Do you really have to be so frightened every time?

When I was a young child — 9 years old to be exact– my parents sent me on a plane, alone, to visit my beloved aunt in Florida. It was exciting to travel by myself and I was treated royally by the flight crew.

Somewhere along the way the plane got into a big storm and started bouncing around terribly. This was in the days of prop planes, much smaller than the ones today and much more vulnerable to bad weather. The turbulence got worse and worse and the plane was now getting thrown around in the sky, People started screaming. I was so scared. My aunt said that when I got off the plane in Miami and ran into her arms she saw that I had bitten clear through my bottom lip.

This event had a terrible effect on me for years every time I went into an airplane . For days before the flight the scare built and built and by the day of the flight I was invariably nearly petrified. All through every flight I clutched onto the arm rests and if there was even a slight jarring of the plane in the air I completely froze.

Once, when I was returning to college from a holiday break, my father drove me to the airport. I never told anyone how scared I was of flying, but, for some reason on this drive to the airport I couldn’t hold it in anymore and I confided in my dad. He was a psychologist. He said, “You know, every time you have to fly you get so scared, but then the plane ride is fine. In your mind you have come to believe that in order for it to turn out fine you have to be so scared before the ride and during it.”

I thought about what he said and I calmed down. Yes, I had a terrible experience as a child. And he was right, somehow I had it wired up that in order to get through the ordeal of flying I had to be so scared– just as I was as a 9 year old. But do I really need to keep that going every time I travel by plane?  Is it really necessary to tie myself into knots in order to get through every flight fine and okay? Do I have to make every flight such an ordeal.  Clearly, no.

So what does this have to do with tests, testing, and test anxiety?

Think about it.  And stay tuned for part 2!

Calmness observed

After a long day at work yesterday I walked down a main and very busy thoroughfare in Portland. My head was full of the day’s events.  I was still carrying around a pile of cares with me as well as all of the anticipated concerns about tomorrow.

Unexpectedly I came across a fountain with a beautiful sculpture. I stopped. The calmness radiating from the white marble and the sounds of the fountain gently permeated my busy mind and tired body. I stopped walking and took in the sight and sounds of what I’d just stumbled upon. I took a long deep breath.

The noise in my head and the tension in my body faded quickly and then I was left simply taking in the statue and the fountain. I walked around it, looking at it from all sides. Then I caught its reflection in the window of the skyscraper behind it. Something about that was soothing.

Reflecting the peace within

It was like seeing the still center within all the movement around me.

As you go about your day look for the quiet spots, the silent spaces, the moments of respite. Let yourself become absorbed by them. Breathe deeply down to your belly. Feel your feet on the ground.

Revel in the peace. It’s around us —  and inside of us —  all the time.

Please share with us what you discover.

When you hit a wall: grow something slowly. You will break through.

One of the things test stress can do is get you to feel like you can’t do anything. You feel like you’ve hit a wall.  Everything looks too big, too insurmountable, too daunting.  You shut down and collapse. Some people  spin in place. The talk in your head sounds like this:  There’s too much to do, I’ll never be able to accomplish what I want to, I won’t do well… on and on. [If this happens to you I'm sure you know what I'm talking about and could supply your own script].

This kind of talk is, literally, self-defeating. The way things work is on a

step-by-step, moment-to-moment basis. And you work that way too. You need to do what’s in front of you and in small manageable steps.If you take on too much all at once you hit the wall and shut down.

Here’s the way to resolve the everything-is-too-much,  spinning-in-place issue:  Choose one thing that you can do in the next 15-20 minutes and do it.  Once you start working you’ll see that all the energy that’s gone into being stuck, now goes into accomplishing the one task.  Make sure the thing you choose can be done in 15 minutes.  It may be learning one concept, or reviewing one problem. Just choose something — one thing — that you know needs to be done right now and do it.

Once you’ve accomplished that, take a pause. Look back at what you just did.  First, you’ll see that you got something done. This is beneficial in that it’s something you needed to do and you did it.  Next, realize  that you’ve just disproved the notion that you had a half hour ago that you couldn’t do anything.  You just did.  Congratulations!

Now, repeat the process. What’s the next small thing you can (and need) to do?  Now do that.

Send in your own methods for getting out of spinning in place and feeling overwhelmed.

By the way, this is an issue that touches all three legs of the stool– calm, confidence and focus. If you’ve been reading the book you can see I jumped to the third tool for regaining confidence, which is envisioning taking small manageable steps. The focus leg is also involved:  you got into action in a way that supports you in achieving your goal.  And I’m sure the whole thing calmed you down.

You got back on the path and kept walking.  Appreciate yourself, and thank your supports (friends, family, your spiritual guides) for helping you to help yourself  get moving.

What's your body doing?

Let’s start out with this rule of thumb: 

When you are thinking of of an upcoming test (or anything else in the future), remember to breathe.

Here’s a very common experience for test-takers:  “My test is next Tuesday (or tomorrow). YIKES!” Your heart rate goes up, your blood starts rushing, your stomach wrenches. You know the routine.

I don’t know about you, but often, when I’m thinking about something that I have coming up later today or tomorrow or next week (and it doesn’t have to be as stressful as a test), I find myself getting a little amped up. What do I mean by “amped up”? 

When I check in with my body while I’m thinking about what I have to do, I do notice that maybe my heartbeat has speeded up, maybe a little sweat is breaking on my upper lip or my legs feel a little twitchy. What’s going on here? I think of it as launching myself into the future. As if I were a cannonball on my way to whatever the future event is, I’m speeding through the air, only to explode on the other end.

“Amped up” or “worked up” – whatever you call it –  it’s not a comfortable feeling. Some people think it’s energy that’s preparing you for the event. Yes, that’s true– to a point. But chances are you are simply getting a bit anxious—thinking about something that hasn’t happened yet and imagining all the possible scenarios and outcomes (how come most of those tend to be not-so-positive?)  While we can’t control what thoughts come to us—try not thinking about the test you have to take next week—we can, while having the thought about the future, stay calm.

The simplest way?  Just breathe. You notice you’re thinking about the test, you notice your stomach starts to knot up.  Stop. Breathe deeply down to your belly. Ground your feet on the floor. Open up your senses to what is around you right now. The future event (that pesky test) won’t go away, but all those anxious feelings will. And wouldn’t that be a relief?

Remember: it’s a 3 legged stool. Your mind-leg takes over and throws your body-leg and spirit-leg out of balance. Get back in touch with your body. I’ll talk about getting back in touch with your spirit in another post.

Let me know your experiences with getting “amped up”. What happens to do? What do you do for relief?

An example of this is when we become distracted by our own old fears. I can’t handle this, I’m not good enough, I can’t keep it together…and other negative thinking. “Negative” here means minus-ing, taking away from.  But taking

away from what? When we’re thinking negatively about ourselves we’re taking away from our whole, positive, highest self.

Most of us are fed terribly negative messages about ourselves through our competitive schooling, though the media, through advertising– you name it. We buy into the message I’m not good enough. And then we start to believe it and, like any self-fulfilling prophecy, it comes true.  But it’s not the truth.

Here’s the truth:  you are already your best, positive, highest self.  You have all the potential in the universe. You actually don’t have to do anything at all except support it rather than take away from it.

When you start thinking negatively about yourself don’t get distracted and pulled into that undertow. As soon as you realize you’re thinking that way, stop, plant both feet firmly on the ground, breathe out, and remind yourself of who you really are: your bright, shining, best self,  the one who can make a positive contribution to society.    

The best kept secret is this: you are already that great being.  Put your focus on that.

You owe it to yourself and to everyone– your family, friends and community — to be the great being you already are. Get the negative thinking out of your way.

Stop pulling your hair out!

Here’s a quick and vital tip:  when you are feeling stressed pay attention to your body.

Much of what we think of as stress is exactly that, thinking.  We start worrying about something that hasn’t yet happened (like an upcoming test) or fretting over something that has already passed (like the answers we put on the test this morning– Did I circle a or b?!).  As soon as this kind of thinking kicks in we start amping up.  We begin feeling anxious.

So here’s the tip:  the feeling is just that, a feeling, something that’s going on in our bodies. Yes, it might be

tripped off by a thought, but because we’re such a dynamic system (body/mind/spirit) one quickly triggers the next.

Pay attention to your body means just that. When you are feeling stressed ask yourself where is this going on in my body? Is your gut tight? Are your shoulders hiked up? Is your fist clenched? When you ask the question and pay attention you’ll quickly get to the place where you are making yourself feel stressed.

The thought is just a thought. Thoughts comes and go.  Come and go.  It’s what we do with them– particularly how we physicalize them without even realizing– that make us feel stressed.

And once you’ve located the place your tensing up:  use the 3 tools for calming down:  breathing, grounding  and sensing. It’s all in Chapter 4: Calm Down.  You can do it.  You just have to do it.

Send me your challenges… and stories.

First, just listening to her language, I could tell that she was not grounding herself in the present. “I’m going to fail,” “I won’t get into a good graduate program.”  A lot of  “future forecasting,” no?  As we spoke I noticed some other things.  Though she was sitting in a chair and her feet were able to rest comfortably on the floor, they weren’t. She was on her toes. I was also struck with how often she was holding her breath.

As I pointed all of these things out to her she became more aware of what she was doing as a matter of habit. All this showed her that she was not being in the present but kept launching herself into a very uncertain future.

Stress is a function of disconnection. In body, mind and spirit.  She was disconnecting in all three: her body was tense (no breath, perched toes), she held her breath, she was obsessing about the future. She forecast a negative performance, and she was distracted by all of this– in other words it became harder and harder for her to stay in the present and just study.

As we spoke she became aware of how often she disconnected from the present, and she began to see that each time she disconnected — in all the ways mentioned or described above– she became anxious.

We believe that we are anxious because we’re thinking we’re going to fail.  Well, yes and no. A thought in and of itself is not anxiety provoking. It’s just a thought and thoughts come and go What happens though is we keep following the thought and lose touch with the present, the here and now. This is the time and place for her to study.  Instead she disconnects by imagining the future.

If this happen to you, do what I coached her to do: come back to the present.  Use your breath. Feel your feet on the floor. Look around and open your sense to what is there right here and right now.

Then you’ll be training yourself for the test: when the only place to be if you want to score well is in the present answering the questions

Let me know the ways you find yourself launching out of the present, and which tools you use to bring yourself back.  If you’re not sure which tools you can use, please ask! I’m happy to coach you.

I asked Sophie to explain what she meant by “freak out,” she described the intense static going on in her mind while she attempts to answer the questions. “I keep thinking, I don’t understand the question … I didn’t study the right things … I don’t remember anything … I’m not going to get this answer right … My scholarship won’t be renewed.” Her voice trailed off. She looked discouraged and dejected as she whispered, “It’s a mess.”

Rings a bell?

Sophie was describing one of the worst experiences a test taker can have: losing self-confidence during the test. When you are trying to figure out an answer and your mind starts broadcasting negative thoughts, I don’t know this… I can’t work it out… I’m so stupid, you’re all tied up in negativity—in “nots”: I’m not remembering anything. I’m not going to pass. I’m not smart enough. Of course, all this negativity makes you feel horrible about yourself. The self-doubt kicks up dust-loads of fear—that you’re going to fail, of what will happen if you don’t perform well, and fear of what others will think of you if you do poorly. The anxiety and self-doubt quickly turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy. Suddenly, you can’t remember what you studied, you aren’t sure about your own reasoning and judgment, and the answers to the questions elude you completely. With all this negativity, your stress level soars and your performance suffers, no matter how well prepared you are.

If you want your performance to show off all the hard work you put in, you need confidence—positive feelings about yourself. You have to believe that you have what it takes to succeed, that you are smart enough, that you do understand the material, and that you can figure out an answer. It’s the same self-fulfilling prophecy I mentioned just above, but this time in a positive direction. When you believe in yourself you are much more likely to perform well.
Self-confidence seems mysterious to many peop

This means you have to train yourself to listen to your positive, affirming inner voice. It’s there, everyone has it. We have just become trained– habituated–to hearing and believing the negative voice. Your positive voice is sending you encouraging messages all the time — “You’ve got what it takes. You can do it. You’ve handled difficult experiences before.”

Train yourself, when you are challenged on a test, to turn to the positive voice. In my book, Chapter 5, How to Be Confident, goes into this process in detail. I encourage you to check it out.

I’m speaking this afternoon in New Orleans at an exciting convention: the Fall Forum for the Coalition for Essential Schools. It’s a terrific group of progressive educators from all over the country. The topic of my talk: How to Make Testing Empowering. I’ll talk all about tuning into the positive inner voice.

Send me your questions and experiences.