Chapter 7 Remembering and Staying Motivated

Worry Scale

Let’s learn how to use a scale to measure how worried we are. Try noticing how worried you are before and after practicing with the tools and strategies in this book.

If you’re very worried, your worry level might be a 10, at the top of the scale. If you’re only a little worried, you might be a 4 or a 5.

After you figure out what your worry level is, try one of the strategies you’ve learned in this book. Then notice if your worry level has gone down. Measuring your worry level before and after using a strategy will help you find out which ideas are most helpful to you.

You can use this scale to measure your worry level at any time.

Make It a Competition

Sometimes, a little competition can encourage us. Imagine that there are two teams in this competition: your team and the worry team. The worry team scores a point if they can get a worry into your net and make it stick! But, if you’re able to use any of the skills or strategies you practiced to make that worry smaller or less scary, then your team gets the point instead! You can use your worry scale to help you figure out if your worry got any smaller. If it did, you get a point!

Remember to reward yourself!

Remember

You’ve done a lot of hard work! Try to keep everything you’ve learned about yourself and how to take charge of fears and worries fresh in your mind.

Review this book from time to time, and notice if anything changes for you.

Also, a great way to really understand something is to think of how you would explain it to someone else.

Imagine that a friend with fears and worries asks you about this book. They want to know what it’s about and how it can be helpful. What would you tell them?

Write what you would say below.

My Very Own Worry Plan Poster

Make a poster of the strategies that you find most helpful.

You can go to http://www.newharbinger.com/34770 and print out words and pictures from this book to cut out and use in your poster. (Ask a parent for help if you need to.) You’ll find words and pictures that can remind you to:

remember your body clues

practice thinking positive thoughts

choose a solution and try it out

visit your peaceful place

draw your fear and make it silly

become the director of your own imagination

or any other idea or inspiration that you want to remember and use!

Draw or write in anything else you want to add to your poster. Decorate it however you like!

Post it somewhere you will see it often so it can be a daily reminder for you!

Robin Alter, PhD, CPsych, received her undergraduate degree from Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, NY, and her master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of Florida in Gainesville, FL. She was the head of the children’s program at Tri-County Mental Health in Northern Florida before moving to Toronto, ON, Canada, where she has been working in children’s mental health in since 1980. Alter has been employed by two of the largest children’s mental health centers in the Toronto area for over thirty-six years—The Hincks-Dellcrest Centre, and Blue Hills Child and Family Centre.

Alter also works with Anishnawbe Health Toronto, providing fetal alcohol assessments for the people of the First Nations community. She has taught psychology at York University, and maintains a private practice with Alter, Stuckler and Associates in the Toronto area. She is a trustee with the Psychology Foundation of Canada. Alter gives many public lectures to parent groups, teachers, and principals, and has been on numerous radio and television programs talking about children’s mental health issues. She is author of Anxiety and the Gift of Imagination, and is the anxiety expert for the website, the ABCs of Mental Health.

Crystal Clarke, MSW, RSW, received her undergraduate social work degree from Memorial University of Newfoundland in Canada in 2007. Before continuing on to complete her master’s degree, Clarke worked as a social worker with Child, Youth and Family Services in the city of St. John’s, NL, Canada, while also supporting foster families through her involvement on the board of the Newfoundland and Labrador Foster Families Association. Clarke received her master’s of social work degree at the University of Toronto in 2010, where she specialized in clinical practice with children and families, and also completed a collaborative program in addiction studies. By 2009, Clarke was involved with The Hincks-Dellcrest Centre, one of the largest children’s mental health centers in Toronto, ON, Canada, where she was employed as a child and family therapist until 2016, when she decided to leave that position in order to support children and youth within the school system in Toronto.

Additionally, Clarke maintains her own private practice, Clarke Psychotherapy, in Toronto. In 2015, Clarke was also appointed as an adjunct lecturer for the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work at the University of Toronto as a result of her ongoing commitment to the training and supervision of social work students. Clarke continues to expand upon her own knowledge and expertise in the field of mental health through her training as a psychoanalytic candidate at the Toronto Institute for Contemporary Psychoanalysis.