“Worry often gives a small thing a big shadow.” — Swedish proverb

Welcome to the fifth issue of Hey Shrink. The first series of issues of this new newsletter is devoted to understanding, reducing, managing, and transforming anxiety.

“Safety IS the treatment. — Stephen Porges

Sit in safety. Dr. David Martin, a psychologist who taught and wrote about counselling at the University of Manitoba was instrumental in teaching me how psychological safety extinguishes fear. His teaching was in regards to a counselling relationship where the safety created by the counsellor allowed the client to look at, and deal with, many fearful experiences and thoughts. As the client “sat in safety” talking about their anxious thoughts and feelings they experienced the anxiety extinguishing because of the power of psychological safety.

Caring is the key to safety. I taught about 100 Crucial Conversation and Crucial Confrontations courses. The more I taught these helpful and insightful courses, the less I thought of them as communication courses and the more I thought of them as safety courses. The two keys to establishing and maintaining safety in conversation is caring for the other person and caring about what they are interested in.

“Psychological safety is not at odds with having tough conversations – it is what allows us to have tough conversations.” Amy Edmondson

Who or what makes you safe? If you are a leader of a group, ranging from a teacher with a class to a supervisor at a construction site, do you make it safe for your team or class? Do they know you care about them and care about what they are interested in? (And if you don’t care are you taking steps to rekindle your caring or make a job change?)

Psychological safety and courage are simply two sides of the same (immensely valuable) coin. Both are—and will continue to be—needed in a complex and uncertain world. — Amy Edmondson

Keep your extinguishers close. Many of us keep fire extinguishers in our workplace and homes to protect our property and us if fire should ignite. The next time you are anxious, I encourage you to reflect on all the things and people that contribute to your psychological safety so that you can douse your anxiety with your personal ‘safety extinguisher‘. We may be adults, but we can benefit from the comfort of the adult equivalent of a security blanket or a well worn plush bear as we confront and move through anxiety.

Relate and care. We get by with a little help from our friends. Anxiety is seldom a solo experience. If we know someone else is experiencing anxiety, chances are it will have a significant impact on us. Help them to extinguish their anxiety by making them safe through your caring for them, and your caring for what they are experiencing.

To get out, go through. The way out of something is often through something. The way out of anxiety is often through it and psychological safety can create a powerful caring and careful portal or pathway though anxiety.

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Hey Shrink: Psychological Zingers for Better Living, Working, and Wellbeing is a weekly newsletter offering perspectives, nuggets, nudges, considerations, or ideas to enhance your wellbeing. I bring 25 years of my counselling knowledge, experience, and perspective to help you and others improve their living, working, and wellbeing. 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.

“Anxiety is a thin stream of fear trickling through the mind. If encouraged, it cuts a channel into which all other thoughts are drained.” — Arthur Somers Roche

Welcome to the fourth issue of ‘Hey Shrink.’ This first series of 6 to 8 issues of this newsletter is devoted to understanding, reducing, managing, and transforming anxiety.

“I love you like a river that understands that it must learn to flow differently over waterfalls and to rest in the shallows.”  – Paulo Coelho

Anxiety like water. Imagine you are standing in water. My question for you is, how deep was the water? Was it 6 feet deep or just a few inches? (If imaging standing in water or being in water makes you anxious, remember, not to do the exercise as you don’t want to do things in the name of anxiety reduction that create more anxiety for yourself).

Standing in anxiety. Now, imagine you are “standing in anxiety” how deep is the anxiety? Is it just a small whiff of fear before you begin something or do you feel you are in danger of drowning in anxiety and need to reach out for immediate help?

Moving from numbness to numbers. It can be useful to determine the level of anxiety you are in by giving it a number. Rating your anxiety with a number stops you from being numb to this difficult experience. This gives you more control or agency over something that feels uncontrollable and sometimes the very sense of being uncontrollable contributes greatly to anxiety.

From 0 to 10. Give your anxiety a number from 0 (being almost non-existent) to 10 (debilitating anxiety). In medicine patients are sometimes asked to scale their pain: Mild pain from 0 to 3 (Nagging, annoying, but doesn’t really interfere with daily living activities.) Moderate pain from 4 to 6 (Interferes significantly with daily living activities.) Severe pain from 7 to 10 (Disabling; unable to perform daily living activities). Giving anxiety a number and keeping track of how the numbers change will help you see what is happening to the frequency, severity, and duration of your anxiety.

A measured approach. I encourage you to take a measured approach to anxiety. If the level is rising or is already uncomfortable determine what you can do to drain some of the anxiety from your anxious pool of fear. For example: a breathing exercise or getting in touch with your internal and external resources or disputing counterproductive thinking or getting some exercise or all of these things or something else that is healthy that works for you.

“The entire water of the sea can’t sink a ship, unless it gets inside the ship.” — Goi Nasu

Shallow waters. Catch yourself in the shallow waters of anxiety before you get too deep, or if your anxiety level is high already take steps to drain some of it away.

“You can’t stop the waves but you can learn to surf.” — Jon Kabat-Zinn

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Hey Shrink: Psychological Zingers for Better Living, Working, and Wellbeing is David Zinger’s weekly newsletter offering perspectives, nuggets, nudges, considerations, or ideas to enhance your wellbeing. David taught Counselling and Educational Psychology for 25 years and he is bringing his knowledge, experience, and perspective to help you and others improve their daily living, working, and wellbeing. He is available for online and in-person workshops, coaching, and caring conversations. If you want more zing in your life and work message him directly though LinkedIn or email him at: david@davidzinger.com.

Next issue #5: Safety can Extinguish Anxiety.

Issue #3 of Hey Shrink: Breathing into Anxiety

“If you want to conquer the anxiety of life, live in the moment, live in the breath.” ― Amit Ray

Welcome to the third issue of ‘Hey Shrink.’ The first series of posts for this newsletter is devoted to understanding, reducing, managing, and transforming anxiety.

Takeaway. Don’t let anxiety take your breath away.

Anxiety Defined. If you joined us late I am using the Cambridge dictionary definition of anxiety:

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

Perls of Wisdom. Fritz Perls, the mover and shaker of Gestalt Therapy said, “fear is excitement without oxygen.” We can’t live without oxygen. We may also live less anxiously if we breathe into anxiety. As an aside, Perls encouraged us “to lose our minds and come to our senses” (something I encourage you not to think about too much).

Making sense of sensations. Physiologically, there is little difference between the sensation of excitement or fear/anxiety. When we breath into these sensations and feelings we may still have the sensations but begin to experience it more as excitement than anxiety. You want to feel excitement before an important performance but too much excitement (anxiety) can be debilitating.

Every breath you take. You don’t have to gulp in oxygen or make your breath unnaturally deep, just an easy focus on your breath. To tweak the the simple yet powerful breathing instructions of Thich Nhat Hanh, as you breathe in imagine yourself breathing in easy calmness and as you breathe out imagine yourself breathing out accumulating anxiety and fear. Imagine your breath sweeping your mind clear of anxiety.

“Feelings come and go like clouds. Conscious breathing is my anchor.” — Thich Nhat Hanh

Inspiration. As you go throughout your day keep reminding yourself that conscious and focused breathing can literally inspire you to experience less anxiety.

Bonus: I encourage you to breathe life into your breath by reading Moyra Mackie’s first newsletter with the wonderful name: Learning to Exhale.

Next week’s issue: How to Scale the Wall of Anxiety.

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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.

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.