Every person has one or more trigger words that when spoken aloud activate fight/flight with intense anxiety or freeze with numbness and helplessness. What’s yours? Death? Cancer? Bankruptcy? Homelessness? Betrayal? Divorce? Rejection? Criticism? When you hear your trigger word you can stop the cascade of negative thoughts (catastrophizing) which threaten to take you over the edge to the falls. First, take some slow deep breaths to slow your racing heart, lower your blood pressure, blow off carbon dioxide, and restore oxygen flow to your brain. Next, recognize that your vision of the worst case outcome may not come true. More often than not our fears do not materialize. Sometimes we can take specific, concrete actions to avoid or at least soften the feared outcome. Sometimes good things happen from what first appears as an unmitigated disaster, like not getting the job you wanted but finding another you like more that pays more. Lastly, some things turn out to be beyond our control, and if we can bring ourselves to accept them with grace we reach a peace that passeth understanding.
