Last update: February 08, 2022
Anxiety is often an emotion that we don't know how to manage and that, indeed, we often increase unaware. Let's imagine living with a hungry little tiger, we will have the impression that it wants to eat us or at least that's what we will be weighing. It's a little tiger, but it's scary.
To prevent her from attacking us, we throw meat at her to keep her calm. For a moment she walks away, but only for a moment. On top of that, every time he eats he gets bigger.
When she is hungry again, therefore, she will be more ferocious and dangerous. We give her more and more food and the little tiger grows more and more. Very soon she will become a terrible tiger, impossible to control.
Anxiety, haste and discomfort are tigers ready to devour us. If we try to be more flexible in our judgments, the time will come when these tigers will stop bothering us. However, we will have to accept that they will never go away.
“What you deny submits to you. What you accept transforms you ”.
Carl Gustav Jung
The attempt to control our thoughts at all costs and feelings can cause a similar discomfort that causes us to put aside what we are doing.
What does this metaphor want to explain to us?
The tiger metaphor is widely used by third generation cognitive behavioral psychotherapies. These do not try to change or fight with our thoughts, but they help to establish a more natural relationship with them, accepting them.
When we experience anxiety or any other unpleasant feeling, we don't have to fight it. The more attention we pay it, the more it will become present.
"The error of intellectualism is to assume that the human mind obeys a general need for explanation."
Pascal Boyer
How to apply this teaching in life?
Many times feeling anxious (meta-knowledge) is worse than anxiety itself. Furthermore, on many occasions the perception of it completes the circle, causing it to increase exponentially.
If we give a lot of importance to the anxiety we are feeling, over time it will not only occupy our body, but also our mind, it will anticipate situations.
This is the case with the fear one feels when exposed to the public it is greater and more anticipatory. It will take up the hours, even the days leading up to the situation.
If we experience anxiety as an annoying, useless and abnormal sensation, the mind will pay more and more attention to it than to the action we should perform.
Let's avoid feeding the tiger (anxiety), because the time will come when he will get stronger and control everything we do.
Anxiety is an "unwelcome guest"
It's hard to accept that you don't have to fight anxiety and instead welcome its presence. To do this, we will illustrate the concept with another example, "The unwanted guest".
We think we're at a pleasant party, but our mind is continually assaulted by desperate thoughts. Instead of ignoring them, we pay more and more attention to them. We seek to eliminate them, but here they come back with greater virulence.
Eventually, they manage to capture our full attention and block us. Our thoughts ruined the party for us. But history can take a turn depending on our decision.
We can grow thanks to proper anxiety management, because the mind works better if we don't fight against it.
