Hold your leashes!
It was a beautiful, sunny afternoon, and she was out for a walk with her dogs. Spring was busting out all over her neighborhood, and life was good.
And then the text came through on her phone.
It was seemingly innocuous—a good friend asking for a favor—but suddenly she was absolutely spun out.
The initial thought was, “Ugh, don’t ask me for that!” But the corresponding feeling of tightness, shortness of breath and extreme agitation felt more like, “Don’t do this to me!”
That shining, relaxing scene from just seconds ago was gone, and now she was panicked. Even her dogs’ behavior had changed—they were running amok and twisting their leashes and pulling on her.
AAAAARRRRGGHHH!!!
This is the story a client recounted to me this week about what had happened to her the day before our meeting.
In previous sessions we had been working on what a trigger it is for her when something that would make someone else feel taken care of and makes them feel good is the exact opposite for her—costly and uncomfortable and not at all something that feels caring.
She gets wicked anxious in those situations, and feels trapped. If she takes care of the other person, it’s at her own expense. If she takes care of herself, she risks making the other person upset and maybe losing the relationship, which is terrifying for her.
It feels lose-lose in a high stakes kind of way, even when it’s about an insignificant topic.
In the past, her anxiety would stay high for days while she tried to figure out how to handle the situation. Usually she’d go along with what the other person needed and get internally wadded up about it. The few times she didn’t and tried to be a stand for her own needs, her anxiety would go even more through the roof.
So back to her walk with the dogs and the text. What did she do?
She freaked out and got panicky about how to answer her friend’s text. About an hour of her walk went by with her ruminating, feeling an energetic tornado inside, and wrangling her dogs who kept going bananas on their leashes.
But then! She remembered our work together, and that the first thing she needed to do was regulate her nervous system.
She stopped in her tracks. Then she put all of her attention on the leashes in her hand. How one was soft and warm and leather. How the other was flat and kind of plastic feeling and smooth.
She just stood there. All of her attention and curiosity on the sensation of the leashes in her hand.
The first thing that happened was she took a deep breath and the cloud of rumination cleared.
The second thing that happened was that her dogs sat down and waited calmly. (That’s called co-regulation, folks!)
The third thing is that she asked herself What’s really bothering me here?
And fairly quickly she discovered what was true for her.
When she imagined saying what was true for her in a text to a friend, it felt little scary, but with the grounding of the leashes in her hand, she felt it was manageable.
She sent the text.
The reply: “No problem! Thanks for letting me know it won’t work. :)"
HUGE WIN!
And it would have still been a huge win if the friend had been annoyed or pissed that she hadn’t granted his favor.
Because what's important is that, in an hour, she was able to interrupt what could have in the past been days of anxiety, and she had gotten back to having a good experience of herself and being brave enough to reach out to her friend in a way that was caring to both of them.
Now that that’s happened once in that way, it will keep happening, and faster each time.
So here’s my encouragement to you: remember your leashes!
Which is to say, the next time something sets off your anxiety or rumination, pull yourself back by grounding yourself in your body.
Like my client, you can get really interested in the sensation of something.
Or name 3 things you can see and 3 things you can hear.
Or rest one hand on your forehead/cortex and one hand on the base of your skull/brainstem and hold your head.
Wait until you feel the first spontaneously deeper breath.
Keep doing what you're doing until you feel you’re no longer like a dog running wild and pulling on their leash, but like you’re standing in the green grass seeing more clearly what's true.
You’ve got this.
If you want more practices for regulating your nervous system, try my Linkedin Learning course called Reduce Stress and Anxiety By Managing Your Nervous System.