The Fear and Anxiety Solution (35 page)

     • Am I giving my power to the assumption?

     • Is acting on the assumption really the best use of my time and energy right now?

     • How can I view and respond to this assumption from the perspective of my new, empowered self?

By practicing these empowerment patterns, you’ll sharpen your awareness of how often you’re tempted to raise negative assumptions, thereby abandoning the present and, with it, your sense of control. You’ll increase your mental and emotional flexibility and, thus, your ability to quickly shift back into the now and to choose to think and act from a place of self-empowerment and inner peace.

During my residency in Germany, it was a common practice to present young doctors with short contracts and long lists of high expectations they needed to fulfill for an employment extension to be granted. Talk about maximizing people’s willingness to go above and beyond the call of duty! As you have probably
experienced, increased pressure can lead to a significant decrease in self-esteem. Not only did I work extremely hard, I also became a master of anticipating my professors’ expectations. While I relished any little signs of their approval, I more frequently wrestled with self-doubt and disappointment when my efforts and diligence weren’t acknowledged. Rather than appreciating myself and building more trust and confidence in my knowledge and skills, I allowed my self-worth to become dependent on the recognition of my superiors, which only augmented my already enormous stress and anxiety levels.

Pleasing others, no matter what the underlying motivation may be, never leads to a sense of inner peace and self-empowerment. We’re hoping that others will fulfill our need to be accepted and approved of instead of learning how to appreciate and value ourselves. As time wears on, the need and emptiness in between those brief moments of feeling accepted become greater and start to consume any residue of our self-worth. The dilemma is similar to a coin. One side of the coin represents the approval, recognition, and acceptance of others; the other symbolizes their judgment, criticism, and pressure. The problem is that you can’t just pick up one side of the coin. It’s impossible to enjoy and cherish praise and acknowledgment without also becoming more susceptible to disapproval and dismissal.

Today, focus on putting this coin down by practicing self-reliance and independence from other people’s approval.

Notice today how often your opinion of yourself depends on what other people are thinking of you. How often are you trying to please others, trying to make them like you, trying to meet their expectations? For example:

     • Your sibling calls and complains that her computer is broken. You know she looks up to you, and you immediately volunteer to buy her a new computer, although you don’t really have money for it.

     • Your boss piles more work on your desk right before he leaves for the day. You decide to stay longer in the office to make sure he notices your impeccable work ethic.

     • You’re meeting friends for lunch. As usual, you listen and ask questions, but you don’t share your own problems because you don’t want to be a downer or appear needy.

Once you notice that you’re trying to please somebody else, ask yourself whether doing so increases or diminishes your confidence and self-worth. If the latter is true, choose one or several of the following responses:

     •
Create healthy boundaries as an expression of self-worth and self-care instead of overextending yourself.
As my wife likes to say, “
No
is a complete sentence.” Practice saying no to somebody else’s expectations and yes to taking care of your own needs.

     •
Change the dynamic of your relationship by adopting the opposite of your habitual pleasing role.
Move from being the listener to the one who shares, from the giver to the receiver. Instead of being passive, try the active role. Instead of following, make a decision.

     •
Please yourself by attending to your own needs.
For example, eat something healthful and nourishing, take a bath, book a massage, or go to bed earlier than usual. Do something that makes you feel good about yourself and increases your self-appreciation.

     •
Ask yourself, “is the person or organization i’m trying to please my true source of happiness, self-worth, and inner peace?”
This question has changed my perception dramatically. I only wish I knew about it when I was a young medical resident.

Being more self-reliant and independent from others’ approval doesn’t mean that you’ll become antisocial, ignorant, or closed to their positive or negative feedback. Self-reliance simply means that
you
become your primary frame of reference for how you choose to relate to yourself. Not only does self-reliance lead to greater self-appreciation and confidence, it also leads to openness, equality, and fulfillment in your relationships with others.

There is no question that some unexpected circumstances—an unexpected death of a loved one, a serious health issue, an accident, a burglary in our home—can truly make us feel victimized. Although we have no say in these events, we always have a choice about how to respond. It continues to amaze me how the most challenging conditions tend to bring forth the best in human beings. People often seem more capable of dealing with unforeseeable large
disasters than small, day-to-day troubles. One of the reasons for this conundrum is that we’re overwhelmed on a daily basis.

In this day and age, being busy and having a lot on our plates becomes almost a justification for our existence. As the to-do lists get longer and the periods of unscheduled time shorter, a sense of uneasiness creeps in. No matter how hard we try, the mountain of unfinished tasks and obligations seems to grow only larger, increasingly overshadowing our lives. Our initial frustration, the result of not being able to make headway, inevitably turns into stress, anxiety, and a sense of being overwhelmed. Then everything becomes too much and too difficult to handle, and we don’t know where to begin or what to do. From this point, we’re just a hop, skip, and a jump away from feeling we’re a victim of circumstances. We interpret small mishaps and incidences—spilling a glass of milk, misplacing a bill, being cut off in traffic—as personal attacks by life or the universe that push us over the edge into the abyss of despair and powerlessness.

To move from being victims to becoming the masters of our lives, we need to take responsibility for how we become overwhelmed in the first place and then commit to bold adjustments. So today, let’s focus on addressing the preconditions that lead to feeling overwhelmed and victimized by life.

Become aware of the following habitual patterns that can set you up for feeling stressed and disempowered:

     • Overextending yourself and taking on more than you can handle

     • Cramming in a last-minute task or activity and thus always running late

     • Not maintaining firm boundaries

     • Taking responsibility for other people’s obligations

     • Not prioritizing, but instead viewing everything as equally important and urgent

     • Neglecting to define an ending point for your work day

To overcome your feeling of being overwhelmed, use the following steps:

1. Write a fresh list of all the tasks that need to be finished within the next few weeks.
Include only projects that have a start point and an end point. Avoid including daily duties such as getting the kids to school or walking the dog.

2. Condense this list by choosing the top five to ten focus items. Prioritize them according to:

     • External conditions, such as the due date for a bill, the guidelines from work, or pressure from your family.

     • What gives you the greatest leverage—meaning what makes the greatest difference for you and takes the most weight off your mind (for example, replacing the light bulb in the closet, writing an overdue thank-you card to the in-laws, or completing an unpleasant task at work).

     • What is most gratifying and enjoyable for you (for example, getting a new coffee machine, scheduling a haircut, calling a good friend you haven’t talked to in a while).

3. Give each project a specific date by which you want to have it completed.
Be reasonable with your estimates. This process isn’t about fostering your ambitions; it’s about taking some pressure off your mind.

4. Determine how long each task will take to complete.
Once again, approach this step with generosity, and assume that it will take longer than you can foresee right now.

5. Check your calendar to plan the dates you want to work on that task and how many hours you want to spend on it.
Make sure that you don’t fill up more than 50 percent of the time you have available. (For example, for an eight-hour work day, plan to spend no more than four hours on work-related tasks). If it turns out you have time to spare that day, you can choose to do more. The difference is that now you will feel ahead of schedule, not lagging behind.

There are multiple benefits to this process. By limiting the number of projects you focus on and by determining their end points and the amount of time they require to complete, you already gain a much greater sense of control over these tasks. When you allocate specific focus times in your calendar, the unfinished tasks no longer weigh heavily on your mind but are now appointments that can be kept and fulfilled easily. At the end of the day, you’ll have a satisfying sense of being on top of everything.

At some point in our lives, we’ve all felt criticized, judged, avoided, rejected, or ignored. And more often than not, we take someone’s impolite behavior personally rather than ignoring it. A client once told me that he felt extremely angry and
disrespected when people didn’t notice him walking on the sidewalk, bumped into him, or just obstructed his way. He also observed that waiters in restaurants deliberately ignored him when he tried to catch their attention. Then there were the selfish drivers who constantly cut him off or blocked him by double parking.

Another client noticed that people always attacked her. Whether she was at work or at the shopping mall, everybody seemed to be so rude and negative toward her that she began to wonder if there was something seriously wrong with her. The other day I even heard someone accusing his newly acquired goldfish of being rude and standoffish.

Carl Jung coined the concept of “perception is projection.” Whatever we perceive in others is predominately a reflection of what is going on within ourselves. When we’re in a splendid mood, the world appears a much friendlier place than when we’re depressed or irritated. As you recall, it all has to do with the filters of our subconscious, which delete, distort, and generalize the input from our environment. It turns out that we’re all in the same boat—meaning everybody projects onto everybody else. So theoretically, you can’t take personally somebody else’s opinion, good or bad, because that opinion says more about them than about you.

Instead of reacting to judgment or unfriendly behavior with self-doubt or hurt, imagine what might be the cause of the others’ behavior. Is it possible that they are insecure themselves, that they feel ignored, rejected, or criticized? Maybe they’re dealing with tremendous stress in their lives and aren’t even fully aware of anything or anybody else. It could also be that they’ve just had a bad day and feel tired, frustrated, or lonely. Make sure that your story opens the way for more compassion for them and understanding about what may be at the root of their behavior. Although you may never find out what was really going on, you’ll discover that your initial, self-deflating reactions quickly disappear.

Taking things personally can be an opportunity to gain greater insights about ourselves and what we may still have to work on. Let’s say you’re a professional race-car driver and a commuter on the interstate flips you off. Would you take that insult personally, or would you know with every fiber of your being that his reactions are completely unwarranted? I bet in this case it would be very easy for you to deflect this judgment about your driving abilities.

On the flip side, the things we take most to heart are often things we struggle hardest with. So whenever you’re reacting with insecurity to something another person has done or said, check with yourself to see if there’s a lingering, self-limiting belief deep inside that needs to be addressed. This way, you can see
the person who prompted you to discover a residual limiting belief as a teacher and a catalyst for self-empowerment. And you can turn anger and anxiety into acceptance and appreciation.

Today, the focus is on shifting from taking something personally to staying in your power.

Be aware of when you’re taking somebody’s comments, opinions, or actions personally. Notice your thoughts, emotions, and energy. What do you think about this person—and yourself? Do you feel anxious and self-conscious? Or irritated and annoyed? Does your energy contract and shrink? Or do you feel shaky and ungrounded?

Ask yourself clarifying questions.
Considering the following questions will clarify the situation and interrupt the knee-jerk response of taking something personally:

     • Does this person really know me or what’s best for me?

     • Does this person’s behavior say more about me or him/her?

     • How can I see the person differently, with more compassion and understanding?

     • Am I giving my power to this person? And if so, is my power really in the best hands?

     • What do I believe about myself when I choose to take this personally?