Use the Spotlight Technique to Stop the Worry and Worry Cycle
As humans, when we don’t know how something is going to turn out, it’s normal for us to get excited. Sometimes this anxiety takes the form of general anxiety that you think about regularly, but you can focus on other things.
In other cases (and for people living with anxiety disorders), this anxiety becomes all-consuming, leaving you unable to focus on anything else. stressful, but not associated with an immediate risk of danger.
To help his clients deal with this type of worry and anxiety, a clinical psychologist has developed a technique he calls the “spotlight technique” that can be helpful when your thoughts are racing. Here’s what you need to know.
Why are we worried?
Anxiety is the result of fear of the uncertain and unknown. And, according to Sandra Ller, Ph.D. , an assistant professor of psychology at Towson University, while most people know that worrying about something makes them anxious and upset, we still can’t stop ourselves from going down this mental path.
Broadly speaking, there are two reasons for this, says Llera . First, we must emotionally prepare for possible negative consequences. Second, we often see anxiety as a form of problem solving and a way to take control of a situation rather than make it worse.
How to Use the Spotlight Technique
When we worry, thinking we’re actively trying to solve our problem, we’re actually trying to answer questions about the unknown or the uncertain, Michael Stein, psychologist, licensed clinical psychologist, founder and owner of Anxiety Solutions , writes in a recent article for Psychology Today .
Unfortunately, this can become a vicious circle because these questions cannot be answered with certainty. That’s why Stein encourages his clients to leave these questions unanswered and focus their thoughts elsewhere—a technique he calls the “spotlight technique.”
The spotlight technique is simple: visualize yourself at the controls of a spotlight in a dark theater. The stage is your mind and the spotlight is your attention, and ultimately you decide where to direct it.
The stage is filled with questions, worries and thoughts – all the things that you worry about. But everything you do at this very moment is there too: finishing a work project, listening to a podcast on your way home, washing dishes, etc.
According to Stein, when you notice that attention is directed to what he calls your “troubling questions,” shift your attention to what you are doing in the moment without trying to answer any of these questions.
The idea is not to distract you from the fact that these issues exist (they can’t magically disappear), but to ignore them.
“They’re still there, but they’re in the dark in the background and you don’t do anything with them,” he writes in Psychology Today . “Your attention is focused on what you are doing in the present moment; anxious thoughts are ignored.”
Yes, it’s hard and takes practice, but ultimately, Stein says, it’s about giving yourself permission to move on, rather than staying mentally stuck until you’ve answered all your questions.