Have you ever been held captive by the 'what ifs' that haunt every corner of your thoughts? Join me, Jim Cunningham, on the Unscripted Mind podcast for a conversation that could very well be the key to unlocking your peace of mind. We're tackling the beast of uncertainty, a force so powerful it can induce a whirlwind of anxiety with just a whisper of 'what's next?' But, as we dive into the crux of why the unknown is such a formidable adversary, you'll discover that it's not an invincible one. As Ursula K Le Guin nudges us to recognize, life is an endless series of unpredictable moments – yet within that chaos lies our chance to thrive.
Throughout our discussion, we'll arm you with six potent strategies to reframe your view of uncertainty, transforming it from a source of dread to a manageable aspect of life. Prepare to challenge the very nature of your fears, examining their validity and the evidence – or lack thereof – that supports them. By embracing these practical steps, you'll learn to interrupt the cycle of intrusive thoughts that so often lead to sleepless nights and anxious days. Whether you're navigating the complexities of daily stressors or the seismic shifts of life-changing events, this episode is your compass through the fog of the unknown, guiding you toward clarity and control over the anxiety that has overstayed its welcome in your mind.
The goal of The UnScripted Mind Podcast is to give you fresh perspectives, practical insights and tools you can use to give you more choices, self-awareness and control of your feelings, reactions and behaviors.
Have you ever been held captive by the 'what ifs' that haunt every corner of your thoughts? Join me, Jim Cunningham, on the Unscripted Mind podcast for a conversation that could very well be the key to unlocking your peace of mind. We're tackling the beast of uncertainty, a force so powerful it can induce a whirlwind of anxiety with just a whisper of 'what's next?' But, as we dive into the crux of why the unknown is such a formidable adversary, you'll discover that it's not an invincible one. As Ursula K Le Guin nudges us to recognize, life is an endless series of unpredictable moments – yet within that chaos lies our chance to thrive.
Throughout our discussion, we'll arm you with six potent strategies to reframe your view of uncertainty, transforming it from a source of dread to a manageable aspect of life. Prepare to challenge the very nature of your fears, examining their validity and the evidence – or lack thereof – that supports them. By embracing these practical steps, you'll learn to interrupt the cycle of intrusive thoughts that so often lead to sleepless nights and anxious days. Whether you're navigating the complexities of daily stressors or the seismic shifts of life-changing events, this episode is your compass through the fog of the unknown, guiding you toward clarity and control over the anxiety that has overstayed its welcome in your mind.
The goal of The UnScripted Mind Podcast is to give you fresh perspectives, practical insights and tools you can use to give you more choices, self-awareness and control of your feelings, reactions and behaviors.
Jim Cunningham:
Ursula K Le Guin once said the only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty , not knowing what comes next. That's not how most of us see uncertainty. In fact, fear of the unknown is one of the greatest sources of anxieties that we have. In this episode of the Unscripted Mind, we're going to give you six specific things you can do to conquer the anxiety of uncertainty. Welcome to the Unscripted Mind podcast, where our goal is to give you fresh perspectives, practical insights and tools you can use to give you more choices, increase your self-awareness and better control of your feelings, reactions and behaviors. My name is Jim Cunningham and today we're going to discuss how and why uncertainty affects us in such unhealthy ways, and then we're going to give you six tangible things you can do to change the way you think about uncertainty. Now we can drive ourselves crazy, worrying about all kinds of things that might happen, trying to account for all the radical possibilities that are out there, but you know, honestly, at the end of the day, we can't deal with all the unknowns and that are out there. But you know, honestly, at the end of the day, we can't deal with all the unknowns and the what ifs. First, let's talk a little bit about anxiety itself. Anxiety is, at its heart, our friend. Now that seems like a crazy statement, I know, but stick with me for a second. Anxiety is that hypervigilant part of ourselves that drives us and tries to anticipate and be ready for anything and every bad thing that could possibly happen. That, in and of itself, isn't the problem, though. The problem is when anxiety overwhelms the system. This can lead to panic attacks, heart palpitations, anger and a myriad of other symptoms. But how many of these things that you worry about are actually future-based? If you take a minute to stop and think about that, the answer has to be 99.9% of them. And here's the great news about anxiety it's all future-based. The things that make us anxious haven't even happened yet. They're actually figments of our imagination, and you know how we know this. We know this because, as soon as something happens that thing that we fear the most we stop worrying about it, we stop having anxiety about it and we just start dealing with it. If I'm worried about having a flat tire and thinking, oh my gosh, I don't have a spare whatever, that creates a ton of anxiety, but as soon as I have a flat, the anxiety goes away and I start problem solving, okay, who can I call? Maybe I call AAA, maybe I call a friend, maybe whatever. But now I start problem solving. So sure we have some fear and unhappiness that go about the bad thing that happens. But now I start problem solving. So sure we have some fear and unhappiness that go about the bad thing that happens. But anxiety's job is done as soon as the thing happens.
Jim Cunningham:
So we have to remember that and that is good news that anxiety, when you're feeling it the thing hasn't happened yet, always something important to remember. Our brain always does a great job of trying to keep us safe. Sometimes it does too good of a job. Our brain is going to fill in any gaps in knowledge with fabricated facts, and these facts are not the positive outcomes that you'd always hope for. So I call it msu, making stuff up, or any other s word you want to put in there. Usually the made, the made-up facts are worst-case scenarios. They are only our imaginations, though still None of these things have happened.
Jim Cunningham:
And if I look at the evidence to support all the things that I have worried about over the years, what, maybe 1% of them have actually ever happened? It just doesn't work out like that, and I have to remember that. So if we take a moment and consider the actual fear, we usually find there's little evidence to support it. We have to be aware of what the thoughts were entertaining and be careful of those kinds of things. So let me ask you the question what types of thoughts do you tend to entertain? So, with all this in mind, what are we going to do with all of these Well, let's call them intrusive thoughts when they show up, how do we handle that in the moment? Well, here are six ideas and six things that you can think about. They are practical. The idea is to give you something very tangible that you can do.
Jim Cunningham:
So the first thing I might recommend is this thing I call eliminating the variables. What that means is we can't get rid of all the unknowns, but the more information we have to work with, the better. And again, this goes to this MSU thing, where my mind is making up all the worst scenarios that aren't going to come true. So the more information I have, the less opportunity my brain has to make those things up. So how do I eliminate variables? Well, I'll give you an example. If you're worried about a contentious conversation you need to have with a coworker or a friend or whoever it might be, and, of course, you've rehearsed this conversation 6 million times in your head and it always ends up pretty bad and you can always imagine the worst scenarios and how this is going to turn out. The way you eliminate the variable is you actually have the conversation, schedule it, put it on the calendar, go have the conversation and then, even if it does turn out bad, you're not worried about it. You don't have anxiety about it anymore, because then you have something that you can actually address. The more proactive you can be, the less reactive you have to be, and that's really the goal, right, if I can start to anticipate something and that's based on facts, I don't have to be reacting in the moment, and that gives us a lot more sense of control, which is a great anecdote to anxiety.
Jim Cunningham:
The second thing I might suggest is focusing on what you can control Now. We can't control the future. That's where anxiety lives. We can't control the past. That's where regret and all these other things live. The only place that you have control is in the present. So ask yourself what you need to do next, like the next thing you need to do in this moment. Focus on that and that's it. One thing at a time. Don't worry about tomorrow's problems. Stick with today's problems. One thing at a time, it's all you can control. When I look at everything in the world, the only thing I can really ultimately control is myself and, to be perfectly honest, I kind of suck at that. So staying in the present is a great strategy, because it's still something that I can actually act on and tangibly manipulate.
Jim Cunningham:
The third thing I might suggest is focusing on the trees, not the forest. Now, I know that's backwards from what we've normally heard, but sometimes the forest is just too much. Staying in the present allows us to not be overwhelmed by everything in the forest. If I can just focus on one tree at a time, that's all I got to do. If I do that enough times, the forest takes care of itself. This is a good sports analogy. If you're at the free throw line and the game is on the line and you're worried about what happens when you miss the shot, that's the wrong thing to be focusing on. It's much better to focus on the things you can control, and in that moment, the thing you can control is focusing on and executing the mechanics of shooting a free throw. If I do that correctly, the shot takes care of itself. I don't have to worry about anything else. So focus on the trees, not the forest. The forest can feel huge, but each tree keeps it very manageable. And again, one thing at a time, and sometimes the next thing is the best thing to focus on.
Jim Cunningham:
Number four what you know versus what you feel. Let me explain this one. Somebody once said feelings make great servants, but make horrible masters. Feelings can deceive us, so we have to keep those in check, and one way to do that and this has worked for me on a number of different occasions is making a list of things that I know for certain, that are indisputable, that I know for a fact. Then, when I start feeling and I start questioning and I start wondering and I'm thinking, well, I don't know if I should go back to my list of what I know. And when I go back to that list, it grounds me in truth and reality. Feelings are transitory and they will lead you astray in a lot of ways, so focusing on something that I can count on is much better. I can trust facts. I can't always trust my feelings.
Jim Cunningham:
Number five I would say is to embrace adversity. The only time we grow is when we are outside of our comfort zone. When everything is easy, we just atrophy. Adversity is a period of growth and we need to embrace that and see it as opportunity, not this horrible, horrible thing. Now, it's not pleasant in the moment, don't get me wrong, but sometimes it's about perspective and seeing things in a different light. When you think of the Stoic philosophies, a lot of that deals with not trying to go around obstacles but embracing them, because it's going to make around obstacles, but embracing them because it's going to make us bigger, faster, stronger and smarter. And without that we're just going to deprive ourselves. And I think this is true. If you're dealing with struggles with our children and stuff, depriving them of that opportunity to struggle a little bit and have a little bit of anxiety and figure out how to manage it, you're doing them a favor. As a parent, I know that's a very difficult thing to watch sometimes, but we need to be challenged in order to be creative, adaptive and resilient.
Jim Cunningham:
The sixth thing I might suggest, and the final thing, is taking care of yourself. This is an easy thing to overlook because we get so wrapped up on everything else and the anxiety of the future thing that probably isn't going to happen, that we forget to take care of ourselves. We get busy overworking, we forget to eat, we forget to sleep, we don't. We just don't take care of good care of ourselves. So this is one little acronym that I use. It's called HALT. It stands for hungry, angry, lonely, tired. This is not an original thing. Aa uses it. I think some other organizations have used it too. Halt is those times when everything is going to seem worse than it really is. It's going to seem like the world is falling apart and it's actually not. It's just that I'm hungry, angry, lonely or tired. The beautiful thing about this it also serves as a good checklist to create self-awareness.
Jim Cunningham:
When you start feeling anxiety, anger, any big emotion, ask yourself am I hungry, angry, lonely or tired? It's something you can actually do something about. Sometimes I get busy, I forget to eat. I mean, they make commercials about this stuff. You know Snickers, you're not yourself. You know hangry We've got all kinds of words to describe these things. Sometimes I just need to go get a snack. Sometimes I just need to take a break instead of trying to power through that difficult task, and just need to take a break. Instead of trying to power through that difficult task and just trying to gut it out, it's much easier to take a 10-minute break and come back with fresh eyes and get a fresh start at it. Maybe I need to talk to someone, maybe I need to take a nap. I don't know if you're a napper, a 20-minute nap is glorious.
Jim Cunningham:
So the goal of these six ideas is to give you something tangible to do to counteract all of these negative thoughts that we all have. So if you feel like you have them and you're the only one that's actually not the case. We all have them. And don't even get me started on waking up at 3 in the morning. The world will fall apart at 3 in the morning, but it's all made-up stuff and you know this, because when you wake up the next morning, it all seems ridiculous.
Jim Cunningham:
So, focusing on eliminating the variables, focusing on what you can control, and that is in the present, it's not in the future and it's not in the past. Focus on the trees, not the forest. The trees are tangible things we can deal with. The forest can really overwhelm us if we let it. Focus on what you know and not what you feel. Feelings again are great servants, but make horrible masters.
Jim Cunningham:
Embrace adversity. Just because it's hard doesn't mean it's a bad thing. We're going to get a lot of good mileage out of this. We're going to get stronger, faster and smarter because of it. And finally take care of yourself. Hungry, angry, lonely, tired. Make sure you eat, sleep, take a break, talk to somebody if you need to. It will make all the difference in the world. If you do this, I think you can not only rest and relax through the toughest times, but you can also thrive. I know there are a lot of other ideas out there. I would love to get some feedback from you and what things work for you to avoid the anxiety of uncertainty. Leave a comment for us Happy to check those out and maybe share them with other people. Have an amazing day. Thanks for joining me and we'll catch you next time. Thank you.