(2) What I Learned About Not Giving In To Panic

 

Some years back I was doing some consulting outside London and talking to a rather harried middle aged woman about her career goals. She mentioned that advancing her career was fine, but she was concerned about the level of responsibility it would bring. She continued by saying that she was a terrible worrier and that she always looked for the worst case scenario in every situation. I asked why this was and she said so she could ‘be prepared’ for the worst. I mentioned that if she was prepared for the worst outcome then why was she worrying? She had no reply to this and thought about it for a long time before answering that her mother was a worrier and that she feels she just picked up her habit.

We worked on the following exercise for when overwhelmed with worry: (1) Identify core reason for worry. (2) Work out everything you can do within your power to solve that worry and put it into place. (3) Stop worrying because everything else is outside your influence. I congratulated myself after this session as I think I did pretty well helping this person into a better strategy for managing herself and it also made me grateful I was not a worrier. A few hours later I had reason to thank the Universe for a big lesson in empathy and understanding . . . 

I was on the train just leaving the station for the long haul to back to London when I realised that I didn’t have two important note books with me. I must have left them somewhere in the offices I had been working in. Panic and fear shot through me. One note book held confidential information about all the employees I had been seeing in my time working for the company. The other was my personal ‘download’ journal that I use to write all my thoughts in. I sat with my head in my hands for a full ten minutes stressing about the situation. Then I remembered my own advice of the afternoon when dealing with worry: (1) Identify (2) Strategy (3) Forget. 

It was at this point I choked out a laugh at my practical demonstration of the paralysing grip of worry. Having decided I needed to get my books found and safely tucked away I ran through my mind the people I could trust in the office to entrust them to. I knew various trustworthy people in the offices, but could I rely on their discresion? Essentially, I knew there was really only one person I could trust such a favour of: Let’s call him my good friend James. I had his mobile number, he was trustworthy; he would do me the favour if I asked. 

Trouble was, I’ve always been fond of James and had things written a few things about him in my download journal. Nothing too fanatical, just observations about how I felt, some things he’d said and comments on scenarios we’d discussed. I was nervous that if I asked James to pick up the books and if he was tempted to read them I might appear a bit nuts on paper. But I had to get back my books, there was simply no other option other than to trust him. 

Having made mobile contact with James it was hard to get him to understand what had happened as reception on the rail line was dire. But, brilliantly, he managed to grasp what I wanted him to do: find the books, tuck them away from prying eyes and send them to me when he had a mo. 

Having set that all up (ie: done everything within my power) I then continued to stress about it until I remembered step (3) forget about it. It took me some deliberate distraction techniques to do it, but I eventually let it go. I had done all I could do and had to leave the rest for the Universe to sort out. By the morning when I received a ‘got them’ text from James, a whole new set of worries had surfaced: What if he read the books? What if had recognised some of the personal notes I’d made about colleagues? What if he misinterpreted my careless observations for fanatical obsession. Aaaarrrggghh!  Again, I had to let it go. Nothing I could do about it now was there? 

It was a tense week or so, but my books did come back and, to this day, my friends are divided as to whether James had read either my work notes or my personal journal. To his credit, James has never let on if he did read anything, nor changed his behaviour towards me in any way. I like to think he has the integrity I bestowed upon him. But I learned my practical worry lesson big time. Importantly, I also learned I am not above exhibiting any of the strange limiting behaviours of some of my clients. 

Many people have heard this story and comment that perhaps I shouldn’t habitually write my thoughts down in notebooks which can be misplaced, read by the wrong people, used against you etc. I say that goes a lot against my nature as I have kept notebooks since I was 16 (be very scared school chums!).  I choose to still commit to paper because I still enjoy the process. The lesson here though is to be able to deal with such tricky situations should they occur, not letting blind panic overwhelm you and otherwise dictate your emotions.