I’m prone to panic when I feel like I have too much on or when I am thrown a curve-ball I wasn’t expecting. It only really affects me in my personal life, and I think it’s even worse since I’ve had children. Perhaps because there is always too much on when you have children? I’ve never been good at multi-tasking.
When the panic-monkey gets a hold of me I get all flighty, ungrounded, and it actually stops me from achieving anything. The rush of “too much” in my brain turns into a little snow storm and in the flurry I can quickly become completely unstuck. Even with my training and understanding of our minds, we are all human and our bodies and our minds can run away on us at times. No one is immune, including me. But that doesn’t mean we can’t do something to control it.
Panic-Monkey Kate case in point…Saturday. My husband and I are getting our house ready to sell. Saturday was our day to clear-out and clean up. We decided to put some pieces into storage and earlier in the week I had organized a little U-Haul truck and a storage unit. But on Saturday morning when I went to check the location of the storage unit I realized it had been booked at the wrong site. A 35+ min drive wasn’t going to work for us, so all of a sudden we had a moving truck and no storage. Oh, and I had also completely forgotten to get packing boxes during the week, so we had a truck but nothing was able to be packed to put into it (whoops, my bad). Rather than taking a deep breath and doing some proper planning about how to address the situation (including communicating calmly with my husband about what he thought we needed), I started running around in a flurry. I was randomly calling any and all storage units close to us when I wasn’t even actually sure what we needed, when we needed it or how much we were willing to spend. I didn’t consider that we probably needed boxes before I confirmed storage anyway. All the while, I was also being very snappy and difficult. My mind was running away on a tangent, creating a little tornado and it was pretty rendering all of my action as useless. I was achieving nothing helpful whatsoever and just causing chaos. Hmm…less than ideal functioning.
What it came down to in this situation is that I felt out of control. I thought I was set and organized, and when I discovered that wasn’t the case, my rational mind went out the window. My flight or fight mode went into overdrive after my sense of control had been shattered and I was left feeling panicked.
So how can we tame our inner panic-monkey when it starts to run away on us? How can we regain that sense of control and get ourselves back into our rational minds?
- Slow-Down – 3 Deep Breaths
Easier said than done, I’ll give you that. The key here is to get the step-up on your mind and circumvent the emotional panic cycle. It’s possible to stop the panic before it goes into overdrive. The moment you recognize you’re starting to feel overwhelmed by a particular situation you need to immediately stop and take 3 deep breaths. This will give you enough space to recognize that feelings and get a handle on them before they turn into the tornado they are prone to becoming.
In my Saturday example, I didn’t recognize the impending tornado so the emotions took complete hold of me. If you are already soaking deep in a state of panic the moment you recognize it, you still need to stop and take at least 3 deep breaths. Space in your thoughts is the first step in regaining control.
- Remove the Emotion
The panic state is fueled by emotions. Once you’ve given yourself the space to recognize the flurry of thought, give yourself time to work through the emotions till you feel you can come back to more of a rational mind. If you are by yourself, continue deep breathing until you feel you are thinking more clearly. If you are with someone else (as I was on Saturday) as soon as you have enough calm, talk through what you need from them. It is crucial that you approach anyone else involved with a sense of calm. Expressing anger, panic or frustration will only get the other person to react in kind, causing even more of a volatile situation.
- Plan
Recognize that no action for a couple of moments so that you have the space to plan, is better than a whole heap of haphazard, panic-fueled action. I encourage you to literally get out a pen and piece of paper and plan out how to approach what you need to achieve or fix. This is also a key coping mechanism for more chronic stress-related pressures too. Once you write things out they tend to become a lot less overwhelming, as you can objectively see your next steps. Planning and writing a “to-do” list if you like allows me to regain the sense of control that often causes the panic feeling in the first place. It allows the rational mind to step back in.
And as an update, we did get everything we needed into a storage facility. My husband went to pick up the U-Haul and they happened to have the storage we needed there, as well as the boxes. My panic state truly achieved nothing!
The huge key to undoing a state of panic is to bring your rational mind back into play. Deep breathing to allow space, recognizing the emotions and objectively planning actions are the three best steps I have found to bring that rational mind back into the game. Panic is a natural response derived from our fight or flight mechanism, and some of us are just biologically more prone to it than others. Although it may have been useful in helping us run from physical danger in our evolutionary pasts, it can often completely undermine our progress when it comes to matters of the mind. But if you can bring a level of consciousness to it, you can get the step-up on your panic.
Hi. I’m Kate Snowise, and Thrive.How is my business-baby. I’m a Well-Being Coach who helps both individual’s and organization’s thrive. I offer individual coaching that specifically helps people clarify their thinking, grow into their potential and regain balance. I also offer organizational consulting to help modern day businesses stay on top of the game, and keep their employees happy. Click here to learn more.
To download a copy of my free mini-guide – 8 Tips Towards Creating a Thriving Life – click here.