I don’t know about you, but when an influx of scary stuff happens in our world, my imagination gets going, thinking of all the horrible things that could happen to those I love. And I often talk with clients about fearing what “could” happen or the possibility of experiencing future stressful situations. There is an official (and obvious!) term for this: “anticipatory anxiety.” I recently finished this book, “Overcoming Anticipatory Anxiety,” by Sally M. Winston, PsyD and Martin N. Seif, PhD, two experienced clinicians who specialize in anxiety disorders. In this book, they strive to offer a guide to disengage from “what-if” thoughts and get unstuck in decision-making using therapeutic and common-sense approaches, so that you can live with flexibility and peace of mind.
The authors covered a lot of elements of anticipatory anxiety (AA) that I’ve not considered before, including chronic indecisiveness. This book is reader-friendly – you don’t have to be a therapist to understand the content! The authors helpfully define various terms, explain how AA shows up, and what it looks like. They explain what goes on in our brains when we experience AA, how and why we try to so desperately to avoid it, thinking we’re “coping” when we’re actually just making it worse.
One key element of recovering from AA is paying attention to our inner dialogue of thoughts, and I thought they illustrated this helpfully by creating a cast of characters (Worried Voice, False Comfort, and Wise Mind) to distinguish the various threads of our inner dialogue. I realized how much I rely on False Comfort for reassurance, and how this can perpetuate my anxiety!
Ironically, I found myself wanting steps to follow to overcome AA, but as the authors state, “Recovery is flexibility, not rigid rules.” And this makes sense, as the goal in addressing anticipatory anxiety is to change our relationship to our anxiety, working “toward feeling more comfortable with [our] discomfort,” rather than alleviating it. It’s funny – I often tell my new clients that I love using Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (or ACT, an evidenced-based treatment that I use in my practice to treat anxiety) because we will experience difficult thoughts, feelings, and experiences throughout our lives. Our experiences are fluid, so instead of “follow steps 1, 2, 3 to feel better,” it makes sense that learning to relate to difficult thoughts, feelings and experiences is more helpful in the long-term. My desire to “follow steps 1, 2, 3 to feel better” is actually an illustration of my desire for certainty that I will feel better – also something this book addresses!
I highly recommend this book if you find yourself struggling with any type of anxiety, and particularly with thoughts of the future, “what ifs,” and difficulty making decisions. I encourage you to go in to this book with the expectation of feeling challenged to engage with your anxiety, rather than concrete steps to make it go away. There is plenty in this world to make us feel anxious – it’s impossible to avoid feeling anxious. However, this book gives us hope and ways to relate to anxiety so that we can live our lives driven by our values and what gives us meaning and purpose, and not by anxiety.
