Welcome to the second issue of Hey Shrink: Psychological Zingers for Better Living, Working and Wellbeing. This issue continues with anxiety and focuses on expanding awareness of both the consequences and possible benefits of anxiety to provide you with a roomier view of anxiety because sometimes rather than fighting anxiety it can be helpful to “sit with it” for a while.

You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet. ~ Franz Kafka

Visit the two rooms of anxiety. I invite you to imagine that your anxiety resides in two rooms. Imagine yourself taking a seat in each room and considering a different facet of anxiety in each room. Of course, the rooms don’t need to be real when you make your own rooms out of imagination.

Caution: If imaging this makes you more anxious I encourage you to not enter the room or to leave the room if you start feeling overly uncomfortable. You may feel some discomfort being more mindful of anxiety but it is counterproductive to do something in the name of anxiety reduction that results in a bewildering increase in anxiety. It is always okay to pause or stop!

To You. In the first room, think about what your anxiety is doing to you. Anxiety can make us emotionally and physically uncomfortable, disturb our minds, interfere with sleep, hamper performance, create avoidance and so much more. It prevents us from both doing our best and being our best. Anxiety can consume so much of our energy and attention that we are left drained, depleted, and defeated.

Ask yourself: What is anxiety doing to me and sit with that question to get a roomier view of your own anxiety.

For you. In the second room, think of what your anxiety is doing for you. Sometimes in our great desire to get rid of something we fail to see what that something is also giving us. I am not saying you are deliberately creating anxiety to gain benefits, rather, I am saying that we may benefit by taking a roomier view of anxiety to also notice what anxiety is doing for us and if there may be a less painful way to gain those benefits. Anxiety may be showing us how much we care about something even though that caring feels out of control. Anxiety may “save us” from a dreaded presentation, situation, or experience. Please know it may feel challenging, and paradoxical, to see that you’re gaining something from something you desperately want to get rid of or change.

Secondary gain. In medicine and psychology secondary gain is defined as the advantage that occurs secondary to a difficulty we are experiencing. Secondary gain should not act as a trigger to self-blame but rather as a lens to see a fuller picture of your experience. It is also quite conceivable that you sit with anxiety yet do not perceive any secondary gain from your anxiety.

Ask yourself: What is anxiety doing for me and sit with that question to get a roomier view of your own anxiety.

Sometimes in life, it can be helpful to take a break and go to our room (or rooms). When you exit your room, I hope you will feel even just a little more comfortable, competent, or confident to proceed. Anne Lamott once wrote:

“Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.”

Reach out for help. Just because we may be going through anxiety on our own doesn’t mean we should weather it alone. We need to be cautious and careful around anxiety. If your anxiety feels unmanageable or is increasing in frequency, duration, and/or intensity ensure you see your doctor or other caregivers to get specific assistance designed just for you and your situation.

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I am available for online and in-person workshops, coaching, and caring conversations. If you want more zing in your life and work message me directly though LinkedIn or email me at: david@davidzinger.com.Next weeks issue of Hey Shrink is Breathing Into Anxiety.

Hey Shrink #1 – Lower Anxiety: Stop Taking Mental Selfies

In 2017, according to the World Health Organization, over 264 million adults experienced anxiety. With COVID and the disconcerting levels of uncertainty over the last 5 years that number today is much higher.

The Cambridge dictionary defines anxiety as

the uncomfortable feeling of nervousness or worry about something that is happening or might happen in the future.

My daughter, a school psychologist was asked to do a presentation on anxiety for the teachers and staff of a school. I taught Educational and Counselling Psychology at the University of Manitoba for 25 years so Katharine asked if we could briefly talk about her presentation. While doing this, I realized how much I missed working in psychology — you can take David out of psychology but you can’t take psychology out of David.

So here is the premier newsletter on Hey Shrink: Psychological Zingers for Better Living, Work, and Wellbeing (I will explain the title “Hey Shrink” in a future issue of the newsletter).

But before we leap into anxiety I ask you to see psychological zingers as invitations, nudges, experiments, explorations, considerations, or possibilities. They are not meant as definitive solutions to our daily challenges. You must determine the value and application for yourself. Think about it, play with the idea, experiment, or even decide it is not for you. The Buddha, far wiser than I, said:

you must be a lamp unto yourself.

I am interested in performance anxiety, the anxiety we feel before giving a speech or job interview or the anxiety we feel during these performance situations.

No Self. No Anxiety. Anxiety requires an attention to the self. To be anxious, we need to know we are anxious and we determine that through our emotions, thoughts, self-evaluations, bodily sensations, etc. But our awareness can cause us to tumble down the rabbit hole into even more intense anxiety. I have worked with a number of people who are anxious about being anxious!

Stop taking mental Selfies. Here is the first zinger or provocation around anxiety: If there is no self there may be no anxiety. That was relatively easy to write but what a challenge in practice. If you want to eliminate or reduce anxiety, experiment with focusing beyond or outside of your self.

For example, if you are anxious speaking in public focus on the audience and the content not yourself. If you are anxious in a job interview, even though they are asking questions about you, do your best to focus on the interviewers.

You may never be fully successful in eliminating a self-focus but if you can lessen it during anxious times you may be freed up from the anxiety that consumes your energy, disturbs your mind, and hampers your performance.

Leadership Bonus: If you are in leadership and you would like a deeper understanding of being selfless, I encourage you to check out the work of Katrijn van Oudheusden and her book on Selfless Leadership.

In conclusion, You don’t need to think less of yourself but if you want to lessen or eliminate anxiety you may benefit by thinking about your self less.

Next Issue of Hey Shrink #2: What Anxiety Does To Us and For Us.

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I am available for online and in-person workshops, coaching, and caring conversations. If you want more zing in your life and work message me directly though LinkedIn or email me at: david@davidzinger.com.

During a brief spring snowfall yesterday I paused to watch the snow fall. As the snow made its way to the ground I saw how much of the snow was falling upwards, at least temporarily, on its journey to the ground.

Many of us have felt like we are falling over the past few years with COVID, changes in where and how we work, isolation, mental wellbeing challenges, burnout, uncertainty, the war in the Ukraine, and so much more.

To fall upwards we must take ourselves lightly.

As snow rides the currents of the wind we too can ride the currents of this decade.

I am not asking you to be a positive thinker — I am inviting you to take yourself lightly and fully experience the lighter moments in a career journey that inevitably includes falling.

We may be more like snowflakes than angels but I trust you can embrace G. K. Chesterton’s famous quip: “Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly.”

I first encountered the phrase psychological safety thirty-two years ago in William Kahn’s brilliant article on ‘The Psychological Conditions of Personal Engagement.’ I loved the focus on safety but I believe over three decades it has become jargon and management speak which also happened when we went from the term personal engagement to employee engagement.

Once something like psychological safety gets in the hands of experts, authors, consultants, trainers, and coaches it tends to become more complex, convoluted, and requires a twenty-two point action plan, and of course mandatory training for all managers with a one hundred page binder explaining psychological safety.

The gentle and beautiful monk Thich Nhat Hanh encouraged us to be more simple in our ways of living and working by focusing on such basics as breathing and smiling.

If you need some authentic and real perspective and guidance on psychological safety take the handoff from William Kahn to Thich Nhat Hanh with Hanh’s directions for safety from his wonderful book, Fear: Essential Wisdom for Getting Through the Storm.

“We have to learn to build safety with our steps, with our way of acting and reacting, with our words and our efforts to build communication.

You can’t feel safe if you’re not in good communication with the people you live with or see regularly. You can’t feel safe if those around you don’t look at you with friendliness and compassion.

In the way you speak, sit, and walk, you can show the other person that she is safe in your presence, because you are coming to her in peace. In this way, you generate confidence. Your peace and compassion help the other person feel safe. This allows her to relate to you with compassion and understanding, and you too will feel safer.

Safety is not an individual matter. Helping the other person feel safe is the best guarantee for your safety.” (p. 105-106)

WELL SAID. ENOUGH SAID. READ NO MORE ON THE TOPIC. Put this into practice for yourself, others, and your organization!

#psychologicalsafety #employeeengagement #employeeexperience