First, if you happen to be a tech support person for Time Warner or Apple, and you tried to help a distraught woman in Texas late last night…bless you…you should get paid a lot more than you do. 

“Which is more important? The world of facts, the world you can touch? Or the world you are responding to?”

In looking at anxiety in a situation, the first element is PERCEPTION. (The other pieces, INTERPRETATION, and REACTION are later.)

Your perception of the world, this moment, and the people in your world, do not represent THE reality. The more anxious you are, the more what you SEE is determined by your EMOTIONAL GUIDANCE GUIDANCE SYSTEM. When your anxiety is low, what you see more resembles the world you can touch. 

Factors contributing to anxiety are many and are determined by your experiences, and your imagined experiences. For example–if you were bitten by a dog, your anxiety is more likely to go up in the presence of dogs–though not for everyone at the same level. To some, the dog bite experience could grow and flower to the point where the person feels anxious when dogs are shown on television or talked about.  To others the experience may fade quickly and have little affect on behavior or thoughts. The individual’s level of functioning at the time of the bite, as well as the responses and anxiety of others strongly affect the long term affect of any experience.

The highly anxious person is more likely to react to a new situation that is similar to the dog biting experience–by acting in ways to upset the dog and, yes, increase the chance of a fresh bite. Which proves your belief that dogs are dangerous is right on the mark.

You can see where this is going. Switch out the dog for the woman in the next office or anyone in whose presence you are anxious. If your like me, your target can be a machine. Yesterday, I bought a Mac after 20 years on PCs. I haven’t switched because I was convinced I’d lose my mind with all the changes the new system would require. With this fear firmly in mind, I began converting my files. Everything worked except email.

Enter technical support. Two hours. I called in the likes of Time Warner and Apple Computers, not to mention more than a few friends and relatives. “I can’t get my e-mail!”   “I’ve tried that!” My server deletes and re-instates my account. Apple re-routes me to a specialist in Hawaii. But, no. None of those #$%%*#’s were any help. I gave up. But still in love with my new little 3 pound beauty, I couldn’t put her to sleep quite yet. I’d just play around . . . which is when I noticed on the in-box screen of my email, the little double line under the first six emails…drags down. Yep. I had test emails from two continents and Hawaii. Bless you.

I was right. I KNEW the switchover was going to be horrible and I made sure it was.