do you find that some of your worries are really complex that there just seems to be a lot going on
and that it's difficult to manage the worry because there's so many parts and components
to it we call these complex worries and i'll be talking about how you deal with them in this video
hi everyone in today's video i'm going to be talking about how to deal with
complex worries worries that don't really seem to fit that type 1 or type 2 category that i've
talked about in previous videos but before i get into that just a couple of disclaimers to go over
i am a registered psychologist in the province of british columbia canada
and this video is for informational purposes only it is not intended as a replacement or substitute
for advice from your doctor or mental health professional
so with those two things out of the way let's start talking about complex worries now
in the last video i talked about recipes for how you manage type 1 and type 2 worries and putting
together all of the skills and the tools that we've talked about in the videos leading up to it
but for some people they find that some of their worries don't really fit nicely into this type 1
type 2 categorization that there seems to be a bit of type 1 component to the worry but also
a type 2 component to the worry so the worry is is kind of more complex there's kind of this mix of
type 1 and type 2 worries so the question becomes how exactly do i deal with this how do i deal
with these complex worries and so what i wanted to talk about is kind of a formula recipe for
these type these complex worries that actually follows quite nicely from the previous video
so if you think about the very first step in worry management we identify it as recognizing what it
is that you're worrying about and labeling the worry is it type one or is it type two
well in this situation what you're doing is you're recognizing and you're identifying the worry
and recognizing that it's both type one and type two it's a mixed worry so i'll give you an example
of a mixed worry suppose i have a business and during the busiest time of the year i have a
whole bunch of staff members quit or get sick and so i don't have enough staff to be able to fill
all of the orders that i have and so then i start to worry well this is going to really upset a lot
of my customers and what if those customers decide that they're going to go shop somewhere else and
then this will have a real negative impact on my business and my business is going to decline
and maybe shut down in the future because i'm not going to be able to recover from this setback
so it's got a bit of a type 1 component to it that i'm dealing with a problem right now of my
staff all either quitting or getting sick and not having enough staff to complete all of the orders
so that's the type one component of the worry but the type two component of the worry is my business
suffering in the future because of this and ultimately me losing my business because
all of my customers have gone somewhere else that's the type two component of this worry
so we've got a little bit of a mix our type one worry has spiraled into a type two worry so
what do you do with this i've identified it as a complex worry i've identified it as a mixed worry
what's what do i do to manage this worry well very first step as we talked about in the previous
video is to look for ways in which i can be more tolerant of uncertainty in this situation how do
i tolerate uncertainty or another way of thinking about it is what are the ways in which i'm being
intolerant of uncertainty in this situation so uh maybe what i'm doing is i'm avoiding notifying
my customers that their shipment is going to be delayed because i'm concerned that if i notify
them they're going to cancel the order well all that's really doing is maintaining my worry about
you know what my customers are thinking so more tolerating uncertainty thing to do in
that situation is to notify them call them explain to them what's going on and see what happens so
thinking about what are the ways in which i can be more tolerant of uncertainty in this situation
second thing you do like with all worries is to identify and challenge worry beliefs to think
about what are the worry beliefs that might be playing a role in me worrying about these series
of events and the future series of events do i think that worrying about this situation
worrying about not having enough staff to fulfill these orders is worrying about it going to help
me solve that problem well then i can think about the tools that i've learned to help me challenge
that belief that worry aids in problem solving so i identify and challenge the worry beliefs that
might be contributing to my worry so i've gone through those steps and those are the same steps
we use regardless of the worry regardless of whether it's a type 1 or a type 2 worry
but now what do i do it's still there maybe i'm still worrying about it and it's this mixed word
it's still got type 1 and it's still got type 2 components to it well what i recommend for clients
in this type of situation is to focus on it like it's a type one worry so look at the negative
problem orientation that may be contributing to the worry so trying to reframe the problem
as an opportunity what's the opportunity in this situation for me well maybe the opportunity is for
me to figure out ways of becoming more streamlined in how i get my product out to my customers
maybe i can figure out more efficient ways of fulfilling the orders with fewer staff
which will help me grow my business in the future so there's opportunities in this and so if i can
reframe those offer refrain the the problem rather than just seeing it as a threat i reframe it as an
opportunity then i'm more likely to then be able to engage in some problem solving with this so
i then engage in those problem solving steps to try and address the problem of not having enough
staff to fulfill these orders so i engage in those six problem-solving steps that i talked about
in an earlier video so now i've engaged in effective problem solving suppose i've
i've solved the problem so i've i figured out ways of either hiring new temporary staff or being more
efficient and being able to fulfill these orders with the staff that i have so i've solved that
problem well there's a good chance that by solving the problem i've now eliminated the type 2 worry
part of this worry as well so i've eliminated the type 1 because i've addressed the problem
but now that i've addressed the problem maybe i'm not going to worry about losing all my customers
anymore and maybe i'm not going to worry about becoming bankrupt and losing my company
so by addressing it as a type 1 worry i may fully solve the type 2 worry part of
this and fully address the complex worry by just treating it like it's a type one worry
but suppose that i solved the problem i've addressed the type one worry part of it
but there's still this mingling worry that i have about yeah that was close what if in the future
my business falls apart and i start to keep worrying about that type 2 part of the worry
well if i'm still worrying about the type 2 part of the worry then i can engage in the cognitive
exposure we've talked about so write out a script imagining that worst case scenario and then
reviewing that script over and over and over again to essentially drain the emotion out of that worry
so these complex worries even though they seem more complex they're actually pretty
straightforward in terms of the steps you need to use in the order you need to use them and they're
very similar to how we deal with be it a type 1 worry or be it a type 2 worry so you essentially
treat it like it's a type one worry you identify the worry tolerate uncertainty challenge worry
beliefs address the negative problem orientation and engage in problem solving at that point
if there's any type 2 part of the worry left over then you engage in the cognitive exposure
so what i like about this is that it flows nicely with what we talked about
in the previous video about our recipe for managing worries and that complex worries
are actually not all that complex in terms of what you need to do to address the worry
so i hope you found this video helpful just as a way of dealing with worries that you may not have
been sure about how exactly i deal with it because it's a bit of both type 1 and type 2 worries so
what do i do that the previous video didn't talk about what i do if i have both types of worry
in a single worry well it's pretty straightforward in terms of the recipe treat it as a type one
worry and then add the cognitive exposure if there's any type two worry components left
hope you find that helpful and useful i would love to hear your thoughts and ideas about this or if
you have any questions about this please leave me some comments down below if you're finding these
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bell and you'll be alerted whenever i post a new video so that's it for today's video
thank you for making it all the way to the end of this video and i will see you in the next one