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Page 5 of 5
WORRY TIME - What the Coach Says
Coach: In this practice, the worrier's goal is to keep talking without any assistance. Your job is to offer a question or statement only if the worrier has run out of things to say.
Say the following as often as needed:
1. "Say more about being worried."
2. "How else does [this issue] worry you?"
3. "What else are you worried about?"
4. (If the person begins talking about the positive side) "Only talk about your worries, please."
5. (If the person runs out of worries) "Tell me again about those worries you've mentioned."
These statements and questions should be the only ones that the coach uses. Don't let your coach get off the track by playing the "me-too" game: "Yeah, I've had that problem before, too. I can really understand how troubling that must be for you." The coach should keep comments to a minimum; whenever possible he or she should just listen and nod and let you know when your time is up.
Let's assume that you typically resist your worries or try to argue yourself out of them. How well is that working for you? If you're like most people, it's not working very well. It is an understandable approach, but resistance in itself may promote your worries. In Worry Time you actually support the worries. You give them space, you don't fight them. And when you truly let them have all that space, noisy worries change. They may still be there; but if you are not fighting them, their intensity diminishes.
This is one of those techniques that you can never fully trust until you apply it. It sounds too simple to work. Let me tell you that it can work when you apply it to the "noise" of your worries. Will Worry Time work for you? I challenge you to experiment with it just once. Choose any problem in your life these days in which you have repetitious, unproductive thoughts. Give yourself a full ten minutes of Worry Time, and see if you can even last the whole time without running out of things to say.
I bet you won't make it, even if it's a problem you typically dwell on throughout the day! Because I'll also bet that when you worry, you simultaneously struggle against the worry by trying to think more positively or by trying to stop the thoughts. When you stop struggling, and you voluntarily choose to worry, then thoughts that tended to last all day can't even sustain themselves for ten minutes.
Worry Time and postponing can work together as a great team of skills during your day. If you have a designated Worry Time set up already, then when you begin to dwell on your worries at the office, you'll know what to say. "At 5:15 I'm already scheduled to worry about this. I'm going to postpone this worry until 5:15. That's the perfect time to pay attention to these thoughts."
After you have been using Worry Time for a few days, then you may also have trouble filling that ten minutes with worries about that issue. So when your worries spring up unannounced at other times of the day, you might even end up saying, "Hey, I need this worry to fill my time at 5:15. I'm saving this thought!" By investing time twice a day to worry formally, you end up reducing the amount of time you worry during the rest of the day. And those worries begin to get so "old" that they just don't have the punch to them anymore. It will be much easier then to say, "No, I don't really want to think about that anymore. I'd rather [read my book, talk with friends, enjoy my day, get my work done]."
Summary
Each of these five options:
- negative thought stopping,
- postponing,
- writing them down,
- singing them, and
- taking "worry time"
negative thought stopping. They give you the chance to control certain aspects of your worries instead of being controlled by them. Each of them prepares you for the next stage, which is to stop your worries and return to your daily activities.
Most people become physically tense and anxious when they worry. Once you choose to stop worrying, then be sure you take care of any physical tensions you are experiencing. Spend some time letting go of those tensions after you let go of your anxious thoughts. Practice some brief relaxation skills, like taking a few Calming Breaths or Calming Counts. Or, do something more physical, like taking a walk. Even taking a couple of laps around the outside of your house can help release some tensions and refocus your mind.
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