Breathe and Do. Do and Breathe.
My name is Maria O’Rourke M.D. I am an emergency medicine physician. I don’t have time to get anxious.
I needed a fast and reliable means of addressing transient situational anxiety to get me through anxiety producing moments without losing focus.
I hired a personal life coach: Gary S. Grossman Ph.D. aka Dr. I WannaWanna® to teach me a fast acting way to effectively deal with such situational stress.
As providers, we know there are many causes of anxiety and multiple ways to treat it. Coaching helped teach me that:
The anxiety will dissipate,
as long as,
I keep Doing and Breathing,
while working towards accomplishing
whatever I need to Do,
to get wherever I need to go.
Just Do something:
Anything that provides movement towards your goal.
It can empower you AND break anxiety.
Breathe and Do. Do and Breathe.
Acknowledge the feeling; focus on a plan and go on with your life.
You see anxiety is not fear. It is the illusion of fear. It is the body’s defense against perceived danger.
Most of us equate anxiety with fear. We fear the feelings of anxiety and equate the sources of our anxiety as legitimate issues to respond to as if there really is something to be frightened about/danger. Avoidance of fear/avoidance of anxiety is interpreted as the same by our feeling system.
Personal Life Coaching teaches us that it is not our job to analyze whether or not these feelings are rational or to discover where they come from, just to find effective ways of addressing them and moving forward with a clear life plan.
Stop! Look! and Listen! Now Plan Your Do!
Stop! “Is it Live or Memorex?” Check it out: determine whether or not there is any imminent danger or anything to be afraid of. If there is, get to safety!
Look! Look around you, orient yourself and take I a slow deep breath. Hold for about five seconds. Breathe out slowly, about 5 seconds. Repeat 5 times or more until your anxiety fades.
Listen! To your inner truth that now knows that this is/was anxiety, that it is truly safe and that it is just your gut telling your head to believe it is to be feared. Legitimize the anxiety as distinct from fear!
PLAN YOUR DO. What can you do to move forward with your life as your Breathing and Doing dissipates your anxiety?
NOW DO! By doing the above you can proceed with your plan, anxiety free. Your coach can help you structure your plan and support you through it as you gain a new sense of control and freedom for living.
Please note: although simple in concept, addressing anxiety with simple Breathe and Do requires practice, Practice, PRACTICE!
“Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase.”
Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Breathe and Do provides us a supported proactive plan as well as the steps necessary to achieve purposeful forward momentum to do whatever we’d rather be doing than empowering our anxiety to keep us stagnant.
It doesn’t address the why? It addresses the remedy: What you can Do about reducing anxiety and How to Do what you need and want to Do to succeed!
Please note: There are many causes of anxiety: some obvious, others not. There are many effective ways of treating anxiety: psychotherapy and psychotropic medications are the two most common.
As long as these anxieties are not debilitating and the person having them is not in need of professional mental health treatment, the anxiety can be readily managed. If not, GET THERAPY!
Personal Life Coaching provides us with an antidote to anxiety that is a perfect addition to any form of treatment designed to rid us of our anxieties. We need to practice these skills in non life threatening situations to learn to trust that Breathe and Do works.
I’d rather Breathe and Do, the remedy within me, than hesitate or medicate! How about you?
Maria O’Rourke MD FACEP
Gary S. Grossman Ph.D.