Pets as Anxiety Repellant

One woman I know had an elaborate ritual for leaving her house. Anxiety dictated the specific steps involved in this ritual in order for her to leave and return to her house safely. The woman owns a dog, with whom she takes daily walks. She and her dog enjoy their walks together immensely. But after some time of performing her house-leaving ritual, anxiety began prescribing more and more elaborate steps to the ritual--so much so, that it began cutting into time walking with her dog. She realized that anxiety was robbing her and her dog of their most enjoyable time of day together. With this knowledge, she has renewed her efforts to limit anxiety's influence on her life.

I relay this story because it illustrates how pets can help us become aware of how anxiety affects daily living and give us a "baseline" for measuring gains in eradicating anxiety's influence. Here are some questions to consider about the anxiety-repelling qualities of pets: Do you hear anxiety's "chatter" more when you are with or without your pet? How might anxiety be useful to a pet in the wild? How is it unhelpful to pets in a household? Do you know of any pets who had experienced great anxiety due to trauma and were able to overcome this anxiety? What environmental factors helped the pet overcome anxiety and trauma? Are these same environmental factors present or absent in your own life?

Pets can console, teach, energize, and calm us. They are valued companions in both difficult and uncomplicated times. In lives increasingly bothered by anxiety we would do well to take stock of how pets can buffer our lives from its unhelpful messages.

The Anti-Anxiety Talisman

Anxiety makes itself known to us when we are too young to even know the word or its meaning. A toddler experiences separation anxiety whenever a parent or loved one leaves. Infants may go through phases of becoming tense or fearful in the bath. My own daughter experienced her first night terror at 5 months--far too young to have experienced anything terrifying enough to cause such a reaction.

Children who experience anxiety also have marvelous coping skills to soothe themselves when anxiety tries to ruffle their feathers. Infants will suck their fingers or thumbs. Toddlers may find a binkie, lovey, or blankie when they're feeling out of sorts. Older children may keep a dream catcher above their beds, look at a favorite picture, or perform some other night time ritual to keep "the wild things" away.

We can learn from children's uniquely intuitive ways of coping and find our own talismans or mantras whenever we sense anxiety's presence. A client of mine repeated the mantra "I am my own safe harbor" as he felt anxiety approaching. A teenage client who often felt overwhelmed by social anxiety brought on by Asperger's Syndrome said he would "lay low" and try to "avoid trouble" like his favorite action-movie star. A woman who was deeply affected by OCD would make a brushing motion over shoulder, as if she were shooing away a pesky fly, trying to discourage anxiety from "landing" on her. The lyric "It may look like my wheels are spinning/I swear they're spinning for a reason" has given me comfort in my own life.

An anti-anxiety talisman will not end anxiety's appearances. It can, however, disallow anxiety from gaining purchase in areas of life where it is not welcome. The imporantant part of creating the talisman--whether it be a mantra, a visualization, a piece of music, or an object--is that it be meaningful and accessible to you should anxiety creep up unexpectedly. Anxiety may catch up with you from time to time, but it doesn't have to catch you off guard.

Coping with Parenting Anxiety, or Doing the Play-by-Play

It is written in stone that at some point, young children will engage in socially-undesirable behavior that will leave their parents mortified. Hitting, biting, scratching, soiling, name-calling, and food-throwing are but a short-list of embarassment-inducing behaviors. Why do kids do these behaviors desite our pleading with them to refrain? In short, kids are innately curious. They are curious about how we'll react; they're curious about what powers they can wield in an otherwise powerless position.

So, unless someone can figure out how to drain the curiosity out of a child (and really, who wants that?), the only avenue left for parents is to control their own reactions to unwanted behavior. If a child senses that a parent's anxiety over undesired behavior got her parent to react strongly, she will be curious to see if she can help bring about a similarly strong reaction again. The child is like a little scientist testing and re-testing her hypothesis. In order to quash the experiment, a parent will have to give the same, uninteresting result over and over again, until the child moves on to a new "hypothesis" to test.

So, how can a parent give a "boring" reaction to a child's throwing, cursing, spitting, (insert undesired behavior here)? By simply announcing the "play-by-play". This anti-parenting-anxiety technique requires the parent to simply "announce" what the child is doing, what emotions she might be feeling, and other possible strategies for coping with strong feelings. For instance, if a child bites her parent, the parent might say, "I see that you bit me. It looks like you're frustrated. I wonder if this pillow might be better for biting."

Sure, it's not a difficult strategy to use, but in the heat of the moment, it's easy to forget. That's why it's important to do the play-by-play at non-anxiety-producing times. For example, while a child is playing with blocks, you could say, "I see you're playing with blocks. It looks like you're stacking them to make a tower. I wonder how tall you plan on making this tower." I know it sounds a little hokey, but the more you practice it at non-anxiety-causing situations, the easier the words will come to you when anxiety wants you to react differently. When a child hears your calm, consistent reaction time and again, the more likely she is to move on to the next "hypothesis", whatever that may be. Perhaps it will involve some socially-valued behavior, such as sharing, in which you can "react strongly" with enthusiasm, love, and praise.

Zazen, Shavasana, or the Do-Nothing Meditation for the Mind

In high school, I had an English teacher who had a keen interest in Eastern philosophy. She introduced me to the Zen Buddhist concept of zazen, seated meditation, or as she described it, "do-nothing". In yoga, after a busy practice, one might end in shavasana, or "corpse pose." Both have at their heart the idea of allowing the body to rest, so that the mind might also quiet. Thoughts might enter one's mind--not to be analysed as good or bad--but to be observed with curious detatchment.

In my years of therapeutic collaboration, I have learned many ways of doing zazen from others. One client who has had difficulties with "perfectionism" for most of his life did zazen by lying in his bed, closing his eyes, putting on his headphones, and listening to sacred music or chanting. Some others say they practice zazen by silent prayer, or repeating a particular sacred verse or mantra. Other people I know use restorative yoga poses to help quiet their minds.

I have also found that for those (like me) who find it difficult to be physically still, it is possible to achieve zazen of the mind through kinesthetic activity. I know I have known periods of mental zazen while weeding, walking, running, swimming, cleaning, or doing yoga. I know plenty of knitters out there who would testify to the mental benefits of its simple repeated action.

I offer this idea of mental zazen as a counter-balance to anxiety's desire to "busy" the mind with its endless "chatter." Ask yourself, when do I get a break from thinking? When does thinking turn into "over-thinking"? How can I be more at peace with my thoughts? How can I resist the urge to re-live the past or to anticipate the future? What would it be like to simply observe my thoughts, such as the way an anthropologist might view a foreign culture? What "thinking space" can I open up that is currently occupied by anxiety, worry, perfectionism, or "should-isms"? If anxiety took up less "thought space", what might take its place?

Making time for zazen is not easy, I know--especially for all you parents out there! I hope to hear from readers about even more ways of practicing zazen, its benefits, and how it can become a regular and welcome practice in one's life.

Making Peace With Anxiety

I've been thinking lately about anxiety and why it seems to be taking up more and more of our "thinking space." I don't know that I will ever be able to answer that question fully, but it seems that as we have more transitions (e.g. changing jobs, schools, homes, roles, etc.) to navigate, we can expect anxiety to continue to crop up at these points. I've wanted for a long time to start putting together all the wonderful anti-anxiety strategies that others have taught me or that I've co-created with clients. To that end, I aim to start adding an entry a week about the subject. I hope that after some time of plugging away at it, this blog will contain a sort of anti-anxiety handbook. My general thinking about anxiety is that while it may be helpful to name the source of the anxiety (e.g. money, taxes, relationships, parenting, etc.), identifying the source doesn't make it go away or keep it from cropping up at other challenging life events. Sometimes not knowing the source simply adds fuel to anxiety's fire! Rather than focus on anxiety's origins, I'd like to explore the ways in which we make peace with anxiety's presence in our lives. What "thinking space" are we comfortable allowing anxiety to have? What rituals do we create to acknowledge anxiety's presence and keep it at bay? What can we learn from children about engaging our creative "monkey" minds about finding playful ways of coping? How can we catch ourselves thinking, and then take concrete action to address our thinking? Are there other supportive people out there that we can recruit into our anti-anxiety network?

Over the next few (or many?) weeks, I will share some vignettes about individuals' struggles with anxiety, and the creative tools they've added to their anti-anxiety bags to pull out when they feel anxiety meddling in their lives. Some of their tools are quite simple to use, others require organizing a team. Some involve brave changes in behavior, while others demand thinking about thinking. And some simply ask for detatchment from thinking entirely. From what I've learned about anxiety, there's no one right way to cope. The first step is to accept that it is a near impossibility to live a life free from anxiety, but it is possible to limit its effects on our lives, to make peace with it, as it were.

The Postpartum Pact

Postpartum support guru Karen Kleiman has posted on her Postpartum Stress Center blog what she calls a Postpartum Pact. In signing the pact, couples agree to do certain things, such as watching for shifts in behavior, accepting whatever moodiness or anxiety presents itself, and agreeing to stay together no matter what happens. I could see this pact providing a useful template for couples undergoing any major life change: marriage, caring for an elder, starting a new business, etc. Who doesn't need to hear "You're doing the best you can" or "You don't always have to be perfect" from time to time?

Finding a Place for Anxiety

Lately, I've been thinking about anxiety and its relationship to parenting. Sometimes when anxiety rears its head, it's telling you "that carrot is big enough to choke on" or "it would be easy for my child to fall into the deep end of this swimming pool." All good reminders, anxiety--thanks! But recent recalls of toys has me wondering about if all the safety information parents receive leads to a little too much interference from anxiety. Yes, you've heard about "helicopter" parents, the millenial generation being the most needy and narcissistic, the growing obesity childhood obesity problem, etc. Are these random phenomena or could they be correlated by a trend of increasing interference from anxiety on parenting? What I mean is, is anxiety goading parents to step in to "protect" kids, when what a child needs is to experiment and explore--and sometimes fall down--to learn the fullness of her abilities and limitations? This is not to say that there aren't times when parental intervention is good (and indeed, for those children who lack good safety instincts, necessary); however, could there be opportunities that are being denied by anxiety for allowing children to use their own instincts to decide on the level of challenge with which their comfortable? My hunch is that anxiety teaches parents to only allow children to take the easily-calculated risks. This message is then passed on to children who learn to be risk-averse physically, emotionally, and intellectually.

So, what's a parent to do? A lack of anxiety could lead to allowing your 2 y.o. to play with knives? Too much and the kid can't leave the house without a helmet and knee pads. What I want to offer is (the incredibly challenging, I know) proposition that we parents ask ourselves when we sense anxiety's presence, what is this anxiety asking me to do? What are the possible outcomes for acting on anxiety's direction here? What are the potential consequences for ignoring it? Is this anxiety intervening in a helpful or meddlesome way? What are my values as a parent, and is this anxiety in the service of those values? My hope is that when we can find the proper place for anxiety in parenting, children can grow up to be creative, courageous, humble--and safe!--people.