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"Calm, only calm!" or less worry

Tl; tr - This is a note about the alarm. For those who noticed that a lot of anxiety (or, as they say, “drives”) about or without it. An article for non-professionals, which rather allows you to "indicate goals" (to recognize what you can work out with) and "indicate directions" (about where and how to dig further). The topic is huge and fundamental, and of course the note is not disclosed. The text is intended to generate active interest. It is written in a somewhat humorous manner - which is intended not to discount the seriousness of the topic, but rather to call for a "game" attitude towards it.

In a modern high-risk environment, where life becomes difficult to predict, not only for the next five years, but for the next day, we all (judging by myself, of course) have turned a little into moose breaking out of a burning forest - a flash on the left, a flash on the right and we run (the opportunity to escape as an independent value - a means, but also a reward) headlong somewhere.

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Traffic is new oil, attention is in short supply and it is a product that is becoming increasingly scarce exponentially in proportion to the increase in the number of information. It was unlikely that tulip fever could envy such excitement. Plus the "uncertainty" (and here is the cove).

What is a by-product that arises in the market for “investing” your attention? - Anxiety!

But have we “invested” him there? (and this is still a good option) - and will we get return on investment in the form of information and skill that will allow the "moose to win the race of life". Or, on the contrary, an anxiety of avoidance when you put this attention anywhere, except what you really need to do - scrolling and browsing are pointless and merciless - and this is already a worse option. Or another option, when anxiety is a strategy - I will be ready (if I am anxious), "they" will not take me by surprise and all that stuff. This is also not good.

What is anxiety or anxiety? A person has the ability to think ahead and plan. This allows you to solve problems and overcome future obstacles. This is what active (correct) anxiety looks like. However, anxiety often spreads over the edge leading to such a "floating", weakly controlled anxiety with rendering in the head of any catastrophic scenarios. Thoughts cling to each other, expanding and spinning in a chaotic dance, and no action takes place (well, either they are happening but not at all that are needed to solve problems) - this is not proper anxiety, unproductive anxiety. As they say, everything that does not kill gives you unhealthy “compensatory strategies” (psychological crutches), cynicism and black humor.

As said, this information is not for professionals, but closer to the “Do It Yourself market”. Actually, on the same and analogy, you can limit the applicability of this kind of information for independent work - if you need to wallpaper and cover cracks in the walls - DIY market is a good thing. If you have “load-bearing walls” in your house, you need the help of professionals. Here I avoid the professional words KPT, REPT, MKPT, AST, DBT and so on (they are needed and very useful if independent work stalls).

So, what triggers the alarm is anything (any situations where there is uncertainty, ambiguity, novelty; sometimes these are not even situations, but simply memories of the traumatic past and the desire to prevent this from happening in the future)!

If on a large scale, anxiety and anxiety can be constructive - solving some current issues right here and now (preparing for a speech and memorizing material for the report) and not constructive - this is when you instead of really working on something that moves you aside a positive outcome of the situation, just “soar” and get stuck in the endless “what if?”, savor 100,500 variants of tomorrow's “disastrous” speech (naturally instead of memorizing the material for the report).

A short digression into biology. In general, emotions, including anxiety and anxiety, are useful things. They should serve as a behavior modifier: if there is an obstacle in your path - anger occurs (the obstacle is overcome and you can continue to walk and breed - it disappears) or if there is a competitor in the struggle for a sexual partner - jealousy arises (the opponent “disappeared” and disappears too) . It is the same with anxiety and anxiety - it allows you to prevent a person from participating in something dangerous in the future or to move towards solving some problems that increase the favorable outcome of events (and then disappear). In general, there is no way without emotion - too calm "moose" will definitely burn.

However, due to the presence of a second signal system in a person (the word lemon - the image of a lemon - sour in the mouth), problems often arise associated with the appearance of this very unproductive anxiety. Take a look at your pet (cat or dog). He also has various problems, especially when you give him food inopportune and he solves this problem (through you), and then continues a carefree lifestyle. However, after this potentially traumatic event (food delay), his thoughts do not rush wildly: “But what if this kind person tomorrow disappears from my life for good, who will give me food? Well, everything is clear - it will happen for sure, how terrible I can’t bear it !!! ”

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In other words, in some cases, anxiety is normal, in others not :). How to understand where which? Anxiety and anxiety is a problem - if it prevents you from living the way you want (depletes, demoralizes, and so on), as opposed to normal anxiety, which helps you get what you want and is removed in English.

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Further, I will try to reveal several cases that I have encountered myself or my environment, this will more clearly help to “indicate directions”. I depersonalize them and just reason in the format “be like Vasya”

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Meeting with the Apocalypse


Vasily’s anxiety was his method of avoiding the Apocalypse: “Horror is happening. I will lose my job, the number of vacancies is now 1 to 4 for job seekers. I see in colors how I sit at home and can’t get anywhere else. From this thought straight “motor pranks” (heart). ” Through spiritual searches, Vasily found a recipe suitable for him and began to practice dating with the Apocalypse - to reproduce the image of how she sits at home alone (the lady of the heart “of course” will leave at the very first difficulties), unable to find a job. The refrigerator is empty. Squeezing bread crumbs with a well-groomed finger, he looks into the sunset ... Vasily began repeating this idea and presenting an “oil painting” for 3 minutes (conveniently measured on an apple watch) three times a day, every day, savoring the features of the Apocalypse.On the 7th day, they took fire with the Apocalypse and the anxiety began to decrease - of course it didn’t completely go away (maybe that's why Vasily didn’t lose his job) - but the motor was more naughty.

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Katya was worried because the high authorities had appointed her a new boss (the department was small - three people). Katya was also worried, because if you don’t worry, it’s like “you are not investing” - and she’s used to working hard and focused, and she was already in her seventh year. That is, Katya was worried, paradoxically as it was, in order to get the exact confidence that the personnel changes would not leave her without work - she needed to get clear and unequivocal evidence of “not being fired” in the future and reduce the uncertainty to zero. At the same time, to be perfect herself and then any “unsuccessful turn of fate” will not have a single chance. That is, if you reduce the line of reasoning, then the paradox was even more frightening - Katya was worried so as not to worry.At the same time, her whole concern was not constructive (or not productive - idle) - not answering the question "what can be done right now to bring a positive outcome closer?" For example, Katya was worried that the boss was younger than her and would probably “pull her own” (younger), focused not on rhetorical questions without an answer (“how unfair that you work for 7 years and then destroy everything because of nepotism”) , or on reading the thoughts of the boss ("sitting there is planning a trick for me!"). By the way - this worked as a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy - is it possible to treat a person who is plotting something against you normally on a behavioral level? - Of course not (in fact, yes, especially since Katya was not able to read minds and this has not been proved). In general, tension was in the air,which itself created a new tension. With the boss did not go well.

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Through a “spiritual search,” Katya made friends with the thought that “There are no guarantees in this rotten world. Professionals operate on probabilities ”(General George Patton). Plus, it should be noted that the other two colleagues (the team was female) showed favor to the boss and she towards them (chatted about the weekend, without much familiarity, but humanly). Katya considered this behavior of her colleagues “low syllable” - and came up with this unpleasant description associated with such a part of the body as the language. In short, they had a lot of attention and warmth, she - less and colder - all this was “unfair”. Therefore, in addition to the idea that “they did not deliver guarantees” and in the near future “they would not deliver”, I had to come to terms with the idea that “there is no justice either”. Surprisingly, the adoption of this fact even more beneficially affected anxiety.It’s not that the adoption of “an uncertain environment and not entirely fair” would make it possible for her to start to like the situation frantically, but her impeccable acceptance (including injustice) - “that life is what it is and is no longer what it is” allowed to reduce fruitless grievances, protests, complaints and "drive less about this."

The adoption of reality (understanding the point at which you are) and the leveling of the “bleeding gap” between the due (as she should have appreciated it) and the existing (the boss’s attitude that didn’t suit the fact) made it possible to approach the situation more rationally and transfer anxiety from unproductive ( these “what if?”) are productive. Obviously, the length of service and KPI in production tasks are not enough for success in the “game” - she tried to “become a player” (fall low, as she had previously thought), and so low that she began to care about the location of her superiors, the formation of alliances with other authorities -containing and she began to attempt to obtain good opinion from the head of the HR department (having the status of a gray cardinal). As the allies accumulated, anxiety fell,and after that a “strange thought” crept in - that it’s possible to “study the rules of the game (for which points are given and by whom) and such an“ organizational stalking ”is even a damn part of professionalism (well, if work is about efficiency, but all this in a strange way affects her).


Tamara was a tracker (these are such trainers for startups), at first she worked in a large company and led a corporate internal and external acceleration program (stimulated innovation in various ways), gaining experience and contacts, she went into freelance. At some point, she discovered that she has one client and there is no “exponential growth of metrics”. Tamara against this background developed a strong anxiety, and maybe she is not a tracker at all? That's how you do not go to facebook, instagrams, ticktoks and linkdin - all trackers, but she is not! Moreover, her anxiety was evading, she scrolled through the Internet and didn’t write “special trekking articles on special trekking sites”, because it’s a sin to hide “she’s worthless trekker” (not a single unicorn fluttered from under her pen,but in general there were failures - literally over the past two months a number of guys “rounds fell apart”). In general, the abyss of procrastination swallowed it. Naturally, she didn’t go to trekking parties, she didn’t do any trekking performances, because when everyone understands that she is useless, all the trackers will turn away from her (but this is half the trouble), but then they’ll be relatives (who generally need a person without “successful success” here and family ties will not help well, and further starvation - crushing bread crumbs with a well-groomed finger, she looked into the sunset). This is also a little bit about the non-acceptance of reality (all diseases from nerves - and the most frequent nerves from non-acceptance of reality), because if it cannot immediately give out the most ingenious tracker article and launch three unicorns, it will not be able to reveal its true potential - an ingenious tracker,well, and this, in general, is tantamount to being a “loser” for her. She was inclined to look at herself as a “finished product” (at the same time “obviously not of the best quality”), and not as a “process in its development and formation” (today is better than yesterday). At the same time, the avoidance anxiety (scrolling the Internet instead of preparing articles) is essentially a kind of deep automatic script that told her: “You don’t need to act until you’re ready (well, that is, until“ the product becomes of the required quality in some magical way ”) - here in the instagram everyone has everything of the right quality and immediately) otherwise a failure. In other words, “automatically” it seemed that the consequences of decisive actions were worse than the consequences of “doing nothing”, he leaned out a little - ridicule, falling from the podium of trekkers (primitive fear “I don’t like my own tribe”) and so on.At the heart of this was just a “mind game” that you could eliminate the risk by refusing to meet with him and the illusion of security was taken for safety itself. As a result, through a spiritual quest, Tamara changed such a black and white (all or nothing) approach to “50 shades of gray” (considering herself in the process of evolution, actualization and change). She didn’t succeed all at once (three unicorns at a time), but she just started and still definitely “not all bets have been made” (and the subject of “pleasure and stroking itself” can be the effort itself to move toward the goal - without deliberate division all and all for success and failure). Anxiety began to recede little by little.As a result, through a spiritual quest, Tamara changed such a black and white (all or nothing) approach to “50 shades of gray” (considering herself in the process of evolution, actualization and change). She didn’t succeed all at once (three unicorns at a time), but she just started and still definitely “not all bets have been made” (and the subject of “pleasure and stroking itself” can be the effort itself to move toward the goal - without deliberate division all and all for success and failure). Anxiety began to recede little by little.As a result, through a spiritual quest, Tamara changed such a black and white (all or nothing) approach to “50 shades of gray” (considering herself in the process of evolution, actualization and change). She didn’t succeed all at once (three unicorns at a time), but she just started and still definitely “not all bets have been made” (and the subject of “pleasure and stroking itself” can be the effort itself to move toward the goal - without deliberate division all and all for success and failure). Anxiety began to recede little by little.Anxiety began to recede little by little.Anxiety began to recede little by little.

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PS A couple of books if you want to dig a little deeper: Mindsight, Daniel J. Siegel; "Olympian calm. How to achieve it ”Dmitry Kovpak; “Trap of happiness. Stop worrying - start living ”Harris Russ.

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