In this presentation, anxiety specialist Caroline Cavanagh shares a personal story of living as an army wife whose mind was consumed by imagined worst‑case scenarios, illustrating how anxiety can hijack perception of reality and waste valuable time. She then outlines two concrete steps that individuals and organisations can adopt to transform anxiety from a performance‑draining liability into a competitive advantage. Step 1 is learning to distinguish reality from imagination, recognizing that thoughts alone can trigger the same physiological stress response as actual danger, and reframing that response as heightened senses that can improve performance. Step 2 is a guided grounding exercise that brings attention into the present moment through sensory awareness, thereby reducing cortisol levels and preventing imagined threats from activating anxiety. Cavanagh cites a Health and Safety Organisation statistic that 17.9 million work‑days were lost to stress and anxiety in 2019‑2020, underscoring the financial impact of unmanaged anxiety. She hints at a third step—harnessing adrenaline to step out of comfort zones and drive growth—suggesting that even modest improvements in employee confidence and performance could significantly boost the bottom line. The talk concludes with a call to bring these tools into organisations to create a measurable competitive differentiator.
Chapters
Would you trust a mechanic who turned up in a car that was rattling and smoking? Would you trust an anxiety specialist who turned up and the first thing she said was, I'm anxious? Well, here I am. At the moment, my stomach is doing flip-flops, my hands are incredibly clammy, And if a medic took my heart rate, I'd probably be in an ambulance to A&E. But I'm here to tell you that anxiety is a good thing. I've spent most of my married life as an army wife. 6 months after getting married, my husband went off to Bosnia. But I can honestly say I remember very little of those 6 months beyond 6 months of high anxiety. Most army wives have a reaction to seeing a black Vauxhall Vectra because they're the cars that are driven by the military police, and if one stops outside your house, the chances are they're coming to tell you something that you don't want to hear. Every time in that 6 months I saw a black car go past, my heart would flutter. I would have anxiety. But my head wasn't in the reality. It was busy thinking, what would I do if Nick came back without arms or legs or worse? And so I missed the whole of that 6 months of my life because my head was somewhere creating anxiety in my body. And now I'm pleased to say that even though my head was focusing on something that never happened, It created a reality for me, an anxiety that destroyed those 6 months. But that learning that I had in that 6 months has allowed me to come and speak to you today because I learned how to change my relationship with reality, with anxiety. And the steps that I learned are 2 that I'm going to share with you today, 2 of 3 that are really powerful steps. And when you bring these steps into your organization, You have the ability to create a phenomenal competitive differentiator. I'm sure that most of us can tell stories about anxiety, and those stories may have been ones that gone on your mind for a short period of time, or maybe months, or maybe years, creating that homeostasis in your body, that state of anxiety that leads to you losing. periods of your day feeling awful. But step 1 is learning the difference between reality and imagination. Neuroscience is currently suggesting that we spend about 80 to 85% of our time running autonomic programs, which just means doing things that we don't have to concentrate on. Walking is a great example. Whilst you're walking, you're not thinking about putting left foot in front of right. Your mind is elsewhere thinking about something that's not relevant to that particular moment. Eating is another great example. You sit down with a plate of food and before you know it, plate's empty, stomach's full, but you can't actually remember the taste of much of what you ate because your mind was thinking about something else. But when you understand the difference between reality and imagination, it's an understanding that means Your mind can't tell that difference. A thought alone can trigger anxiety. Because if a thought, like my thought of Nick being in a war zone, related to risk, your brain will create exactly the same response, flooding your body with cortisol, with adrenaline, the chemicals that we relate to in the feeling that we call anxiety. Anxiety. But now, understanding reality, I know that the adrenaline that's currently flooding around my system is heightening my senses. It's improving my performance. So anxiety now, in the real moment where I am exposed to a risk, is a good thing. So when people in your organization can bring on the understanding between reality and imagination, when people can say to a staff member who's looking anxious from a place of kindness, what stories are you entertaining in your mind at the moment? You can be— bring your organization ready to take on step 2. Now, step 2 is all about being in the moment, and I would love to demonstrate the power of this through a very practical example. So I believe most of you are sitting at home in a safe place where perhaps you're not being watched, so I really ask to engage with me for a minute or 2 and do a very practical exercise with me. So get yourself comfortable. And close your eyes. And for a second, just check in, just notice what thoughts are in your head. How do you feel? Be aware of you right now. And now take that awareness out to your sense of hearing. What can you hear? Are you aware of birdsong? I can hear birdsong. Is there traffic outside? Maybe you can hear nothing, but it's okay to notice that you hear nothing. And now bring that awareness into your kinesthetic sense, your sense of feeling. How do your feet feel inside your shoes? How does the chair feel beneath you? How do your clothes feel against your skin? And take that awareness inside your body. Do you feel warm, cool, tired, hungry? Just notice how you are right in this moment. And now just check back in. How are those thoughts in your head? Are they a bit quieter? How do you feel? Is it just a little bit calmer? And now open your eyes. Thank you for engaging with that. And hopefully, even in that very short demonstration, a minute, minute and a half or so, you noticed that you could create a difference. But the biggest difference is you started to tune in with reality. And in your reality at the moment, there is no risk. And where there is no risk, there is no room for anxiety. You are in control of that moment. And that is step number 2. By bringing that step into your organization, your staff will become aware of being in control of that moment, preventing those thoughts that take them out into an area where something may never happen, but brings them back into the now where there is no risk. And the impact of that is it brings their cortisol levels down. It makes people more relaxed. A statistic from the government, from the Health and Safety Organisation, is that there were 17.9 million days lost to stress and anxiety in the working year from 2019 through to 2020 because of people being stressed. Just think of the impact on your bottom line from your organization having a different awareness of anxiety, knowing how the difference between reality and imagination, understanding being in the moment, and in the moment where there is no risk, they will not trigger any feelings of anxiety. Step 1, is very powerful. Step 2 heightens that level of power, but step 3, that's where the magic really happens. I can speak to you today knowing that adrenaline is flooding my system, and I embrace it because with that adrenaline I am stepping out of my comfort zone, and in that comfort zone I grow. If even 10% of your organization could grow, grow their skills, grow their performance, grow in their confidence, how would that impact on your bottom line? That mechanic turning up in a car that was rattling may not give you confidence, but perhaps now understanding how this anxiety specialist has learned to change her relationship with anxiety and how she can bring those tools to your organization, I'd like to ask you, would you now trust me to come back and talk to you about step number 3? Thank you.
