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Interrupt your Overthinking – ‘Blink VuMu’
Are you a prize winning overthinker? This is a helpful technique to interrupt that pattern when you identify that you are over-cooking a thought, or thought process. It is called ‘Blink VuMu’ not just because it is an usual name, but because the name is the pattern to follow (see the bolded letters as your clues!):
Step 1) Blink wildly for 5 seconds (count back from 5-1)
Step 2) Get curious – How am I doing this?
Step 3) Ask yourself the following questions
Q1) Is this Valid? YES/NO
Q2) Is this Useful? YES/NO
Q3) If not, what would be the Most Useful response I could offer right now?
• The value of this question set is that you can recognise that a reaction can be both valid and not useful.
• The first question allows you to say “YES” and validate your response. However, even as you do this, you have already stepped away and are analysing from a more dissociated position.
• The second question is more likely to get a “NO” response as you recognise the contextual value of your reaction.
• The third question starts you down a line of becoming more strategic and re-framing your thoughts, looking at it from different perspectives and breaking the pattern in a useful way.
As you practice this technique you are creating a new neural pathway, and a new habit, which will give you a more strategic outlook as you create your future. Give it a try!
3 steps to avoid taking on other people’s drama
As adults we often find ourselves dealing with friends, family or colleagues who are experiencing big feelings, emotions, or dramas. It can be hard to know how to show up and support them, without taking on the burden of their drama as your own. In supporting clients on how to approach this challenge I refer to one of the best tools I learnt during my parenting journey – emotion coaching. This technique is based on the work of Dr John Gottman and is a useful way to help your children learn to understand and regulate their emotions. It is a technique designed to validate your children’s feelings, to help them name their feelings and to be able to sit with uncomfortable feelings. (Gottman Institute)
As a therapist I have supported my clients to understand that the principals of emotion coaching can be used by to navigate many relationships, whether with their offspring (small or grown), friends, colleagues or acquaintances. A simple three step approach to support your friends without taking on their feelings is set out below.
3 steps to avoid taking on other people’s drama (with a bonus optional 4th step!)
1. Be curious
The first step in managing these emotional interactions as an adult is to use curiosity rather than ‘telling’. This means that instead of telling your friend that you can see that they are angry, you ask them if they are feeling angry. A great phrase for this is ‘I wonder if you are feeling……(insert the feeling you are observing.) By asking them in a curious way you are showing them that you are open to their answer, that you might not be correct, and that you care about them.
2. Validate
Once the other person has defined how they are feeling, the next step is validation. “ I can see how hard that must be”, “ that sounds tough’, or “those are difficult feelings to have”. Validation is about seeing the person’s experience. You aren’t agreeing with it, you aren’t judging it, you are just seeing it for what it is.
3. Let them sit with their feelings
And the final step can feel like you are doing nothing. It is the step where you let them sit with their feelings, offering your supportive presence, but not offering to solve the problem, carry the burden, or fix everything for them. (A good neutral sympathetic humming noise can be a great filler here.) This gives the person time to understand that you have heard them, and you understand their problem, and can see the effect it is having on them. Often this is enough to help the other person. When we step in to solve the problem we can take away their agency to solve the problem themselves.
4. Optional fourth step – ask what they need from you to help solve the problem.
If you feel that the person still needs more from you, then asking them what they need from you to help them, rather than telling them what you will do to solve the problem leaves them responsible for their feelings, but knowing that you are there to support them if possible.
Give this approach a try, and see how it feels and what the impact is. It might take a bit of practice to change from offering a solution straight away, but with time you can make this your default response and still maintain your connections with friends without carrying their burden on top of your own. Let me know how it works for you!
Does Anxiety give us magical powers?
A client recently commented that she was reluctant to talk about the good things that could happen as it could ‘jinx it’. My response to her was ‘Wow – let’s talk about your magical powers! If you can stop something good happening by talking about it, can you make something good happen by talking about it too? Or are your magical powers only limited to stopping the good stuff in life?’
She of course laughed and said that she doesn’t have magical powers but understood the point that I was making. If what we say and don’t say could impact our future negatively, why can’t it also impact our future positively? The reality is that when we have a well-trodden anxiety response we look at the future through the lens of all the things that can go wrong, and we forget to also look for the things that can go well. When we are looking for the things that can go wrong, we subconsciously look for evidence to support our expectation. When we expect things to go badly we see the missed parking spot as a sign that we don’t deserve good things, or the rainy day as a sign that the universe is against us. We see a person walking slowly in front of us as deliberately trying to make us late, and the neighbours playing loud music as them trying to stop us from enjoying our TV show.
If we look for the good in each day and reframe our thoughts, we start to look for the evidence to support the expectation that good things happen. The missed parking spot becomes a chance to find another spot that is closer to where we are going, the rain is an excuse to break out our favourite umbrella or be grateful for the garden being watered. The person walking slowly is a chance to smile at them as we walk past, or to be grateful that we are healthy enough to walk faster than them. The loud music next door can be an excuse for a dance party in the kitchen, or to knock on the neighbour’s door to have a chat. Saying that ‘good things will happen today’ can change our whole demeanour so that we are looking for good things to support our statement.
Using our magical powers for good and setting ourselves up to find the moments of joy in each day is a powerful way to reframe our thinking and improve our mental health. How can you reframe your day today?
3 Steps to Interrupt Anxiety
Interrupting Anxiety: 3 Simple Steps to Change Your Response
Anxiety can feel overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to control your life. By learning to interrupt the anxious process and changing your response, you can regain a sense of control and calm. In this post, we’ll explore three simple yet effective steps you can take to shift your perspective and manage anxiety.
Step 1: Look Up
When anxiety strikes, it’s common to feel trapped in a cycle of negative thoughts and worries. One way to break free from this cycle is by changing the ‘how’ that you are using to generate that anxious feeling. Simply looking up can help shift your response from the overthinking and create space for a different response.
Try this:
- When you notice feelings of anxiety creeping in, take a moment to lift your gaze upward.
- Focus on something above eye level, whether it’s the sky, a tree, or a ceiling.
- Notice how this simple act of looking up helps to expand your field of vision and brings a sense of openness and perspective.
By looking up, you’re signaling to your brain that it’s time to break free from the patterns of anxious thinking and see what else is possible.
Step 2: Drop Your Shoulders
Anxiety responses often manifest physically, leading to tension and tightness in the body. Dropping your shoulders is a simple yet effective way to release some of this tension and change the pattern of anxiety.
Here’s how to do it:
- Take a deep breath in, allowing your shoulders to rise towards your ears.
- As you exhale, consciously relax your shoulders, letting them drop down away from your ears.
- Repeat this process several times, focusing on the sensation of tension melting away with each breath.
By dropping your shoulders, you’re sending a signal to your body that it’s safe to relax and let go of the physical manifestations of anxiety.
Step 3: Wiggle your toes
When we have an anxious response, we follow a pattern we have learned over many years. Creating interruptions to that pattern sends signals to our brain that we can respond in a different way. Moving a part of our body that isn’t usually part of the pattern of response can interrupt this pattern and promote a sense of calm and ease.
Try the following:
- Take a moment to breathe in, then as you breathe out, wiggle your toes, one at a time.
- Consciously wiggle each toe, focusing on moving it back and forth, independently of the other toes.
- As you work your way through each toe on each foot, notice where your thoughts are going.
By wiggling your toes, you’re encouraging your body to shift out of the pattern you associate with anxiety and towards a more relaxed and balanced state. By focusing on each toe individually you are interrupting the repetitive nature of your thoughts, and clearing your mind to create space for a different response.
Managing anxiety doesn’t have to be complicated. By incorporating these three simple steps into your routine – looking up, dropping your shoulders, and wiggling your toes – you can interrupt your anxiety pattern and change your response to stressors. Small changes can have a big impact, and with practice, you can change your patterns of response and work to create new, and more helpful, patterns.
