Dr. Becky Kennedy, a clinical psychologist has an interesting and helpful take on anxiety. She characterized anxiety as “uncertainty + underestimating our ability to cope.” Many things that used to be stable have become unpredictable. It is easy to feel out of control and at the mercy of outside forces when faced with uncertainty and circumstances seemingly beyond our control.

But here is the good news! We do have control in exercising our ability to cope by reminding ourselves that we have successfully coped with hard situations in the past.

Our minds are constantly generating stories.  It is how we process information. Anxiety is created when our minds make up a story that focuses on our uncertainty rather than our ability to cope.  Fortunately, since we are each the authors of our own stories, we have a choice about where to put our attention.

A couple of years ago, my coach offered a course on embodied speaking. I signed up, not knowing we would do an improv exercise each week as part of the training. I love improv when other people do it but, in all honesty, it terrified me to be that spontaneous myself. Improv brought out all of my perfectionistic tendencies. As you can imagine, my anxiety went sky high.

I could not leave the room nor drop out of the course, so I had to tell myself a story that would calm me down. Although I was terrified of improv, I actually did a few stand-up comedy performances when I was younger. Somehow, talking about the ironies of my life felt natural on stage and people laughed. I knew if I could somehow bring that same energy to improv, I would be fine.

Instead of focusing on my fear of taking too long to come up with a perfect response, I decided to focus on the cardinal rule of improv: “Yes, and…” Those two words were magic. They allowed me to slow my breath down and ground my body. Once I was physically and emotionally present, perfectionism lost its hold on me. Much to my surprise, I actually was able to respond more spontaneously when I was present.

I wish I could say that my transformation was immediate. It took at least a month of improv exercises before I went from terror to joy when I realized I just needed to be present. I didn’t need to be perfect. Focusing on my body, instead of my mind was a major reframing of my story. While I will probably never be completely free of my perfectionism, at least I have a powerful reframed story to remind me: when I am present, I am enough.

Improv is actually a great illustration of Dr. Kennedy’s definition. You may be given a general outline of a scene, but you have no control of what your partner(s) will say to you. In that moment you have to rely on your gut and presence. Both are excellent resources for managing your anxiety. And if you are creative, you might even find some humor in your circumstances.