Overcoming Anticipatory Stress
with The Work of Byron Katie

By the end of this episode, you’ll discover more internal space and breathing room, even when faced with an upcoming challenge. Welcome to Stress Management for Highly Sensitive People, a podcast helping HSPs avoid overwhelm, eliminate stress, and find true inner freedom. I’m your host, Todd Smith, a certified facilitator of the work of Byron Katie. And, you guessed it, I’m a highly sensitive person myself.

In this episode, you’ll discover how to honestly listen to and follow your emotions about an upcoming situation, how to identify and question a core thought causing anticipatory stress, and how to experience more space opening in your inner life around the upcoming situation. This is an edition of Guided Meditation Mondays where I’ll be guiding you to do the work of Byron Katie as you listen.

What is anticipatory stress? Basically, it’s having a stress reaction in anticipation of a difficult or challenging situation. It can happen with any kind of situation. Maybe there’s a meeting coming up, an important conversation you want to have with somebody, or you have to say something that somebody is not going to like. You might need to deliver a finished product, meet a deadline, give a presentation, take an exam, or even move your house.

Anything that’s in the future that you’re already starting to worry about can cause stress. My grandmother used to call this “journey proud” when she was getting ready to go on a trip. I’ve never heard that term from anyone else, but it meant her mind was thinking about the trip, she didn’t sleep as well, and she was already experiencing anticipatory stress.

Take a minute now and think about what’s going on for you right now. Is there anything you’re anticipating or starting to worry about? Is there something occupying your mind and getting your emotions charged up? Maybe it’s something you’re planning or a challenge you’re expecting. See if you can identify something.

For example, in my life right now, I’m going through a transition: building a new website, making changes to my business, moving things around, and creating new courses. There are a lot of things going on, and some of them are complex. Think about what might be getting your mind caught in the future.

Take a second to identify something. The clue is your emotion. When you feel that stress inside, it’s an emotional feeling. It may not feel like sadness or anger, but there is a feeling of stress. This feeling tells you when you’re getting closer to what’s actually bothering you.

Next, let’s look at the thoughts connected to that stress experience. The thought is the physical, emotional, internal, visceral experience. Stress is the visceral experience, and the thought is connected to it. What is the thought causing this stress for you?

For me, it might be something like, “I need it to go well,” “I need it to go smoothly,” or “I won’t be able to do it well.” Maybe it’s “It’s too hard,” or “I don’t want anyone to criticize me, so I need to do a really good job.” There’s even a thought like, “I’m someone who does things well, and I don’t want to fail.”

What thoughts are coming up for you? See if one is particularly strong. You may want to pause the recording, write down some thoughts, and see which one stands out. I’m going to choose the thought, “I need to do it well.” Let’s use that thought. If you can relate, see if you can question this thought in your situation. Hold your situation, I’ll hold mine, and we’ll go through the four questions and turnarounds of the work of Byron Katie.

First question: Is it true? Is it true that you need to do it well? You need it to go well? Is it true? Yes or no? Be honest and honor your feelings. You need it to go well. Is that true?

When I look at my situation, it feels like, yes, I do. So I’m going to honestly report that. If you answered yes, then join me in answering question 2 of the work: Can you absolutely know it’s true? Do you need it to go well? Are you sure?

I may be very attached to something. It may be hard to imagine that not going well would be okay, but am I absolutely sure I need it to go well? The logic doesn’t matter; what’s important is your experience. Answer from there. What do you feel? Is it true? Can you absolutely know it’s true that you need it to go well? I’m going to answer no.

Third question: How do you react? What happens when you believe or think that you need it to go well? Notice the thoughts that start to happen. I start thinking about all the things I have to do. It becomes overwhelming. My mind gets busy.

What happens to you when you think, “I need it to go well?” What emotions do you feel? I notice anxiety, tension, and overwhelm. I just want it to be over, and I notice I might be less likely to sleep easily.

How else does this thought affect you? “I need it to go well.” Do you see any images in the future or the past? I see images of it going well and me not being able to reach that image. It’s like a fantasy: “If it could only go well,” and then, “Oh my gosh, I don’t know how I’ll get there.”

I see images of big mistakes happening, people criticizing me, feeling kind of dumb. I see images of overworking in the past, trying to meet deadlines and make changes in my business that stressed me out. I remember how tired I was. I don’t want that.

Question four: Who would you be without the thought, “I need it to go well?” How would you be doing your project, preparing for your exam, or thinking about that conversation you want to have? How would you be without the thought or without the attachment that you need it to go well?

I noticed right away a deeper breath just popped in, feeling something relaxing. I remember when I first started my website so many years ago, realizing that I needed to make mistakes publicly and that it was okay and even good to do so. I find myself trusting without this thought. “Oh, it’s going to go well enough. We’ll find out.”

How about you? Who would you be without the thought that you need it to go well? When you’re studying for an exam or delivering a project, there’s an easiness. “Okay, we’ll see. Maybe it’ll go well, maybe it won’t. Maybe it’ll take longer. Maybe you’ll have to do it again.”

For me, I notice an openness inside, an easiness that wasn’t there when the thought, “I need it to go well,” was present.

So this is the effect of the thought: when the thought is present, there’s stress. When the thought is not present, there is less or no stress.

Let’s turn the thought around: “I need it to go well.” “I don’t need it to go well.” That would be the opposite. So this is our new hypothesis, our new theory, that we’re going to test out and see if we can find any truth in.

How could it be as good or better if things don’t go so well? How could it be good? Are there any advantages?

Let’s say I get into this project of changing everything on my website, and things break. How could that be a good thing? What I’m noticing is that I will start finding out what’s at the core of that. I’ll gain more understanding of my business and how things work. There’s no actual time pressure when I’m aware of it.

In your case, whatever it is—maybe an exam—how could it be okay if it doesn’t go well? How could it be okay if a conversation doesn’t go well? You have to find your own answers.

For me, I always learn something. In fact, I learn more when something doesn’t go well. Often, I learn more when something doesn’t go well than when it does.

It stands out in my mind: “Okay, not doing that again.” And if I can laugh about it, then it’s not really a problem. “Okay, yeah, I rushed into this,” or “I didn’t think about that, but now I have a little more experience, and that will serve me for future experiences.”

The original statement was, “I need it to go well.” A turnaround could be, “I don’t need it to go well.” Another might be, “I needed it to go poorly.” Like we were just thinking about: the advantage for me of things going poorly is it forces me to look at my attachment to the outcome. If I’m attached, it’s stressful—even when things are going well—because I don’t want them to go badly.

If something actually does go badly, it’s almost like the worst thing has happened, and I can almost relax in a way. In the worst-case scenario, I can bring that attachment to this kind of process and start to question it, finding a little more space.

Another turnaround might be, “I need my thinking about it to go well, regardless of how it goes.” Maybe I need my thinking about it to be easygoing and peaceful. If I can find a way to do that, it almost doesn’t matter if it goes well or not.

An optimist always sees the best in every situation. So I need my thinking to be optimistic, hoping for the best, and perfectly okay if it doesn’t go according to plan. That’s freedom. That’s where I can go into a complex, possibly overwhelming situation, knowing I’ll do as best I can, and it’s okay, however it happens. Great if it goes well, great if it doesn’t.

Okay, so let’s stop there, and thank you for taking the time to go through this experiential process with me. This is just a taste of it, and you can do this in writing or on your own, taking as much time as you like to question thoughts like, “I need it to go well,” “I need it to go smoothly,” “I don’t want anyone to criticize me” (that’ll be a great one to question), or “I don’t want to look bad.” Any of these related thoughts can be great to question on your own. 

In this episode, we looked at how to honestly listen to and follow your emotions about an upcoming situation. It’s a matter of paying attention to that stress, that emotional feeling or tension, and then noticing where it’s coming from.

Next, we explored how to identify your stressors—the stressful thoughts that are connected to that emotion. It’s just a matter of asking yourself: What are the thoughts connected to this feeling? Once we identified the thought (in this case, “I want it to go well”), we started to explore other sides of that experience and how that thought causes stress.

By turning the thought around and expanding on it, we began to see how more space can open up on the inside, even without the situation necessarily changing.

So, thank you for being with me today and for doing this meditation with me. This is just a taste of the work of Byron Katie, and it’s my favorite way of working through a particular stress. It can be used in so many different situations, and we’ll do more of it.