What do you worry about? What keeps you up at night, tossing and turning? What triggers anxiety for you? Chances are whatever it is is not actually happening in the present moment. Whatever it is is something you anticipate or something that has already happened that continues to echo in your mind. Whatever it is is not happening right now, in this present moment.
One of the most insidious aspects of anxiety centers on a pattern of thinking that takes us out of the present and focuses us on the future. We worry about what lies ahead and create narratives for ourselves, often based on past experiences, about what might happen. Or we ruminate about past traumas, reliving them in our minds and asking ourselves what might have been different, if only… When we do this, we separate ourselves from the present moment. We take ourselves out of present time. And the further we project ourselves out of the present, the more anxious we become. Indeed, we lose ourselves because we are no longer grounded in the here-and-now. And when we do this, feelings of anxiety and dread take hold and grow. We are lost and anxious because we are no longer present to ourselves.
One of the techniques I offer to clients with anxiety is aimed at bringing the client into the room, into the here-and-now. It’s a simple technique: I ask the client to bring their attention to the weight of his/her body in the chair and to look directly at me (or if eye contact is too intimate, to focus on a spot just above my head). As they do this, I ask them to attend to their breathing and ask them to answer several questions: what is going at this moment that is creating anxiety for you? What, if anything, in this room is making you feel anxious? What am I doing that is creating anxiety for you? The answers to these questions are typically “nothing is happening right now, but…” I stop the client, and draw attention back to the breathing and observe that right now nothing is happening to create anxiety. I’ll observe that whatever follows the word “but” is something that is not actually present in the room—something that lies either in the past or the future. We’ll continue to do this until the client is grounded in the present moment. (Often, the client visibly relaxes.)
(If something is actually happening to create anxiety in the here-and-now, the focus shifts and we will attend to whatever is presently happening. Sometimes, this means creating a more open physical space and changing the milieu; other times, it means attending to some aspect of the therapeutic relationship. In any event, it is critical to discern the here-and-now dynamic that triggers anxious responses; it is critical to differentiate between the present and past/future orientation.)
This technique is not meant to eliminate anxiety, but rather to put it in perspective and ground it in the appropriate tense (present, past or future). The exercise reorients us to the present moment. Grounding in the present changes our relationship to our experience and ourselves; it helps us perceive and think about what is actually happening in the present moment. And then, from the perspective of the present moment, we can then explore the roots and paths of the thinking pattern and the origins of the anxiety itself. We can also plan for the future. (Planning for the future and actually living in the future are two very different experiences. Effective planning is predicated on the ability to be grounded in the present, having put into perspective the lessons from the past.) However, we can only effectively do the deeper work by staying firmly grounded in the present moment.
Whatever worries you, whatever keeps you up at night need not control your life. Being oriented in time—being grounded in the present moment—is an important first step to managing those worries. While you may have been exposed to danger in the past (which undoubtedly offer lessons for the present) and while danger may indeed lie ahead (which you can plan for, if you stay grounded in the present), you can only live in the present moment.