Have you ever noticed how easy it is for some people to get all concerned about something that might happen? It does not seem to matter if the probability of this “something” actually happening is incredibly low. In fact, there does not seem to be any mathematical relationship between the degree of probability and the intensity of the stressing.

Just so we’re all clear on this concept, let’s dissect it for a moment, as if we were in high-school biology class. Don’t worry, we’re not going to be touching all those “icky” bits.

Stop for a moment and notice if you started to … <drum roll> … actually stress just a little over the thought of what we are about to talk about being as “icky” as you might have found the dissecting of innocent critters in some biology lab. Oh, that wasn’t you, right?  OK, on with the show then. But I’m watching your stress-o-meter, so beware.

Here’s what we’ve got, basically :

– a person

– the present moment

– a possible future

– a thought or two about that possible future

– reactions to those thoughts about this possible future.

Put all these ingredients together, shake well and bake for 20 minutes on medium and depending on the reactions, you could have stress present. This stress arises because we humans react to these thoughts with emotions and feelings and when these reactions include fear, anxiety, worry, etc., we get stressed.

There are some philosophies which say that if you stop having those thoughts, you stop having reactions to them.  I like that idea, except… turning off your thoughts or changing them around can take a lot of willpower and effort. Here’s where I make a confession – I’m lazy. So lazy, in fact, that I don’t want to spend all that time stressing myself about making those thoughts go away. I am a big fan of meditation, but for most people it seems to take a long time to reach that point where you are able to watch your thoughts all the time. Most of the rest of us seem stuck with having some delay between the thought arising, reacting and then entering observer mode. I keep working at it, but maybe there are other options available for the here and now.

There are what I call mental systems such as NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) in which thoughts that can trigger emotional responses are constantly “re-framed” into something benign, basically by changing your perspective on them. This approach works some of the time, but often I suspect it requires another fairly hefty investment of energy, as one has to figure out a better way to look at things while emotions are flaring up.

The fact remains that our feelings can pop up quickly after we have a thought and once those feelings are engaged, it becomes harder to think straight. That is because when we get emotionally excited, particularly by thoughts that trigger a fear/anxiety response, our bodies switch over to fight or flight response circuits and blood is diverted from the rational part of our brain to the more survival oriented parts. In other words, your logic circuits are being starved of blood just when you want them to figure out a better way to perceive the thoughts that are running around getting you all worked up.

I’ve come up with a Plan B – drain the energy out of the exaggerated emotional responses and then one can think clearer.  OK, I snuck in the concept of exaggeration with regard to the emotional response. It really is a topic for another article, but many times we over-react to thoughts and situations because we have a whole warehouse of unresolved situations stored inside us. Until we resolve them, these situations and their associated thoughts and feelings keep popping up asking for our attention. So, until they get resolved, they bring their energy to the party when we start to speculate about a possible future. The worry we feel is often not just the normal worry about potential future situation X. It is also the accumulated unresolved worry from past situations that we have yet to release.

Given this, we really could benefit from draining those lingering feelings when they arise. That is where releasing techniques such as AER (Awareness Expression Resolution) come in handy.

In Plan B, when we have a thought about the future and some reaction occurs, we notice it and use AER to drain the energy out of it. Voila, this potential future is now visible in a much more realistic manner. And, the potential to get stressed over what might be is greatly reduced.

I wish you well on your journey.

Copyright 2009 Robert S. Vibert