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Leslie Jo Saul on Anxiety: “What if?” is not the same thing as what is.
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Transcript of Leslie Jo Saul on Anxiety: “What if?” is not the same thing as what is.
ANXIETY AND THE WORDS “WHAT IF” By Leslie Jo Saul, Beverly Hills Life Coach December 18, 2013 You’re 11 years old and your parents have taken you to a lighthouse on a coastal state. It’s open for visitors and, after some snapping some pictures at the base, your folks decide to climb the lighthouse and see what the view is like from the top. You enter through a little door and make your way up a rickety spiral staircase, up and up and up. Your parents can’t believe how brave you are, you’re running a head of them, taking the stairs two at a time. You get to the door at the top, and walk out onto a circular balcony. All at once, you’re terrified. The journey to the top wasn’t so bad–you were looking up the whole time and while you know you were getting higher and higher, you felt safe inside the rounded walls. Now though, out in the open air, looking down at the water and rocks and sand below, you feel a huge ball of anxiety well up in the pit of your stomach. Your parents come out and admire the far-‐away beach awhile before noticing the look on your face. They ask if you’re okay. They tell you not to worry, the lighthouse and its balcony are very sturdy and you’re not going anywhere. But secretly, you’re not at all afraid of falling. How can you tell them the thing you’re really scared of, the thought even 11-‐year-‐old you knows is weird and wrong: “What if I jump?”
Though you may feel different anxieties in all sorts of situations, it turns out that they all basically stems from one nebulous, universal fear: loss of control. In that way, every time you’ve ever felt anxious in your life was just like this time at the top of the lighthouse. Whether or not there was a physical, concrete cause for fright–a suspicious person, an icy road, etc–what you were most afraid of was not having full authority of your body, your mind, and your life. Somewhere, at some level of your consciousness, your brain asked the question: What if. What if I’m crazy? What if my lover is unfaithful? What if I make a fool of myself? People erroneously think, “If the thought occurred to me to jump from a high place, there must be some part of me that wants to, there must be some part of me that would. And this part of me is obviously out of my control.” But
this sort of flashing, terrifying thought would never occur to you while you were on solid ground. It’s only once you’re up there, when you’re faced with an immediate possibility, that your brain starts asking what if. As a Hypnotherapist and NLP Life Coach, I tell my clients this all the time: dealing with anxiety, no matter the source, is largely about identifying when your brain creates these what-‐if questions, and not attaching too much significance to them. “What if?” is not the same thing as what is. Because what if questions are only hypotheticals, by definition. Just because you can think of a negative outcome doesn’t mean it’s going to happen, that you want it to happen, that it could possibly happen, or that there is anything wrong with you for thinking of it in the first place. It’s just your anxiety getting a little exercise! Leslie Jo Saul is a Certified Master Neuro-‐Linguistic Life Coach (MNLP) and Clinical Hypnotherapist (C.ht). Leslie received her diploma in Healing and Success Arts and Sciences from Bennett Stellar University, an internationally recognized school of Life Coaching, with emphasis in relationships and certifications in the additional areas of DreamSculpting®, TimeLine Regression & Trauma Release, Hypnosis Mastery, and Communications and Life Mastery.