When you find things building up, when things that didn't bother you before begin to bother you, when the world seems to lump on top of your shoulders, there is a strategy I discovered years ago which works extremely well to shed the worry or the anxiety or the stress.
I call it ‘catastrophisation’, and I've read about it many times before, but as I look for sources for this blog, I seem to struggle to find it (Maybe I invented it in my mental head)
It goes like this, though.
Jump to the worst possible outcome of what you're worried about, the very worst. Generally, the worst outcome is your death, and so that doesn't matter because you wouldn't know about that, and all that will be left are the other people behind, and so jump to the consequences for them and realise that almost certainly they will be ok.
Ultimately, and therefore, you can manage, but stepping it down a little bit from that, if you understand that the worst form of catastrophisation is death, just think of what the things could happen to you if this goes as wrong as possible.
And so, things that I've considered in the past are as follows.
1) I could be struck off (that was the GDC case x2).
I managed to deal with that because I realised I would just do something else with my time in my life.
2) I could go bankrupt, but I'm healthy and I can still work and earn money doing something, and everyone will be fine.
3) I could have a health issue that would be detrimental or significantly detrimental to me.
I have had some of these both for myself and people direct to me, if I take away number one (death), I will be able to deal with something that happens to me health wise, it may not be nice or it may not be pleasant but ultimately, I'll be able to try and deal with it and make the best of things because I've done that before.
The rest of it is all rubbish, isn't it? Things that stress you on a day-to-day basis, the things that you're worried about or anxious about, it's nonsense.
And so, what to do is to go, “oh my goodness, I have to have this meeting with someone” and then catastrophise and go, even if it led to my death, it would be ok (it never will), even if I went bankrupt, even if I got struck off, etc. etc and then the meeting itself, it means nothing, it's not stressful, and you can just get on with being the best version of yourself.
While I understand that this sounds dark or obsessive, it's not; it becomes an instinctive process where you just go, “Well, at least I'm not gonna die”, and everything seems better. It's worked a treat for me.
I've been able to deal with things that, historically, the younger version of myself would never have managed.
Maybe it's wisdom or age, but I don't think so; I think it's just perspective.
Blog Post Number - 4260
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