These unhelpful approach strategies are like busywork for the mind.
Let's continue our discussion of safety behaviors that we started last week! If you missed part one, listen to that episode first.
Savvy Psychologist is hosted by Dr. Monica Johnson. A transcript is available at Simplecast.
Have a mental health question? Email us at psychologist@quickanddirtytips.com or leave a voicemail at 929-256-2191.
Find Savvy Psychologist on Facebook and Twitter, or subscribe to the newsletter for more psychology tips.
Savvy Psychologist is a part of Quick and Dirty Tips.
Links:
https://quickanddirtytips.com/savvy-psychologist
https://www.facebook.com/savvypsychologist
https://twitter.com/qdtsavvypsych
https://www.kindmindpsych.com/
Today we are going to continue our discussion on safety behaviors. If you didn’t listen to the first part of this episode, head back to your feed and check that out first!
Welcome back to Savvy Psychologist, I'm your host, Dr. Monica Johnson. Every week on this show, I'll help you face life's challenges with evidence-based approaches, a sympathetic ear, and zero judgment.
As a reminder, safety behaviors are deliberate actions we engage in in response to worries. The function of a safety behavior is to allow us to feel better in the present moment and to eliminate the chances of us experiencing the feared outcome. Safety behaviors can be tricky because some of them are more obvious avoidance strategies and others make us think we are addressing the issue, but we really aren’t. These unhelpful approach strategies are like busywork for the mind.
Which leads us to the first on my list today—double checking. Double checking is when you repeatedly check up on something you’re working on like an email you need to send, an assignment you need to submit for grading, or even a behavior like re-re-re-reading your text messages. Sometimes it’s a pre-emptive behavior and other times it’s after the fact. How many of us have re-read texting chains to reassure ourselves that we didn’t say anything “stupid”? The problem here is that you’re usually not checking once or twice, you’re checking a dozen times or spending an hour reviewing a text message that’s shorter than a Twitter update. These behaviors eat up a lot of time and usually degrade our ability to trust ourselves.
Speaking of not trusting ourselves, the next safety behavior is excessive reassurance seeking. Pay attention to the word excessive. It’s normal to check in with trusted others to ensure we’re making the right choices, particularly when it comes to major decisions like which job to take or which college to attend. However, are you the type of person that needs to get everyone’s opinion on just about every subject? Are you akin to a YouTube interviewer that walks up to folks on the street and goes, “What do you think of my outfit?”
Many times these safety behaviors are trying to remove all uncertainty or ambiguity from a situation and it simply isn’t possible. I could ask 10 people about my outfit and 3 people could be extremely neutral or negative about it. When you engage in excessive reassurance seeking, anything less than 100% is often not enough, and the 100% only counts if you can poll a representative sample of the global population. If you need that much reassurance, you will never learn how to be comfortable with the unknown and you might burn out some of your support system.
Now you may be asking—but Dr. Johnson, what do I do with this intense gnawing sensation of the unknown chipping away at my sanity? You sit with it. Meditation is great for this—so go check out the Savvy Psych Meditations I’ve led here on this podcast. When you endure discomfort, you tend to discover that there wasn’t any dragon in the cave and the discomfort dissipates on its own over time.
Next up, we will talk about procrastination. It’s a popular method and most of us are aware of the havoc it can cause in our lives. Procrastination is an avoidant safety behavior. It can come up in a lot of ways for us but often it’s delaying a decision or a task. For instance, you might delay a doctor’s appointment because you’re scared of what the rashes on your forearm will be. Procrastination is like a high-interest credit card—yeah you can borrow the time, but it’s going to come at a high cost. Using the medical example, I’ve heard horror stories of folks delaying preventative testing and then finally going to the doctor too late. With procrastination, you can take a smaller problem and turn it into a big one. Other potential downsides are missing out on opportunities, increasing interpersonal difficulties with your support system, and impacting your self-esteem.
The next one, I call it the I’m Fine, I Got Its. This is the person who does everything for themselves and refuses to delegate tasks, ever. Another flip side of this is also doing everything for everyone else. When you’re doing everything yourself it can remove that uncertainty because you know that everything is being done and how it’s being done. However, we can’t do it all alone. For instance, I routinely have patients who work full-time jobs, engage in childcare, cook, clean, exercise, host, and never once ask for anything. It is difficult to do all of these things solo with the types of lives we have. I sometimes have groceries delivered because I know I don’t have 2 hours in my week to do the shopping myself.
Trying to do everything on your own all the time is time-consuming and typically leads to us stealing necessary time and energy from other domains of our lives. For example, we may have less time to socialize because we have too many responsibilities. Take some time to review your life, explore your legitimate needs, and consider the belief structures that get in the way of you asking for help. Do you believe you should be able to do it all yourself? Are you worried others won’t do it right? Do you fear rejection or that you will be a burden? Whatever it is, you are not fine, and even if you got it right now, what about later? Everyone has needs and it’s okay that you do too.
What safety behaviors from today’s list are you engaging in? Let me know on Instagram @kindmindpsych. You can also reach out to me via my email at psychologist@quickanddirtytips.com, or leave a voicemail at (929) 256-2191.