Read the transcript below:
Hi there. Hope you guys are doing all right out there. Is anybody else finding it really hard to work from home? I have gotten into my office today. I had a couple of clients who really needed to be seen face to face, and I got to my lovely quiet office, no dog barking every time the Amazon person comes to the door. I could just focus and be still.
And I think we need that right now. I think we really need that because there’s so much anxiety in the air. And I was really thinking about how I can help you with these levels of anxiety, because it’s perfectly natural to be feeling more anxious right now. It’s a tricky time.
And so many of you loved my grounding exercise, my 5-4-3-2-1. So I was thinking about what else I could share with you to try and help you cope with feelings of overwhelming anxiety. And one of the things that I love to teach my clients, it’s called getting out of the road. Because I don’t know about you, but when I start to feel super anxious and overwhelmed, my heart starts to beat fast and my mouth can get a bit dry. But most of all, my mind is bombarded with thoughts. I just feel totally overwhelmed with thoughts, and sometimes a bit frozen and I don’t know what to do. And it feels a little bit like being in the middle of a busy road.
I live in London now and I always say it feels a little bit like standing in the middle of Tottenham Court Road, because Tottenham Court Road is a very busy road with lots of cars coming out. And if you’re standing in the middle of the road and they’re coming at you, you just don’t know how to cross, you fear that you’re going to get hit. And that’s what panic feels like. That’s what extreme anxiety feels like.
You really feel under threat, under siege and that you’re going to get hurt at any minute. So what do you do? I think the solution is to get out of the road. Get out of the road, step onto the sidewalk. Because if you’re on the sidewalk, you can look at your thoughts, you can look at the cars and say, okay, that is everything that I’m thinking, that is everything that’s coming at me, what’s the best way to cross? How am I going to get across this road without getting hit?
Do I need to cross right now? Can I wait a little bit? When you have that perspective of watching your thoughts, rather than being in the middle of them and being attacked by them and under siege, you have so much more control. So get out of the road, step onto the sidewalk, take a look in at your thoughts and decide what you’re going to do if anything, in that moment, or maybe you take a little bit of time to calm down and decide on a better time to cross.
So next time you’re feeling overwhelmed, next time you feel like you’re being attacked by thoughts and that you’re under threat, remember that, remember to step onto the sidewalk, get out of the road. And that will give you a bit more control, help you calm down and decide upon what you should do next.
So I hope that’s helpful for you. I’m going to stay here in my little bit of silence just a little bit longer before I go home. And hopefully I can come back later in the week to see a couple more clients. So take care and I’ll see you next time. Bye.
