I suddenly can't remember if I've ever shared this image with you guys. You know, now that this blog has been around awhile I'm not exactly sure what I've said on it in years past! Oh well, you guys will just have to put up with me forgetting and repeating myself once in awhile- and anyway, it's probably a good thing to go over stuff again, right? Each time we return to a theme we get to have a bit of a different look at it- and also, each time we come back to a theme we are in a different place in our lives and have a different perspective on the theme. (and, yes, that's my way of saying that there's no quota system for how many times we can talk about one thing... and, it's NOT a failure to talk about something, even over and over, and over and over- in fact, it's a really good thing to go over things many times... so there :)
Ok, on to the water temp image...
Many years ago I came up with this image as a way to help someone understand how her anxiety worked and so she could learn to predict her anxiety levels- and, of course, then, learn to help herself with the anxiety.
Her anxiety seemed random to her, as if it could suddenly and without warning overtake her. It also seemed amorphous- like an invisible cloud that she could feel but not see- something she knew was there, but that she couldn't exactly define. These random and amorphous qualities are typical of anxiety- and they are horrible to experience (they are both qualities that can, in and of themselves, induce a panic attack, because people can become so afraid of "randomly being overwhelmed by anxiety" and "suddenly being overtaken by something they can't see but feels totally oppressive and dangerous" that they accidentally generate extra anxiety within themselves and then panic even more).
Anytime I can help make anxiety more predictable and concrete ("see-able") I want to do that.
I asked this person to imagine a pot of water sitting on a stove. It's just sitting there- there's no fire underneath. The water temperature of this pot of water is room temperature. It is neutral to the room.
This neutral, room temperature state is what we want "baseline" life to be. We want to go through our day primarily feeling baseline neutral.
When something stressful happens it's like the fire underneath the pot gets turned on. How high the flame is and how long it stays lit depend on what the stressor is. Clearly, the fire raises the water temp. The higher the water temp the higher the anxiety level.
If the fire is hot enough, or if it remains on long enough, the water becomes so hot that it boils. This is where the highest anxiety exists.
What we want to do is begin to get to know our water temperature and its typical status. If you like numbers you can think of 0 as neutral and 10 as boiling- and then you can chart your water temp on that scale. If you like images you can begin to chart your water temp by envisioning water at various levels from room temperature to boiling. You can do both too if you want :)
There are two ultimate goals here (after the initial goal of identifying and knowing what our water temp is all the time). The first is to develop tools to lower water temp when it gets too high (tools other than ED behaviors :)
The second is to lower the overall baseline, the day to day water temperature. Because, you know what? And this won't surprise you guys. People who suffer from EDs have a baseline water temperature that sits above neutral. Yep. This means that what you consider "neutral" is actually hotter than the average bear walking around on the planet.
This explains things like why it seems less difficult for someone who doesn't have an ED to go out and be social, or to take on a new thing... that person's water temperature is lower to start out with, and so, even if it gets raised, it's still not boiling over. The person suffering from an ED has a higher baseline water temp so that he/she is already feeling relatively hot even before adding in an additional stressor of any kind- AND, when the stressor does get added in, her water temperature gets much closer to boiling since it was already hotter in the first place.
To start out, just try to ask yourself at various points in your day, whenever you think about it, where your water temperature is. Or if you find you never remember to ask yourself (which is not a failure, it only means you're not used to asking and paying attention to water temp), you can set the alarm on your cellphone for a time in a day and when it goes off you can ask yourself then. You want to eventually be so familiar with your water temperature that you could ask yourself at any point, day or night, and know what the temperature is.
It's kind of a fun thing to practice. And I've found it gives people a sense of control with their anxiety, which is such a good thing!
I suddenly can't remember if I've ever shared this image with you guys. You know, now that this blog has been around awhile I'm not exactly sure what I've said on it in years past! Oh well, you guys will just have to put up with me forgetting and repeating myself once in awhile- and anyway, it's probably a good thing to go over stuff again, right? Each time we return to a theme we get to have a bit of a different look at it- and also, each time we come back to a theme we are in a different place in our lives and have a different perspective on the theme. (and, yes, that's my way of saying that there's no quota system for how many times we can talk about one thing... and, it's NOT a failure to talk about something, even over and over, and over and over- in fact, it's a really good thing to go over things many times... so there :)
Ok, on to the water temp image...
Many years ago I came up with this image as a way to help someone understand how her anxiety worked and so she could learn to predict her anxiety levels- and, of course, then, learn to help herself with the anxiety.Her anxiety seemed random to her, as if it could suddenly and without warning overtake her. It also seemed amorphous- like an invisible cloud that she could feel but not see- something she knew was there, but that she couldn't exactly define. These random and amorphous qualities are typical of anxiety- and they are horrible to experience (they are both qualities that can, in and of themselves, induce a panic attack, because people can become so afraid of "randomly being overwhelmed by anxiety" and "suddenly being overtaken by something they can't see but feels totally oppressive and dangerous" that they accidentally generate extra anxiety within themselves and then panic even more).
Anytime I can help make anxiety more predictable and concrete ("see-able") I want to do that.
I asked this person to imagine a pot of water sitting on a stove. It's just sitting there- there's no fire underneath. The water temperature of this pot of water is room temperature. It is neutral to the room.
This neutral, room temperature state is what we want "baseline" life to be. We want to go through our day primarily feeling baseline neutral.
When something stressful happens it's like the fire underneath the pot gets turned on. How high the flame is and how long it stays lit depend on what the stressor is. Clearly, the fire raises the water temp. The higher the water temp the higher the anxiety level.
If the fire is hot enough, or if it remains on long enough, the water becomes so hot that it boils. This is where the highest anxiety exists.
What we want to do is begin to get to know our water temperature and its typical status. If you like numbers you can think of 0 as neutral and 10 as boiling- and then you can chart your water temp on that scale. If you like images you can begin to chart your water temp by envisioning water at various levels from room temperature to boiling. You can do both too if you want :)
There are two ultimate goals here (after the initial goal of identifying and knowing what our water temp is all the time). The first is to develop tools to lower water temp when it gets too high (tools other than ED behaviors :)
The second is to lower the overall baseline, the day to day water temperature. Because, you know what? And this won't surprise you guys. People who suffer from EDs have a baseline water temperature that sits above neutral. Yep. This means that what you consider "neutral" is actually hotter than the average bear walking around on the planet.
This explains things like why it seems less difficult for someone who doesn't have an ED to go out and be social, or to take on a new thing... that person's water temperature is lower to start out with, and so, even if it gets raised, it's still not boiling over. The person suffering from an ED has a higher baseline water temp so that he/she is already feeling relatively hot even before adding in an additional stressor of any kind- AND, when the stressor does get added in, her water temperature gets much closer to boiling since it was already hotter in the first place.
To start out, just try to ask yourself at various points in your day, whenever you think about it, where your water temperature is. Or if you find you never remember to ask yourself (which is not a failure, it only means you're not used to asking and paying attention to water temp), you can set the alarm on your cellphone for a time in a day and when it goes off you can ask yourself then. You want to eventually be so familiar with your water temperature that you could ask yourself at any point, day or night, and know what the temperature is.
It's kind of a fun thing to practice. And I've found it gives people a sense of control with their anxiety, which is such a good thing!