Narrative therapy for Anxiety: If your anxiety was a monster what would its name be?
Our anxiety can be overwhelming, suffocating, to the point that sometimes it consumes us. But what if you could step outside of it and observe it. Learn to understand its strengths and WEAKNESSES better than it understands itself. Would that help you manage your anxiety better and learn ways to stop it in its tracks?
I want to give you some tips to help you get ahead of your anxiety monster using a narrative therapy approach (with a sprinkle of cognitive behavioral theory) to manage anxiety. Just like when you are trying to solve a mystery, this technique calls for you to step out of the scene you are in and take the approach of the investigator to solve your mystery.
Step 1: Investigate where your anxiety is coming from
Let’s get clear (& creative) on who your anxiety monster is:
- Who/what does it look like?
- What/who does it sound like? (Who does it remind you of)
- What does it enjoy doing? (What does it feed on)
- What does it hate doing? (What drains or weakens its energy)
- What are its catchphrases?
Step 2: Find out what calms down your anxiety
Get clear on the weaknesses and capitalize on them. Turn them into a shield to ward off your anxiety monster.
- If your monster becomes quiet and goes into a cave while you are listening to music, pay more attention to that scene. What are you listening to, how does it make you feel, where is your mind focused, how does your body feel?
- Take it a step further now, record all the information you gathered from the previous scene into a journal or notes section in your phone so that you can solidify that mindset and continue to grow it.
Step 3: How to get rid of anxious thoughts
Knock out the catchphrase –> Knock out the monster
It’s time to take out the strength from that grizzly beast!
- What does that monster keep whispering in your ear when no one is looking (or when everyone is looking)?
- Is it factual? Is the monster a rational type of creature that makes logical sense? Chances are that your monster is turning shadow puppets into spiders and creepy crawlies.
- Shine a light on that shadow with some rational thoughts. This can be a positive or neutral phrase anything that will help diminish the shadows lurking in your monsters corner. As the monster loses its powerful catchphrases your positive thoughts will grow in confidence.
If this is hard to tackle on your own, don’t be hard on yourself. It takes time and an objective, safe space for you to be able to explore and defeat the monsters and shadows that strike an anxious nerve. These steps give you a head start to starting defeating your anxiety but you can always recruit help from a mental health professional.
