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Areas › Worry and anxiety › Facing it a step at a time
There is an order that works. Say what the problem actually is, in one sentence. List some options without weighing them yet. Then go through what is good and bad about each, pick one, try it, and look at what happened. The listing has to come before the judging, or the second option never gets said out loud at all.
Facing a fear in steps works, and it works best with someone guiding the ladder. Read this as an explanation of how it works, and take the steps themselves to a therapist.
go and seek news of Joseph and his brother and do not despair of God's mercy (Quran 12:87). The instruction is to go and find out, which is the opposite of the option fear keeps putting forward.
يوسف
يَٰبَنِيَّ ٱذۡهَبُواْ فَتَحَسَّسُواْ مِن يُوسُفَ وَأَخِيهِ وَلَا تَاْيۡـَٔسُواْ مِن رَّوۡحِ ٱللَّهِۖ إِنَّهُۥ لَا يَاْيۡـَٔسُ مِن رَّوۡحِ ٱللَّهِ إِلَّا ٱلۡقَوۡمُ ٱلۡكَٰفِرُونَ
My sons, go and seek news of Joseph and his brother and do not despair of God’s mercy- only disbelievers despair of God’s mercy.’
Qur’an 12:87read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
A randomised clinical trial found that a focused treatment built around behavioural experiments, in which people go and test what they believe about uncertainty, helped adults with generalised anxiety disorder. Trying an option and seeing what happens is that same move in ordinary clothes. The trial was in generalised anxiety and is evidence about testing beliefs rather than about this particular sequence of steps.
Dugas MJ, Sexton KA, Hebert EA, Bouchard S, Gouin JP, Shafran R. (2022). Behavioral Experiments for Intolerance of Uncertainty: A Randomized Clinical Trial for Adults With Generalized Anxiety Disorder.. Behavior therapy doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Avoidance stays the only answer for as long as it is the only one that ever gets thought of.
Being pushed into something before you are ready does more than frighten you. It teaches you that the pacing you were promised cannot be trusted, and that is the harder thing to repair.
Ask which step they are willing to try, and then go with their answer. A smaller step they chose themselves tends to get attempted, and a bigger one you chose for them often does not.
Say out loud, before you start, that there will be bad weeks. Then when one turns up it is a thing you expected rather than proof the whole plan was nonsense.