In this video I'm teaching you how to work with anxiety in a different way, using the metaphor of quicksand.

Imagine you are walking down on a beach and then suddenly you find yourself in quicksand. I don't know if any of you've been in quicksand before, perhaps not! But when you get into quicksand you start sinking in the sand. You start going down, down, and down. And so the natural reaction when you start sinking is to try and get out. Obviously. And the natural reaction for how to get out is to try and push yourself out.

So what do you do?

You struggle, you fight, you try and push as hard as you can to try and get out that quicksand. You might start trying to run. And as you're using your feet and hands to get unstuck. But the harder you try, the more effort you put into getting out of this quicksand, the faster you sink down the into it.

A wise person passing by says:

“Hang on a minute! Instead of trying to struggle, try something different. Stop struggling and actually, not only stop struggling, but try and open your body out flat onto the quicksand. The more you can open your whole body out and be fully in contact with the quicksand without trying to struggle, then you'll stop sinking. You'll then become unstuck and you can roll out safely."

This feels very counterintuitive because when you're sinking in quicksand the last thing you want to do is to sink even further. So you're scared that if you stop struggling it's not going to work. But you've got no other approach so you decide to try something radically different. Instead of struggling you open your body out and, lo and behold, you actually stop sinking deeper into that quicksand. In fact, you completely stop sinking and are able to focus, look around. And then you can roll out.

This metaphor of the quicksand applies for dealing with anxiety.

Well, what you may find is that when you have feelings of anxiety and want to get rid of them it almost becomes like a quicksand. You try and push it away. You fight it. You struggle with it. And then it becomes stronger. And then you're trying to push it away a bit more and it may work for a little bit but then you find there's another moment where it becomes even stronger or overwhelming.

So although it feels really counterintuitive to stop trying to struggle, fight or push away that feeling of anxiety, what if you allow it to be there? What if you lie flat in full contact with that quicksand and allow yourself to feel the sensations. You might even bring some curiosity into the experience. Notice where the feel is in your body, notice the shape, the colour, the texture. Is the sensation becoming bigger or smaller? And can you be aware of it knowing that it will pass away like all emotions do? You start to relate to that feeling in a different way - rather than avoiding it, you allow it, you're willing to feel it, so that you can continue to do whatever you need to do.

When you take this kind of approach opening up to that feeling then you find yourself getting unstuck. So give that a go - remind yourself of this metaphor of the quicksand - how struggling and fighting with your anxiety may lead you to feel it even further. Whereas coming into contact, as in coming to touch with that feeling of anxiety, may be a great way for you to work with it in a different way that could help you to get unstuck.

I'm happy to answer your questions in the comment section here on on YouTube. Make sure you check out my other online courses below too!

There's other classes and courses that I do online so you can learn more about this approach called ACT.

Check out our next course on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, which will include this and many other metaphors - it's an interactive video course. You can chat and get to know the other participants, you create a sense of community. We try and make it in a creative way too, so you learn different techniques and it's also evolving all the time. I think you'll enjoy it so come along and join us!