Today we're going to talk about the worry cycle and how you can get out of it, but first, I want to tell you a story.
When my daughter was in kindergarten, we noticed that something was wrong. Her pupils were different sizes and she wasn't acting like herself. To be honest, I never would have noticed the difference in pupil sizes, but my husband is a nurse practitioner, and knowing the severity of what different size pupils can signify, he noticed right away and knew that we needed to have her seen as soon as possible. Her pediatrician immediately referred us to a pediatric ophthalmologist and made calls to have her seen urgently.
The ophthalmologist confirmed what we already knew, this could be very serious, and it was important that we act FAST. She wanted us to get an MRI as soon as possible. Now, an MRI can be intimidating even for an adult, but for an active five-year-old girl, this was a really big ask. Not only that, but Ellie needed an MRI on her head, neck and spine, which would take two hours. She would have to hold still the whole time. When they called to set up the MRI, they warned me that they would likely have to sedate her and told us that she needed to prepare as if she were going to be sedated. Most young kids are frightened by the MRI machine and all the loud noises, and even adults struggle to stay still for two hours.
Now, I want to pause the story for just a minute so we can talk about worry. What is worry? Worry is an emotion that's created by our thoughts, it's a vibration in our body, and it feels pretty terrible, worry is always about a future potential problem that hasn't even happened yet, and something that may not ever happen. When we are worried, we act differently than we do when we aren't worried, worry is an emotion that creates more worry and keeps us stuck in a cycle of worry.
Worry feels useful. In fact, we often feel like we need to worry about something to prevent it from happening, ironically though, worry makes us less effective at problem solving, which is the exact opposite of what could help us prevent the potential problem or resolve it if it actually happens. Worrying actually causes us to feel more terrible. We feel terrible now because we're worrying and we feel terrible again later if the bad thing actually happens, and we feel terrible every single time we worry in between.
So back to our story, we knew that if Ellie was worried, she was less likely to stay calm and still. We knew that worrying wouldn't change her diagnosis, we knew that a brain tumor or cancer wouldn't go away because we spent our time worrying. We knew that whatever we learned from the MRI would give us the information we needed to take the next step, and we were prepared for whatever that would be. So we prepared Ellie for the MRI by telling her all about the machine and how cool it would be... We told her that it would make a loud noises because it would be taking pictures of the inside of her body, and that she would need to stay really still so we could see all the details in the pictures. We told her that the room would be cold but they would snuggle her up in a little blanket burrito and she would get to watch movies as long as she stayed super still. We told her that I would be right there in the room with her, even if she couldn't see me, and we told her that she would have to get a poke and be hooked up to an IV just in case she needed help staying still. Because we weren't worried about the MRI, Ellie knew that she didn't need to be worried either. She knew it was okay to be nervous, and to be honest, we were all a little nervous about how she would do, but we knew that we were prepared.
That little girl went to that MRI with so much courage. We took her special stuffed animal that her church teacher had dropped off, and we smiled and we laughed and we gave lots of hugs as we waited. She was ready for that poke and we talked about which snack she wanted when she was all finished. She picked her movies and snuggled in that burrito blanket, and I sat next to the machine while she stayed completely still for two hours with no sedation.
The MRI ruled out all the scariest stuff, and after many more tests and appointments, we learned that she actually had cluster headaches. It's like a dull migraine that never goes away, and it just intensifies and then detensifies and intensifies. Now she's healthy and happy, and she takes daily magnesium to keep those headaches at bay.
I want to share with you three tips that you can use if you find yourself worrying that helped us to navigate this situation.
The first one is that worry is always about the future. But right now, I'm guessing you're safe and secure, so when you feel worry coming up for you... I want you to come back to the present moment. I want you to take a deep breath in and a deep breath out. Focus on your breath, and then I want you to use all five senses. What can you feel with your hands? What can you taste? What can you smell? What can you see? What can you hear?
Sit in the present moment. Feel the present moment. Breathe through the present moment.
Tip number two is to replace worry with preparation. Worry feels useful. Usually when we're worrying about something that might happen in the future, we feel like we have no control of the situation. Worrying feels like something we can do, but it actually prevents us from doing the things that would help us to prepare to face the potential problem. It makes us less effective at problem-solving. What we're going to do instead is replace worry with preparation.
Worry is an emotion, so we need a new emotion that will give us the actions that will help us. What do you need to feel to take the action you want to take? Is it courage? Is it hope? Is it confidence? Resolve? Do you need to feel adaptable, adequate, resilient, curious, capable, strong, motivated? Or do you need to just feel love?
When you know what you need to feel to act in a way that will help you prepare calmly and effectively, you can replace worry with preparation.
The third tip is to not forget about the "what ifs". When you worry, you go through all the what ifs. What if this is brain cancer? What if she dies? What if we have to go through chemotherapy? What if, what if, what if?
But on the other side of that are millions of possibilities of other what ifs we never entertain. What if she's totally fine? What if it's just cluster headaches? What if she doesn't need to be sedated? What if she's going to be totally fine being still in an MRI? What if this isn't scary for her? What if this experience helps her to grow in a way we never could have imagined?
Next time you're worried, I want you to think about all the what-ifs. Your brain is offering you all the things where the worst case scenario might happen, and then I want you to think of all the other what ifs. What if nothing's gone wrong here? What if everything is going to be just fine?
I hope these tips will help you get out of the worry cycle next time it comes around, I love to coach people on worry because you can make so much progress in a short amount of time, if you want more personalized help breaking the worry cycle, you can schedule a mini session with me, completely free, no obligation, and I will help you figure out what is keeping you stuck so you can get some leverage over it.
