“What do I do when I’m having a panicky day?”

I get asked this question more often than any other so wanted to share something her that might give you a fresh perspective (and might even be helpful in the moment you feel you need to click here and read).

Warning: It’s pretty gross, but hey ho…..

Imagine you wake up one day and you feel dreadful.

You’d come to me and say ‘Nic, I feel awful. Like, really, really bad. My head has gone all thick and I can’t think straight, I can’t hear properly, my eyes keep watering and (insert very panicky voice), THERE’S ALL THIS GREEN GOO POURING OUT OF MY BRAINS DOWN MY FACE!!!’

When those feelings of panic and anxiety wash over you, and your heart starts pounding and your palms start sweating and you can’t seem to catch your breath, it’s as if you’re coming to me and saying,

“I’VE GOT SNOT!!! WHAT CAN I DO RIGHT NOW TO STOP IT?”

And I will point out to you that you have a head cold. And snot is just a by-product of that.

There’s nothing you actually need to DO about it, instead there’s something new to SEE about it.

Now, you can go to snot-management’ school and buy all number of books on how to manage your snot better.

You can examine what might have happened in your childhood that might cause you to be snotty today or you might have come up with any snot-coping strategies to help you get through the day, while all the while being terrified that you might wake up snotty again tomorrow.

You don’t know what else to do, but you do notice that the more you think about how bad you feel, the worse you seem to feel.

And the more you’re aware of your snot and how you can’t possibly go out with that running down your face, the more the stuff just keeps coming.

I will instead show you what a head cold is. I’ll explain what it is and how it works.

I’ll explain that millions of people all around the world get head colds every single day.

But for most, it’s not front page news.

They might fight it for a bit, but then they realise ‘Oh, it’s a head-cold, they deal with the snot in the best way they know how (incidentally without beating themselves up because ‘OMG I had to use a tissue again’), rest up a bit and then move on with their lives.

No big deal.

Everyone gets head colds whether they had a happy childhood or an awful one; whether they are a millionaire or a pauper; whether they’ve been through a divorce or bereavement, or not.

It’s just that when you get a head cold, you mistakenly think it’s a brain tumour.

Just because you don’t understand what it actually is.

That IS front page news, the green goo is an indicator of a SERIOUS problem and you feel compelled to worry and talk about it 24/7.

No wonder you want me to help you make it be gone.

But it’s a head cold. And it comes with snot.

Short of actually holding a tissue under your nose, I can’t help you with the snot.

But I can teach you about the nature of head colds, that they feel bad but you don’t have to be scared of them and how they always pass on by.

There’s something about seeing that for yourself that seems to help people see their head colds as just that and not as brain tumours any more.

It’s not that I help my clients have less snot.

I just help them change the relationship with their snot so it’s free to show up or not. No big deal.

No longer front page news.

 

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