Caroline Cavanagh, an anxiety specialist, explains the Flip It technique: reframing stressful situations by seeing them from another perspective. She uses the example of a parent worried about their child's behavior, showing how shifting your viewpoint can ease anxiety.
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Hi there, my name's Caroline Cavanagh. I'm an anxiety specialist, and today I'm bringing you tip number 7 of my Advent calendar of stress-busting tips. And this one that I share today is one that I use a lot with many of the one-to-one clients that I work with, and it's simply called Flip It. Now, it's based on the fact actually that nothing is real. We create our own reality Based on all of our previous experiences, belief systems, values, etc. And so we can all see the same thing in different ways. Now let me tell you a story. I was talking to a lady and she was getting really stressed about how headstrong her particular daughter was, that, you know, she was such a pain, she'd never do what she was told, and she was really, really hardworking. And this woman was getting so incredibly stressed. And I just simply said, wow, isn't it amazing? Because being so headstrong and independent, she's never gonna get taken advantage of by people because she knows her own mind. And this woman sort of stopped in her tracks and went, wow, I'd never thought about it that way. And her stress levels just went— And that's the whole point. I'm sure— have you ever been told something and you just say, oh yeah, I've never thought about it in that way? And as soon as you're introduced from that— to that different perspective, it's really hard to go back to your old perspective again. It's like a new piece of information's come in, and that's just enriched the picture. And so this is the principle of this tip. If you find yourself getting stressed, stop. That's the hard bit. After that, it gets much easier. But you'll recognise those stress feelings. We all do. Just say, okay, how could I see it from another angle? What could the— perhaps if it's a person you're getting stressed out, what could their particular perspective be that if you kind of flipped it and put yourself in their shoes, you may see it from that different angle, which would help you address how you're feeling about it too? So a very simple technique but really, really powerful, just simply called Flip It. A bit like the heads and tails, that's how I love picturing it. It's exactly the same coin, but when you look at it from the other side, the picture is very, very different on it. Now, I'm really passionate about getting all of these techniques that I'm sharing throughout the whole of Advent out to as many people as possible, because the more tools that we have, the more opportunities you have to reduce your stress and actually maybe even prevent— I can't speak this morning— prevent stress as well. So for anyone that's kind enough to share this post onto their own timelines, or to also like my page, which will extend the reach as well. I'm going to put all of those names into a hat, and after Christmas we'll be offering a number of people the opportunity to do some one-to-one work with me, um, if they'd like to, with my absolute compliments. If you do choose to share this or any of the other posts, please do pop a comment underneath this video to say that you've done so, because I'm seeing that, um, Often I see things have been shared, but due to privacy settings, I can't work out who it was, so I can't put their name in the hat. So please don't let that be you. Let me know you've shared it. And also, if there's anything about this particular tip that you love or just think, no, no, I don't get that, please also put that in the comments. Let me explain more if that's what you need me to do. And so Flip It over and out, and I'll be back tomorrow with tip number 8. Bye-bye for now.
