism means recognizing that change and recovery from what has happened will take time. So that’s where my formula for Resolve and Determination might be helpful. I wrote about that earlier in the week. But my anxious mind says, “Will we even get back in power in enough numbers to be able to change things back again? And what if we don’t?” (I’ve obviously been receiving too many emails from Gavin Newsom with headlines that say “Heaven Help Us If We Don’t Win!” ffs)
So after, calming myself back down again, I went back to the Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) playbook. What do I actually KNOW versus what it is that I fear? (Some of what I know is bad but not all of it is, and I also know we are still in process. NOTHING is currently in cement.) A realistic prediction is that it still can go many ways.
Next CBT step: In what ways might it be possible to either prepare for or otherwise cope with the worst case scenario? (Whatever that is for you right now.) The idea is that we can’t control everything but if we can imagine having agency and/or helpers, we can lower the volume of our fear and overwhelm.
I’ve actually allowed myself to imagine my worst case national scenario and what could actually be done if that were to occur. Scary at first, but after choosing the route of intent-driven resolve I started to think more positively. Oddly, one of the potential solutions I came up with is more utopian and appealing than anything we’ve done as a nation so far. I imagined people coming together to solve mutual problems despite our differences because it might be a case of adapt or die! That’s not exactly how I thought the Age of Aquarius would accomplish its aims but I had to smile at the irony in that.
Other far less utopian thoughts also came briefly to mind but I decided not to dwell on them. Why would I think that the worst I could imagine is more likely than the best outcome and everything in between? I’ve seen more coming together of people to help in a catastrophe than not in my lifetime (the Loma Prieta earthquake and the Camp Fire in Paradise). And that is incredibly helpful to me! (I wrote about the positive experiences that I experienced after the earthquake recently.)
I don’t have anything close to an actual game plan yet—there are too many possibilities! But I am starting to think more proactively about how to prepare for what I fear as I intend for the best but prepare for the worst. And I know that even if we don’t figure it out in advance, I lived in a tent for months after the earthquake with my next door neighbors in theirs. We helped each other and then more help came. We figured it out over the course of time and some of it was even fun. I don’t imagine anything as bad as that but, at this point in time, I’m thankful that I have those memories because I know what people do in disasters. A few people will act badly and take advantage of others but MOST dig in and help each other out.
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Flower essences are used to assist with mind-body-spirit interactions and individual results may vary. They are extremely dilute which makes them quite safe. But because so little physical substance can be detected in a flower essence solution, these products are presumed to work on an energetic or vibrational level—something that cannot be adequately tested by western scientific methods. Claims made by me, therefore, are based on personal experiences and the evidence of the combined multiple decades of case notes by Dr. Edward Bach as well as Healing Herbs and Flower Essence Services (the companies who make the ingredients I use in my products). This is not, however, accepted medical evidence or substantiated scientific evidence from a modern allopathic point of view. I am not a medical doctor or licensed healthcare practitioner.
Statements made have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. The information provided on my blog, websites or by this company are not a substitute for a face-to-face consultation with a health care provider, and should not be construed as individual medical or mental health advice. Consulting with a health care provider is a must for anyone taking medications or working with a medical or mental health condition, and highly recommended before using any herbal product. Please consult your doctor or health care provider for any possible contraindications and/or interactions with current medications. I trust you to seek the medical guidance you need to use any of my herbal products healthily at your own risk.