Boxing Day Anxiety... | Anxiety Treatment Tips to Chill By...

Boxing Day Anxiety…

Shhhhh… don’t tell anyone but…

I actually went to the mall today.

Now for those of you who know me you will probably be GASPing uncontrollably right now.

Prior to today I don’t think I was in the mall (other than to buy clothes for my sons at one particular store) for the past 2 years. A personal record I was sort of proud of.

Shopping isn’t my thing at the best of times and risking Boxing Day Anxiety on a day when madness reigns supreme all for the sake of saving a buck or two typically isn’t worth the risk in my books.

However my mom is in town visiting for Christmas and she wanted to snoop around a bit so I semi-reluctantly agreed to keep her company.

Now 20 years ago I used to get anxious going to the mall mid-week in February let alone on the busiest day of the year.

So today I came up with an approach that I was willing to give a try.

Before we left I set firmly in my mind 3 Anti Boxing Day Anxiety thoughts:

There is nothing I really need or want badly enough to lose my peace over.
There is no time limit to this excursion. I don’t need to be done at any particular time and the experience is about spending time with my mom not trying to accomplish anything.
The limit for the amount of money I was willing to spend regardless how tempting a deal was. Again making my peace of mind more important than a bargain.

What I found this did was it took away any anxiety from the usual stressors… it didn’t matter if the “12 only per store” of the 80% off gizmo blowout priced item sold out hours before we arrived or if the jeans I liked were available in my size or if my mom wanted to spend MORE time in the Christmas Store… in fact even the frenzied fellow shoppers were merely an object of observation for me where in the past they would have been a catalyst to my ever increasing agitation and need to vacate the premises as soon as humanly possible.

The reason it didn’t matter is because the point wasn’t the “deals”… the point was my “enjoyment” which required keeping a peaceful heart. The point was spending time with my mom. So by placing a higher value on these things all the other mayhem was rendered powerless to phasing me.

After arriving home with a few bags of well priced items and a song in my heart I realized “that wasn’t all that bad”.

This isn’t to say I have any great desire to become an avid shop-aholic but it sure feels nice to be able to go into a mob filled public place and semi-enjoy watching it all happen… No more social phobia… NICE!!!!

This same mentality can be applied in many areas of our life where we experience anxiety.

If we can find a way to…

take expectation off ourselves…

learn to set different and more healthy goals…

lighten up on the reins and give ourselves some room for error and flexibility I think we will find our life being far more enjoyable with much less stress.

So you now have 364 days to practice this little technique before your next bout with Boxing Day anxiety.