0:02 well hello susan hello
0:03 hello
0:05 see you today thanks so
0:06 so
0:11 well i
0:13 i
0:16 have an anxiety issue there are a lot of
0:20 things that make me anxious and
0:24 i do something different because i can't
0:26 i'm really not functioning
0:28 functioning
0:31 um at the level i need to be functioning
0:34 my anxiety just really impacts
0:38 you know
0:41 a lot of my life so i gotta i got it i
0:43 need help with managing it
0:45 okay so tell me what that looks like for
0:48 you anxiety what's in that situation
0:49 let's see um
0:51 um
0:53 driving here i mean on the interstate
0:56 i'm just panicking constantly about the
0:58 cars my gran i've had a couple of
1:00 accidents and people have hit me but i'm
1:02 constantly thinking
1:03 okay that person's about to pull over
1:05 and hit me okay that person's going too
1:06 fast okay they're going to hit me from
1:08 behind i'm just really anxious i'm
1:11 driving about all cars hitting me
1:14 um i'm in school and
1:17 tests i get really anxious when i take a
1:18 test i mean i know i know the
1:21 information and i sit down and take the
1:23 test and it's like
1:27 i can't i can't recall because i'm so
1:29 anxious about this test even though i
1:31 know that so is it is it physical is it
1:33 a lot of thoughts we had yeah i think
1:35 it's a lot thoughts in my head and then
1:38 it is very physical i mean i get
1:44 um yeah i get sweaty palms i um
1:47 my heart starts racing you know
1:49 i get tense
1:51 so it's it is physical
1:54 yeah you might have thoughts going on in
1:56 um my thoughts are
1:58 like if i'm in the car
2:01 i'm gonna get hit if um taking a test
2:03 it's like okay i gotta do well on this
2:05 test i gotta remember this there's so
2:08 much to remember and i just kind of
2:10 brain's freezing a little bit and i'm
2:15 panicking because i can't remember so
2:17 i guess all on that
2:18 and so
2:20 like with the test
2:21 have you found that
2:23 being a problem as far as not being able
2:25 to complete the test
2:27 not doing well on the test well is it
2:29 like once you go through it then you're fine
2:30 fine um
2:32 um
2:33 isn't it like the anxiety over when i
2:35 finish the test
2:38 yeah yeah after i'm finished i mean i
2:41 know i could do perform better if i
2:42 wasn't so anxious i know it wouldn't
2:44 take me as long
2:46 if i wasn't anxious um
2:47 um
2:49 it seems to
2:50 there's like time tests and so when it's
2:52 over whether it's an hour or two hours
2:53 or however long it is i mean when it's over
2:54 over
2:56 you know i'm anxious during it but when
2:57 it's over
2:59 yeah it kind of subsides just like in
3:01 the car like when i get to the place
3:04 after i'm off the interstate and stuff
3:05 it seems to subside so when the situation
3:07 situation
3:09 is over it seems to
3:10 seems to go down so
3:12 so
3:13 so it sounds like we
3:15 might need to find something that helps
3:16 you just
3:19 yeah i want something at the time
3:22 to help me in the moment because
3:23 these are things that
3:24 i mean i can't
3:27 avoid i mean even in my job too i've got
3:29 to go my field placement i've got to do
3:31 these group settings you know i've got
3:32 to do
3:35 the kids are crazy they're disrespectful
3:37 it's like okay
3:39 i gotta do it though so all these things
3:41 i have to do i can't change them in my
3:44 life right now so i gotta figure out
3:46 how to deal with it better
3:49 okay would you like to learn a skill yeah
3:50 yeah
3:53 i'm very i am eager to learn something
3:55 that can make a difference okay well
3:57 there's something called grounding have
4:00 you heard that grounding no just
4:02 electricity grounding you know that
4:03 third plug thing
4:05 that's the only grounding
4:07 i need to be grounded that sounds good
4:08 bring it on
4:10 being grounded kind of like what you
4:12 might think of it kind of get into a little
4:12 little
4:16 place um so with grounding
4:19 a lot of people have a lot of emotions
4:20 okay to have emotions but for some
4:22 people it gets really intense like you
4:24 with the anxiety it's just
4:26 a lot and so
4:28 we're trying to learn ways to bring that down
4:29 down
4:31 to get to more of a calm place
4:32 so it doesn't necessarily solve the
4:34 problem like there's still traffic
4:36 there's yeah
4:37 you know things going on it just helps
4:39 you get to a fun place to deal with it
4:41 can i deal with it that sounds good that
4:42 sounds good
4:44 so i'm going to introduce
4:47 a random technique to you okay um it involves
4:48 involves
4:50 some deep breathing some closing of the
4:53 eyes and getting into your senses okay
4:54 so i have a little script here that i'm
5:01 and we'll go through this and you'll
5:04 tell me after i feel like okay okay
5:05 okay okay
5:05 okay
5:07 but to begin i just want you to relax
5:09 and be comfortable in the same time as
5:11 comfortable as you can okay
5:12 okay good
5:14 good
5:16 and then rest your hands on your thigh
5:17 don't switch
5:19 on the side whatever it was what came
5:22 for you doesn't that pretty good
5:25 i don't want you to just breathe okay
5:34 it's good so don't worry about doing the
5:36 breathing right just okay whatever's
5:39 comfortable okay
5:41 now we're going to engage in using each
5:44 of the five senses and
5:46 and
5:57 i just want you to listen to my voice and
5:58 and
6:06 so let's begin to relax by just noticing
6:08 all the sounds around you
6:15 and
6:16 whenever you're comfortable you can tell
6:23 kind of
6:25 hear my breath a little bit i hear the
6:27 air conditioning going okay
6:29 okay
6:31 or the heat whenever that the air coming
6:32 through the mouth to hear that and when it's
6:39 it's
6:46 didn't think you noticed the sound before
7:25 right now this room is for smelling
7:39 yeah no any smelly smells no smelly hair okay
7:45 now i would like for you to
7:47 open your eyes now
7:49 and we're gonna
7:51 talk about sight
7:52 so just listen to some things that you
8:00 see that picture right there i see that
8:03 sofa right there and there's books and
8:06 flowers and
8:07 you see that
8:09 that
8:12 deer or whatever it is over there so
8:13 so
8:14 those are some of the things that i've seen
8:21 what about the colors of what you see um
8:23 um
8:26 blue and red and a lot of beige orange
8:28 orange
8:34 red and orange since one of those go together
8:36 together
8:39 that's not when you first came here
8:40 did you notice anymore well
8:42 well
8:46 i mean i might have noticed some of it
8:47 but i'm
8:49 obviously more aware because i'm really
8:52 focusing on it right now so
8:54 definitely more aware of it
8:56 right now
8:59 and so next with taste
9:02 um notice i can just tell you
9:05 um if you're in some other situation you can
9:06 can
9:08 take the time to get a snack or something
9:09 something
9:12 talk about the taste the textures and
9:13 really slowly
9:16 eat the food and
9:18 feel honest okay it is in your mouth to
9:20 help taste it okay
9:21 okay
9:23 but you can still do it even without
9:25 food just simply
9:28 placed in the saliva okay okay
9:30 okay
9:36 okay are there anything i think i'm
9:39 making something great this morning well
9:41 i had a granola bar and a banana earlier so
9:43 so
9:45 i've had some tea just
9:47 the flavor right now in my mouth is
9:49 probably the tea that i just had most recently
9:56 so that's your taste yeah
9:58 and then finally with touch
10:00 the final sense
10:02 so where your hands are right now absolutely
10:19 it was solid
10:26 it's not rough or crinkly or anything
10:33 it's secure like okay this is gonna hold me
10:34 me
10:36 that's a good feeling um
10:38 um uncomfortable
10:40 uncomfortable
10:43 feels comfortable yeah
10:44 find something else
10:47 like maybe your phone mm-hmm
10:49 i'll just grab that to you um
10:49 um
10:51 this is
10:53 what we don't know hard
10:55 hard and
10:56 and
10:58 i got this cushy
11:00 case on it so it's kind of feeling a
11:43 i want you to take a deep breath three times
12:07 now
12:09 i like for us to
12:11 do with your eyes closed
12:12 and come up with the statement and say
12:14 to yourself
12:17 that anxiety
12:19 would be like i'll be okay
12:39 you can do it like
12:41 something let's see you need to do it
12:43 it's good don't do something that will
12:45 be okay okay okay
12:51 so i want you to say your statement about
12:52 about okay
13:00 i can do it
13:03 with confidence i can do it okay
13:04 okay
13:07 you can open the eyes now
13:10 so what we just did we just went through
13:13 each of the senses as a way of a bit of
13:15 a distraction
13:17 but it also can be
13:34 mm-hmm
13:37 so how was that for you well
13:38 well wow
13:39 wow
13:41 it kind of did calm me down i mean i was
13:43 kind of getting anxious telling you what
13:45 made me anxious and so i was kind of
13:46 rubbed up
13:47 and then i kind of forgot about it
13:50 because i was focusing on
13:52 you know what i was seeing and what i
13:56 was feeling and what i was
13:59 you know all my senses so it was very
14:01 distracting in a good way i got my mind
14:02 off that
14:06 and kind of got me onto something else
14:07 and then yeah
14:08 yeah
14:10 it really did kind of calm me down
14:21 right here since i'm not eating
14:22 eating probably
14:24 probably
14:25 what i'm seeing
14:28 and what i'm hearing those two things
14:31 seem to be most helpful
14:32 in this situation
14:36 okay yeah that feeling too
14:39 so let's think about how we can use this
14:40 like when you're driving because
14:41 obviously you can't close your eyes
14:50 obviously
14:52 my eyes better be open i better be
14:54 observant about what i'm seeing
14:56 feeling and i got my hands on the wheel
14:58 so i'm going to be feeling something
15:00 something so
15:05 and hearing
15:08 okay you know so so if you're in do you
15:10 have any kind of peaceful music you can
15:13 listen to well
15:15 that's a good idea a lot of times i'm
15:18 listening to mpr
15:24 good sometimes that's not good you know
15:25 doesn't necessarily calm me down
15:28 sometimes i can
15:30 yeah so i should prob i could i could
15:33 listen to some more soothing music knife
15:35 something that calms me down more yeah
15:38 also about having the music just the
15:39 sound of the world yeah
15:40 yeah yeah
15:41 yeah
15:44 the car is going by yeah you know i
15:46 think the music might help me more because
15:46 because
15:48 not that i want to be distracted from
15:49 the cars but
15:50 but
15:53 i think my music might calm me down more
15:55 than having nothing
15:57 you know like quiet and hearing the cars
15:59 and the road that might
16:02 i can see that might make me
16:04 nervous i need to be aware of them but i
16:06 think i want to hear music
16:09 so i'll try that that's okay yeah and
16:10 then i should always be
16:12 the site yeah again you can't be too
16:15 distracted like that yeah i'm focusing
16:17 on the car in front of you yeah yeah
16:18 yeah
16:20 not necessarily the one behind me that
16:23 might hit me
16:24 because i can't do anything too much
16:26 about that so okay
16:29 okay now let's think about when um
16:31 taking the test yeah
16:34 he said so what senses can we tap into
16:38 there well um
16:40 um
16:42 what i'm looking at definitely i need to
16:43 focus on because i'm
16:46 reading something of course and i'm
16:48 feeling my pen
16:49 most of it's on the computer so i'm
16:51 feeling the typewriter um
16:52 um
16:54 typewriter keyboard um
16:55 um
16:58 so that's a sense
17:01 a touching thing that i gotta focus on
17:03 and seeing is paying attention to the
17:05 words on the
17:07 front of me
17:08 the hearing
17:11 i like to be kind of quiet
17:12 but just like today yeah
17:14 yeah
17:16 something else to trying to know that's
17:22 so it's important to not think too much about
17:23 about
17:25 the function of things or
17:26 you know like when you tap into people
17:29 you literally have to type a word
17:33 just feeling the keyboard okay you know
17:36 okay gonna be in where it is there and
17:37 this is there okay okay
17:39 okay okay
17:39 okay so
17:40 so
17:42 the next time when you're
17:45 feeling that i'm gonna try to tap into
17:47 any of the senses okay
17:50 if you want to take just a five minute
17:52 break and so for each sentence
17:55 dedicate one minute to make sense okay
17:57 like before i start the test or before i
18:15 okay
18:18 okay i can do this okay so when
18:20 do you think the next time you could do this
18:22 this well
18:23 well
18:24 i gotta drive home so
18:26 so probably
18:27 probably
18:30 today when i drive home i could do that
18:32 a test don't really have a test till
18:33 next week but
18:34 but
18:37 but i i drive all the time and so
18:39 every day
18:41 i could try this you know before you
18:44 even leave yeah to drive like when
18:45 you're sitting okay getting ready in my car
18:46 car
18:48 you're in the parking lot okay took that
18:50 time to take a few minutes to go through
18:51 all the senses
18:53 focus on that
18:56 put some soothing music on say i can do it
18:57 it
19:00 and then proceed okay
19:02 that's right
19:04 for you okay i'll try that you can try
19:07 that yeah and see how it goes okay and
19:09 we'll talk about it
19:10 okay let's look and see how it is for
19:12 you okay cool
19:15 thanks but hopefully that will help
19:17 yeah sure it will take some practice but um
19:22 okay because different situations you
19:25 might not use all the senses okay
19:27 don't try to focus too much on doing
19:29 absolutely right just anything that can
19:31 okay make you aware of your surroundings okay
19:32 okay
19:35 and calm you down okay okay
19:36 okay
19:38 okay thank you for coming in all right
19:40 well thanks for that tip i'll try that out
19:41 out
