Working as a therapist in San Francisco, I am aware that beneath many psychological problems is an underlying current of fear and anxiety. When we are overwhelmed by fear, our capacity to respond and act effectively to the challenges that face us may be undermined.
Emotions are there for a reason. They have a survival function, and help to move us into action of one form or another. Fear alerts us to danger or potential harm. Fear is stimulated by events in the environment. Chronic or problem anxiety is perpetuated inside our minds and persists long after the threat is gone. Fear can stimulate us to take appropriate action, chronic anxiety can debilitate us. Problematic anxiety is like a burglar alarm that is ringing all the time.
Becoming aware of what is actually happening in the present moment versus the stories and fantasies we make up in our heads can be a useful technique in working with anxiety. Our minds are very good at making up scary thoughts and fantasies about the future in an effort to protect us from the unknown.
One simple cognitive therapy technique to work with this kind of anxiety of something bad that might happen in the future is to ask ourselves “How good am I at predicting the future?” Most of us, if we are honest, have to admit that we are not very good at predicting the future all. Even when something we fear does come to pass, our reactions to it or the situation surrounding it are nothing at all like we imagined.
What if we accept that we cannot predict the future, and come back to the present moment? What is it like to instead accept uncertainty and not knowing?
From a Buddhist perspective, Pema Chodron writes, “It’s not a terrible thing that we feel fear when faced with the unknown. It is part of being alive, something we all share. We react against the possibility of loneliness, of death, of not having anything to hold on to. Fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth.”
She goes on to say that “impermanence becomes vivid in the present moment; so do compassion and wonder and courage. The present moment is a pretty vulnerable place…completely unnerving and completely tender at the same time.”