Hands up if you’re a little worried right now.

Yep, that’s what I thought. To be worried at a time like this is perfectly normal. There is a lot of uncertainty around. People don’t know what is happening with their jobs, they don’t know what’s going to happen with their money, they don’t know whether they might get sick, or somebody they love might get sick. On top of this there are other stressors being piled on like having to look after children at home, not being able to get food like we used to and not being able to keep to normal routines. These all cause worry.

Oh, and on top of all this, we have the most existential worry known to mankind… death. Often human beings try to distract themselves from thoughts about our own deaths or the deaths of the people around us. However, in times of sickness, it can be really hard not to think about it.

So what do we do about all this worry being piled on us. Well the important word in the previous sentence is ‘do’. Worry can quickly become overwhelming if we feel powerless. In fact the feeling of powerlessness is one of the main features of anxiety and panic. So, in order to feel a bit less anxious, we need to focus on the things we do have control over.

A lot of the clients I see that are suffering from the symptoms of acute anxiety or panic attacks have the feeling that they have no control over anything in their lives. This is NEVER true. While it is true that we sometimes cannot control events and situations that happen in our lives we do have control over a lot more than we think.

This is where this little exercise can come in handy:-

Circles of Concern & Influence

This is the Circle of Concern and Influence. Basically it is an exercise where you first write all your concerns/worries in your Circle of Concern. Here is an example I’ve written that could apply to people at the moment.

As you can see there are some things in this circle that we have no direct control over. You might not be able to control whether you lose your job, or whether you have to cancel events you had planned. None of us can control death. If we get stuck in our Circle of Concern – constantly worrying about the things we have little to no control over – it can end up leaving us feeling paralyzed.

In order for us to feel better we need to focus on those things that we can influence. We might be able to influence all of the problem or there might only be part of the problem we can take control over. Either way it is still focus on being proactive. This is where the Circle of Influence comes in. In this Circle you write some of the concerns you have put in your Circle of Concern and think of some things you can do in order to influence it for the better. Here I have written another example.

So, if you find you are worrying a lot lately and feeling a bit powerless this might be a good exercise to do. It might be a good one to do with kids as well if you feel they are worrying about things. It’s a really good way to show that worrying in itself is not a bad thing – it’s just when we feel we can’t do anything about it that it can become crippling.

Good luck.