Is the game Monopoly about real estate? Of course not. It’s about chance and strategy. It’s about shoring up enough fake money to build little toy houses and hotels on a game board (and hopefully being the first player to do so), forcing the other players into “bankruptcy” and shame. It’s about cleverness and careful investment of this fake money and choosing between an old shoe and an iron. It has little to nothing to do with the real-life principles, risks, or rewards of property ownership, mortgage, and development.
Is chess about clashing regimes? No, it’s about the strategic placement of game pieces. In the words of chess master Bobby Fischer, “All that matters on the chessboard is good moves.” It’s as much about kings and queens as Chutes and Ladders is about chutes. Or ladders, for that matter.
These elements of our most cherished board games—real estate, clashing regimes, even the complex characters in Clue—are further examples of what we defined as content in the last chapter. Content is the story built around a well-designed game board and a pair of dice, a story that gives names to the game pieces (rook, knight, Professor Plum) and makes the game more attractive, particularly to children. In most cases, it’s the content (two fleets of warring battleships) that sells the product.
To focus on the content of one of these competitions as opposed to the rules and goals of the game itself would be a serious error in strategy. Imagine while playing Monopoly that you slip into some altered state of reality and begin to think, Oh, no! I’ve landed on Park Place and it has three houses! That’s $1100! Where am I going to get that kind of money? My boyfriend is going to be furious. We can’t afford this! This kind of fixation on the story of the game seems absurd. But it’s not uncommon for us to give this much time and attention to the content of our noisy worries. How? By believing that they are signals.
Our work is to keep you from getting tricked into focusing on the wrong topic. So let’s put aside for right now the concern that Park Avenue is nowhere near true market value. Instead, let’s concentrate on engaging in, and eventually winning, the real challenge in front of you.
Anxiety has four ways to take advantage of your natural, normal (and important!) tendency to worry. First (and this is its greatest manipulation), it tricks you into thinking that every time a worry about some particular theme pops up, you should take it seriously. Of course, it cleverly picks a topic that has significance to you. Anxiety knows this is a highly effective means to hook you with worried content by making it always relevant to your life, to your need for comfort, to your financial security or self-esteem, the importance of your image with others, or your sense of safety. So don’t be surprised if the topic of your worry appears to be especially suited for you.
Second, as I explained in the last chapter, Anxiety doesn’t care about the topic it selects. It picks this content only to make you scared and worried. And then it wins if it can get you to work hard to get rid of those feelings. In fact, it picks that topic because it knows it will get you upset and it knows you will want to get rid of your upset feelings.
Third, it convinces you that you don’t have what it takes to handle this problem, and therefore it’s best that you back away, that you avoid attempting to solve the difficulty by facing it head-on.
The Rules of Anxiety’s Game
1) If any fearful thought pops up, take it seriously.
2) Once you are scared and worried, try to get rid of those feelings.
3) Assume you don’t have what it takes to solve this problem, so back away.
4) Anytime you start feeling anxious, take that as a signal of danger.
Fourth, Anxiety trains you to use your distress as a gauge to measure impending danger. If you feel uncomfortable, it gets you to assume that your discomfort is a signal that you are not safe, that some threat is probably lurking about. It reminds you that your highest priority is the comfort of safety.
You are losing this mental competition by believing that a true threat exists whenever a worry or an anxious feeling pops up, by believing that you should get rid of distress and worry when they show up, and by believing that you don’t have what it takes to face your problems directly. You can’t get stronger if you keep thinking and acting this way.
Step Back Then Climb Up
Therefore, I propose that you adopt what you will probably consider an illogical strategy. Whatever you are afraid of, if you have decided to treat it as the noise of an irrational fear, then I encourage you to step back from the details of that specific topic when they pop up. In fact, I want you to get completely away from focusing on that as your primary topic.
For example, imagine that you struggle with the possibility you might have caused an accident while driving, so you are prone to repeatedly checking anytime such a worry pops into your mind. You’ve decided that such obsessions (your worries) and compulsions (your actions) are generated by OCD. Now you are driving into a parking garage and suddenly the thought pops in your mind, Did I just hit a pedestrian? How might you apply our strategy? Your first move could be to say to yourself, “It’s fine I just had that thought.” And then focus your attention back on driving to your desired parking spot. Don’t let yourself look in your rearview mirror, and don’t loop back around “just to check once, for safety’s sake.” Tolerate the doubt and distress you are now feeling.
Crazy, right? You have some powerful sense that you might’ve hurt someone, and I’m suggesting that you don’t act on the worry?
Now you’ll be stuck feeling anxious, and a part of you continues to think, What am I doing? I’ve got to go back! I can’t stand this feeling! It will take me only two minutes to loop back around. That’s no time at all. What kind of fool would I be not to take those few minutes to double back, just to be sure? That’s better than being arrested for a hit-and-run. I’ve got to go back! You hear that voice inside you, and you feel all that tension and anxiety, but you nod your head and keep driving forward. What an insane way to respond to your fear that you’ve hit a person with a 1.5-ton vehicle! But if you have OCD, that’s what you need to do: take actions as though the content of your worry is irrelevant (which means to keep driving). Expect that your worry will continue to show up, trying to get your attention. Expect that you will continue to be anxious. Allow your worry and permit yourself to feel anxious, just don’t let them run the show. That’s how you will win this competition.
I’m going to go through this kind of response a zillion times with you. You will clearly know how to undertake this tactic when we are done. Whether you engage in it or not will be up to you. I’m fine with that. After all, you are in charge of your life, not me. I’m just a consultant. But I take our job seriously, and it is to help you elevate your game to a level where you have a fighting chance to succeed. You need to climb up one level of abstraction, up where the winners play, and completely detach yourself from any specific content. You must engage in this competition at the level of a broad (not specific) sense of uncertainty and distress. You need to move toward what scares you for the sole purpose of generating a basic feeling of doubt and discomfort. Pull yourself away from the specific topic of your doubt so you can embrace the general feeling of doubt itself. Now you can win.
Figure 2. Step UP to a new perspective.
How does it sound when you go up one level? Let’s use another OCD example regarding germs. To remain down on the content level, where Anxiety dominates, you would say, “I wash my hands to get rid of contamination.” Your job is to move up one level of abstraction so you truly comprehend why you feel the urge to compulsively clean. That statement would sound something like this: “I do a repetitive behavior to get rid of my doubt about something that seems risky or dangerous.” You stepped up onto a new platform, one that has nothing to do with germs or safety. And, therefore, we can now do business. Your next move is to realize that you keep trying to get rid of your doubt. That’s just what Anxiety wants, for you to do whatever you must to stop feeling unsure. So to score points in this competition, you pull your attention away from contamination and you turn your attention toward allowing your feelings of doubt. In fact, as soon as you permit those feelings, even invite them, you will score big points.
Your challenger will not like this one bit. It wants you to slide back down into the content. Anxiety has hijacked your values and is using them against you. In whatever shape, size, or storyline it comes, Anxiety always provides content to distract you from the real competition. It uses content to continually tug at your attention, trying to pull your focus away from our task of learning to tolerate intimidation and insecurity. It expects you to say, “But, wait, I can’t let my kids get sick from my negligence.”
Here’s the caveat: of course you must address the topic of your worry. Remember the title of Chapter 6? “Make It NOT About Your Content.” You have to resolve the content questions, because they are stopping you from learning how to handle the intimidation of feeling uncertain. If you are afraid the plane may run out of air while you sit on the tarmac and you will then die of suffocation, you need to learn that that’s not even possible. If every time you get panicky and you start fearing your heart can’t handle beating 120 beats a minute, then you need to learn that, yes, of course, it’s designed to create an accelerated heartbeat during emergencies. What happens if you continue to believe that every dog has the potential suddenly to turn vicious and lunge at you, or that you can’t cope with seeing someone vomit? What if you keep holding the frame of mind that getting fired would be the worst thing that could ever happen to you, and it could happen any day for any number of minor infractions? How about if you believe that when you have a momentary abhorrent thought, it means you are someone who will act in an abhorrent way? If you keep a tight hold on those beliefs, there is no way we can get you stronger. Playing at the content level is a loser’s game.
OCD has an interesting twist. There is very little you need to figure out about the content of the various OCD themes. Yes, you can learn the medically recommended hand-washing routine, and you can confirm how long the AIDS virus lives outside of the body. But you are going to find that this information will never be sufficient. For the vast majority of obsessions, the content is simply irrelevant, and if your early attempts at education and reassurance fail to satisfy you, then you should not try to figure anything out about the theme of your obsessions. If you start drilling down into the details of your obsession, trying to prove to yourself that you’re not a pedophile, or confirm that your office building doesn’t contain asbestos, or ensure that God has forgiven you for some blasphemous thought, then you will become tangled in the vines of the disorder. Content is really not relevant in OCD.
Once you degrade your content (that’s what we want to do) and you lower your sense of actual risk (even though you will still feel at risk), you will be able to elevate your sense of competence by engaging in new experiences. Your skill set must include the ability to remind yourself that you are not going to dwell on your content. Stepping up one level of abstraction means that you work on your frame of reference, your point of view, your orientation to this topic. At this level, to win over anxious worrying, you must go toward what scares you and then embrace the feeling of doubt and distress. Yes, you will not have to wash as thoroughly as OCD demands, or you’ll have to climb that ladder a few more scary rungs, or elevate your heart rate faster than is comfortable. But you should engage in these behaviors so you can face the generic sensations of uncertainty and discomfort. Get away from thinking that you must resolve some legitimate uncertainty. If you have a phobia of heights and we arrange for ten people to hold that ladder for you, and we cover the floor with three feet of foam to protect you if you fall, you would still feel intimidated and insecure as you climb up a few rungs of the ladder. That’s what I’m talking about. After we resolve the legitimate concerns, you will now face capital-A Anxiety, and it will generate that uncomfortable uncertainty. Decide to seek out that discomfort and doubt! Now you can win.
You’ve already heard me express this a few times, yet I repeat it here because Anxiety makes it quite difficult for you to comprehend what I’m saying. (And I promise that you will hear it a few more times before we’re done.) I sincerely believe that if you can give yourself messages that manifest from that higher frame of reference—“I need to go toward what I’m afraid of”—and you are willing to believe those messages, then you can direct your actions moment-by-moment in such a way that you get your life back.
If I can help you grasp the true nature of this mental competition, and if you can lift your sights up to the real work of purposely choosing to feel insecure, uncertain, and anxious, then we will be focusing our attention on the proper tasks. If you will decide to push forward, knowing that intimidating doubt and distress will follow you, then I will help you learn that you actually can cope with those feelings. That will be your ticket out of suffering. Let’s give you that opportunity, shall we?