Recurring Patterns

So, I was working with one of my coaching clients yesterday who was having an agonizing week filled with anxiety and deep sadness "out of nowhere." He is a young man who has never experienced much in the way of mental health type issues. When we first started talking this afternoon, he told me that he was going to get an MRI of his brain to check for a tumor and have his heart checked to make sure there was nothing seriously wrong with him. I'm not a doctor, so I said if he thought this was a good idea, then he should.

As we started discussing his experience the last few days, it became pretty apparent that he had had a panic attack and was now obsessing over the "why," "what did it mean," and "why now" questions.

Because my approach is not to give advice but to ask the person questions so that he can discover his own answers, that's what I did. He has had several experiences like the current one over the last few years. That's where I started. "Who were you with, who wasn't there, what were you doing, what time of day, what time of year, etc.?"

We discovered that in the past, when this type of panic set in, he had always been somewhere alone, had been super happy the week before, and for whatever reason, had slowed down a bit from what he was focused on – school studies, business development, physical training due to an injury…

The next obvious question was, "So, what has been going on this week?" He was silent for a minute when suddenly his eyes grew big, and he said, "Of course! My three business partners and I are going to launch our new product very soon and last week rocked, but all three of them went out of town this week for the holidays!" When asked how closely this resembled the other two times he went through this type of anxious period, he said it was almost identical. As we chatted more, he realized he struggles more than he thought when people very close to him go away, even for a short time.

Whenever someone feels abandoned, it's not just about the current situation; it brings back all the other times when the feeling happened. So, I suggested he should see a counselor to understand why he felt this emotion so strongly when something as familiar as friends going away for a bit brought about this reaction.

As far as his current anxiety, it disappeared like magic because he knows it's simply his way of dealing with this situation. He was able to see the pattern that had happened over and over. This doesn't mean he's cured of feeling anxious because some anxiousness is perfectly normal. But he now knows that this didn't "come out of nowhere," and he's not going crazy, so that he can address it in an empowered way.

Regarding the MRI and heart check, I'll have to wait a few weeks to hear if he had those done.

So, the next time you're going through an emotionally challenging time that seems to come out of nowhere, remember that this probably "ain't your first rodeo" with similar feelings. Look back for the pattern. When you discover it, that alone should offer some relief. And it will also hold a few clues about how you got through it.