Anxiety is on the rise in society. Ken is a man with anxiety issues. Lets see how FW 2.0 can help him.
Features of the Person:
Ken is a person who suffers from generalized anxiety. He is especially hypersensitive to anything uncertain, has a tough time relaxing, and is given to catastrophizing (continually fearing the worst will happen). When asked, Ken stated that he believes the opposite feeling of anxiety is happiness.
What seems to be the short-term goal that FW 2.0 can help:
Ken’s anxiety causes significant stress and gets in the way of making decisions. However, it appears that it would be essential to help Ken feel Peaceful to relax, even for a few moments. This is so that he can explore the drivers of anxiety without simply impulsively acting or avoiding them, even if just cognitively. Ken needs to relax in the short term to help the chronic anxiety feelings.
How to use FW 2.0 in this case:
The first thing to note to Ken is that the opposite feeling to anxiety on FW 2.0 is not happiness but some Peaceful feeling. Ken consulted FW 2.0 and identified the most accurate kinds of Scared feelings that Ken is feeling. He then is asked to bring a thought to mind that causes an anxious feeling. This is to help Ken notice somatic and interoceptive sensations within the body. The best bodily region to measure Scared feeling is most often in the chest.
Most people with anxiety describe the bodily sensation in the chest as tight, fast, sometimes heavy, and other similar descriptors. These all relate to an increase in heart rate and breathing. Paying attention to the bodily chest experience is not to leave Ken in that somatic state but to get a sense of the body’s sensation to serve as a measure. Ken mentions that his chest feels tight when feeling anxious.
Ken is then asked to think of times that he felt loved, cared about, or a place that he finds Peaceful to elicit Peaceful feelings – the opposite of Scared feelings. Ken has a memory of walking through the woods with his caring aunt. Ken focuses on the different aspects of that memory and can identify what makes that Peaceful. Ken then pays attention to the sensation in the chest while thinking of this Peaceful and loving thought. Ken notices that his chest has become lighter and his breathing is slower after being mindful of this Peaceful memory.
For the first time, Ken understands that he can increase anxiety, measure it using a body sensation, identify the opposite feeling using FW 2.0, and then bring up memories that elicit a Peaceful feeling. This all happened in less than 30 seconds, but for the highly neurotic Ken, this was the first time he realized he could both increase his anxiety and do something about it, even in the short term. This was insightful and relieving for Ken, and it could have been done in less than a minute.
