Freaking Out?

Take a pause and regroup.

‘Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while you could miss it.’ Ferris Bueller

We all have moments hen life gets the better of us. Times when we feel overwhelmed by circumstances, panicked, faced with something we find truly frightening, overcome by anger, or consumed by a sense of grief or loss. During such moments, distressing emotions can take over and lead you to act in ways that actually multiply your suffering. And it may drive you to behave in ways that you later regret. While there is no sidestepping the stresses, there are skills you can learn to help you respond in a way that is more in line with who you want to be, rather than reacting and being hijacked by your primitive fight flight responses. In the extract from his new book, The Mindful Freak Out, clinical psychologist Dr Eric Goodman looks at ways to pause and regroup when you are freaking out. The wise sage Ferris Bueller once said, ‘Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while you could miss it.’ Modern life moves at a frenetic pace. On top of the near-constant digital intrusions into everyday life, we are often overly busy — rushing to or from work or class, juggling hobbies and interests with bills, meal prep, childrearing, family obligations and so forth. It is a far cry from the less complex life of our prehistoric ancestors which roughly consisted of wake up, hunt and gather, share the bounty and each other’s company, then sleep and repeat. In our hectic and overstimulated modern lives, it can be hard to slow down and think clearly at any time, let alone when our threat systems hijack our logic and reason. When distressed, it is easy to lose the ability to make a rational decision, which can lead us to overreact based on powerful threat instincts. Someone may claim to value peace and mutual respect only to find themselves yelling at their kids or honking obscenities to the person driving in front of them. To make matters worse, in the midst of an emotionally painful moment many of us find ourselves (often without awareness) directing harsh criticism at ourselves for making minor mistakes or being humanly imperfect. We even beat ourselves up for the feelings we experience (‘I’m such a cry-baby!’). In these moments, we might say cruel things to ourselves that we would never consider directing at any other human on the planet. This can further inflame painful emotions and inner suffering. The activation of our threat systems leads to painful and powerful emotions like anxiety, anger and sadness. Because these emotions were designed to be intense and uncomfortable, they often trigger a reflexive struggle to avoid or suppress them. We tighten up, grit our teeth, and breathe shallowly, if at all. Struggling with an emotion, however, tends to further inflame the emotion and related suffering. This struggle is typically automatic and going on behind the scenes. We are not standing there thinking, ‘I am uncomfortable with this emotion so I am going to fight with it!’ It is something that happens when we are on autopilot. But we can learn to become aware of when we are experiencing emotional distress. We can tune in to the fact that we are suffering. Then, we can slow down — even for a few seconds (or pause for a moment) in order to buy the precious time we need to rein in our automatic (auto-pilot) reaction. Only then can we choose how we respond to the moment.