Create Something Small

Welcome to Day 4 of the Anxiety Challenge with Martha Beck.

In this challenge,

You'll explore gentle and creative ways to calm your body,

Quiet your thoughts and ease anxious feelings.

Let's jump into today's session.

Welcome back to Day 4 of the Anxiety Challenge here on Insight Timer.

Yesterday,

We stepped into curiosity by exploring the opposites of our anxious thoughts.

Today,

We'll use creativity and play to draw our very own anxiety monster and then discover how silliness and imagination can take away some of its power.

A reminder that for today's exercise,

You'll need a piece of paper and something to draw with.

If you don't have those nearby,

Feel free to pause and grab them now.

Okay,

Let's get started.

Scientists know that creativity and anxiety can't seem to coexist in our brains.

So by inviting creativity,

We also allow anxiety to diminish.

In one study,

98% of 5-year-old children tested as creative geniuses.

Now only 2% of adults scored as creative geniuses.

Somewhere as we grow,

We lose our spontaneity,

Our curiosity and our willingness to be playful.

We replace that with constriction and anxiety.

So to free our inner geniuses,

An exercise that seems childish may be just the thing.

So let's get started.

If you've got your paper and your pencil or your crayon,

First just draw a circle.

It doesn't have to be a perfect circle,

Just almost round.

Now this is the face of your anxiety.

You could call it your anxiety monster.

And the objective of the exercise is to make it look goofy.

So,

First put on some ears.

They can be any shape,

Any location.

Poinky,

Round,

Furry,

Doesn't matter.

Now draw in a nose.

It can look any way you want.

Once it's got a nose,

Give it a mouth with lots of teeth.

Anxiety monsters have terrible teeth.

Put in some eyes now.

Big,

Small,

Round,

Square,

Doesn't matter.

Now put some hair on your anxiety monster.

Then you might want to add a few thought bubbles that scream your most anxious thoughts at you.

Give you a moment to write those in.

You're not doing well enough.

You are making mistakes.

Put all the scariest thoughts that come to your mind into those thought bubbles.

Once you've got those written down,

I'd like you to think of a name for your monster.

Something like Sir Clench-A-Lot.

Or Captain What-If.

Or the Doom Muffin.

Think a minute.

Come up with something goofy.

Take a really good look at your anxiety monster.

And wad up that paper into a tight ball.

Then locate a waste basket or a bucket or a box.

Anything you can use as a target.

And see how far you can get from the target.

And still throw your anxiety monster directly into it.

Now if you do this exercise,

Not just listen to the instructions but actually do it,

Finish by asking yourself,

What happened to my anxiety while I was using my creativity?

You'll probably find that it either diminished or went away entirely.

That's because you shifted the activity in your brain from the part that generates anxiety to the part that generates creativity.

Now as childish as that may have seemed,

Let's think about a very serious situation.

Let's say you were in a terrible accident and you had a lot of injuries and needed complex surgery.

Now as you go into the operating room and you see the doctors who are going to perform the operation,

Would you rather see them being clenched and panicky or would you rather see them relaxed,

Curious and creative?

Strange as it seems,

The most serious situations in our lives require the greatest relaxation and creativity to get a good outcome.

So whenever you get anxious,

Try drawing your anxiety monster,

Putting down some thought bubbles and writing whatever your anxiety is screaming at you in the moment.

Then crumple it up into a ball and throw it into a wastebasket.

Literally the movement of drawing,

Of crumpling,

Of throwing,

The silliness of giving it a name and strange features,

Resurrect the inner genius you were as a child and put you in a place of relaxed creativity where you can give your optimal performance.

Thought for today.

Play,

Fun and silliness are not time wasters.

They are bedrock skills for reducing anxiety and connecting with my inner genius.

As we finish,

Take a look at what you drew.

What does it look like and what silly name did you give it?

Share it in the challenge forum.

We'd love to meet your monster.

Tomorrow in day five,

We'll use our senses to imagine delightful scenes that help anxiety dissolve.

I look forward to seeing you then.