So, there are different ways people manage anxiety. We're gonna talk about a cognitive skill where you'll challenge those catastrophic thoughts directly. You're gonna see Bob and Judy demonstrate this cognitive approach to challenging the thoughts that are driving our anxiety. Hey, Bob, what's going on? Well, I have two things that I'm thinking a lot about right now. One is I have a really important presentation happening in a couple of hours that I'm really worried about, a really important presentation, and the other thing is that my dad is getting back really important test results right about the time that I'm giving my big presentation. Boy, that's a tough combination right there. And how are you feeling? I'm worried about both things. OK. OK. If it's OK with you, I'd like to teach you a skill that you can use to deal with some of this anxiety. You could use it now, you could also use it even closer to the presentation, if you'd like. So, are you game? That'd be helpful. Let's go. So, step one is worst case. So step one is worst case. What we need to do is just get out all of that worst case, that catastrophic thinking that it sounds like you're having. So let's just, let's just go with it. So, the catastrophic thinking I've been having since I woke up this morning is the test results are gonna be bad. I mean, really bad. And because they're so bad, he's gonna need extra care, and that extra care means a lot more money that he doesn't have, and that means that I'm gonna have to go care for him, and if I have to go care for him, I have to take a leave of my job which they're not gonna like very much, and I'm probably gonna end up losing my job, and if I end up losing my job, I'm not gonna have any money to support him or my family. Okay, deep breath, right? So just listening to you, I can hear how the thoughts are really becoming a runaway train. And as they become more and more catastrophic, how are you feeling? More and more anxious. Okay. So, this is our first step is just getting all these worst case catastrophic thoughts out. The next step is gonna be best case. So in this best case step, what we need to do is to try to generate just a little bit of positive emotion to give yourself some relief from all that anxiety from the catastrophic thinking before. So one way to do that is to think of a best-case outcome. So what's a best-case outcome? I think the best-case outcome is that the test results are fine. Okay, good, so test results are fine. I like the direction you're going, but let's go even bigger. So, test results are fine, how does Dad celebrate? Well, he's feeling so good that he takes the vacation he's never had a chance to take before, the vacation he's always dreamed about: a couple of weeks on the West Coast, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Golden Gate Bridge, everything he's ever wanted to do out west. So that sounds like a nice scene to think about it. How do you feel right now thinking about that? Better. I feel some relief from the anxiety. So step three is called probable. Remember what's going on here is that you've got this big presentation later today, it's very high stakes, and you're gonna be getting this test result from your dad. And so based on that, what do you think is probably gonna happen? Well I think I'll probably be anxious going in, not as anxious. I feel a little better now, but I think I'll still have some anxiety. And it's also probable that I'll be worrying about my dad during the presentation. And if I do that, it's likely I'll lose focus and I won't be as effective in this important- This presentation is incredibly important. Okay, so it sounds like we're dealing with two time frames. You're gonna be worrying ahead of time, but also you're thinking it's probable that during the presentation, you may lose focus because of this, some of these catastrophic thoughts. So that's the probable stuff. So, step four is called action. And based on what you already said is probably gonna happen, we need to come up with a purposeful action for each of those outcomes. So let's start with the first one. The first thing you said was "I'll probably be anxious leading up to the presentation." So what's an action you can do? What's a plan we can make for when you get anxious? What can you do? I could take a couple of deliberate breaths before I go into the presentation. Do you find that helpful? Yeah, that does help me when I'm feeling anxious. Okay. Great. So then let's come up with an action for the second probable outcome. You said you might lose focus, you'll probably lose focus because you'll be distracted by some intrusive catastrophic thinking. What can you do if that starts to happen, if you start to lose focus? Well, I can buy some time by having a sip of water to kind of regulate what I'm doing, but I don't know really what to do from there. Okay. Great. So that's a good first step, buy some time, take that sip of water. Something else you might be able to do is to have a thought ready to go when that intrusive thought comes in. So, what's an intrusive thought that you might have, a catastrophic thought? So, I'll likely be worried about my dad paying all of his medical bills. Okay. So, when you start to think about that catastrophic thought, what could you think instead that will pull your attention back to what you're doing and keep you on your game? Maybe I could say to myself, you know, "Bob, you have to focus on this. Your dad is important, but so is this presentation. You've prepared. You're ready to go. Focus." That sounds convincing. Does it sound convincing to you? Yeah, Now I think that could- that could help me focus for this short period of time. Okay. Great. Good. So let me summarize what we've done, the skill of challenging catastrophic thinking. We started with worst case and just getting them all out. Then we looked at some best-case scenarios to get a little bit of positive affect going, a little positive emotion. Then we looked at what's probably gonna happen. And based on what's probably gonna happen, you developed an action plan, and that action plan can help you to feel less anxious when you now go into this important presentation that you did. So, how does that all sound? Sounds good. All right, good. Good luck this afternoon. Let me know how it goes. Thanks. Okay, so that was- you saw Judy walk through that. There is a lot of moving parts, but I think what you've noticed– I hope what you've noticed is this system, of this cognitive system of thinking about your thinking helped Bob move from being stuck in the catastrophizing to ultimately having some very clear, actionable steps that he can take to handle the situation that he's confronting. And look, I want to be clear that initially people think this can be a little weird, it can feel a little cumbersome, but the system works. And the first part of it is to slow down and really listen in to all of the catastrophic thoughts that are kind of racing around in your mind. You noticed that Judy asked Bob to capture them all, and by doing that, we're helping Bob to sort of have a little distance from some of the thoughts that are causing him all of that anxiety. You also noticed that Judy asked Bob to generate those best-case thoughts. Now, that step's really important for a couple of reasons. One, it sort of sets left-right limits, if you will. Right? It's probably, situation probably isn't gonna be as bad as your catastrophic thinking, you know, it's leading you to believe. It's probably not gonna be as good as that best case. Reality is probably somewhere between worst and best, and so it provides a little structure, some limits to work within. You also noticed that by generating that best case, did you see kind of– there was some positive emotion, right? There was a little positive affect for Bob, that anxiety was starting to dissipate. That's important because positive emotions do help our bodies to kind of simmer down, to help quiet all of that fight-or-flight response, all of that anxiety. So, positive emotions help in that way too. And then of course the last piece was Judy helped him to plan what are you gonna do. Now that you know the most likely outcomes, the probable outcomes, what are you gonna do about it? Okay. You watched Judy walk Bob through it, but now I want you to try this method out, and you can do it in a couple of ways. If you have a partner nearby, you know, they could be, you know, they could be Judy and help walk you through it, or what I'm imagining most of you are gonna do is coach yourself through this skill. And in fact, that's really important because when you're catastrophizing, when I'm catastrophizing, I don't always have a Judy beside me who can coach me through challenging those catastrophic thoughts. I want you to be able to do this for yourself. So what you're gonna do is write this out because gathering those thoughts and putting them on a piece of paper help you to have distance from that. It helps you to have a little bit more clarity that those catastrophic thoughts are just catastrophic thoughts, they're not reality. So you're gonna try out this model, and then I hope you'll talk about it with other people taking this course and reflect on how this cognitive model helps you when you're catastrophizing. You know, you were incredibly helpful during this period. It was in August of 2013 and I had just come and seen you lecture 250 soldiers about resilience and how you can develop a sense of resilience. And so a week later I'm, you know, I've decided I'm gonna try to compete in the senior games. And you have to qualify for that, so I get a new bike. I've gotten a new bike. It's my first week out on my new bike. And what do I do? You know, I'm clipping along 18, 20 miles an hour. And what do I do? I hit a pothole or rock. I don't know what it is, but I go flying through the air, off the bike and break my collarbone. All right. And so, now this is a mess because I'm on book leave, I have a book deadline. When you have a broken collarbone, you can't type. You know, your arm is right here, it's like they can't set it, really, you just have to kind of be disabled for a while. So you can't type, you can't drive. Suddenly, I found that the things I needed to do to write a book, like drive to interviews, get on a plane, rent a car and do some reporting, which I had like three trips planned, even type out my- write my book or type out, you know, transcript, my interviews, I couldn't do that stuff, right? I couldn't do it for, you know, at least six weeks. And so one thing you taught me– and I'll get to character strengths in a second, but one thing you taught me was not to catastrophize. So, you know, my inclination was to naturally go, "Oh my goodness. I can't type and I can't drive. What that means is I'm gonna miss my- I'm gonna not be able to do my reporting for the book. I'm gonna miss my book deadline. They're gonna cancel my contract, and I'm going to be homeless." Right? Like, you get from having your broken collarbone to being homeless like in about 30 seconds flat. So you told me not to catastrophize, so I didn't. You also told me, you know, that I should think about purposeful action. Like the antidote to that kind of spiral downhill is to do purposeful action. So what I did is I got transcribing dictation software for my computer, so it could actually dictate my interviews and transcribe them. And you taught me to- you told me that I should look for meaning in the situation. And I promise, I'm gonna get to character strengths in a second, but if I can just say this: every situation has meaning, you just have to look for it. So for me, I couldn't drive and that meant I couldn't see my 91-year-old mother, 93-year-old mother who had just broken her femur. And so she- I was a mainstay and my brother and I were both mainstays of her existence while she was kind of trapped there not being able to walk. What I did is I found a physical therapist whom I could walk to, a place I could walk to, and mom could get a ride to the physical therapist. Mom had stopped on your PT. I said, "Mom, let's do PT together." So three times a week, my mom and I would show up for PT, and she would do her little PT and I'd do mine. It had all sorts of meaning, you know. It gave her a reason to get up. It gave her a way to see me even though I couldn't drive. There was just a lot of meaning to that.
