today i'm going to be talking about the fuel that drives the worry engine intolerance of uncertainty
hi everyone in today's video i'm going to be talking about intolerance of uncertainty the fuel
that drives the worry engine but before we 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 now with those two things out of the way let's talk about
intolerance of uncertainty this video is the continuation of this series of videos that i'm
doing on worry management and in the last video i talked about a model for understanding worry
and i talked about it as the bare bones engine of worry the the driving force behind worry so if you
think of that as the engine of worry what we're talking about today intolerance of uncertainty
that's the fuel that drives this worry engine so what is intolerance of uncertainty well in
tolerance of uncertainty one way to think about it is it's kind of like a psychological allergy
and if you think about how an allergy works suppose i'm allergic to dust and i walk into
a room all it's going to take is for there to be just a little bit of dust in that room and
it's going to cause a big allergic reaction on my part sneezy watery eyes that sort of thing whereas
somebody else who's not allergic to dust walks into the exact same room has no reaction at all
so for people who are intolerant of uncertainty all it takes is for there to be just a little
bit of uncertainty in a situation and it leads to a big emotional reaction a big emotional response
so you can think of intolerance of uncertainty kind of like falling on a continuum where on
one end of the continuum are people who are highly tolerant of uncertainty these are the
people who for example can travel to europe with a one-way ticket and a quarter in their pocket
they have no idea what they're gonna be doing for work what they're gonna do for money uh how
long they're gonna be gone where they're gonna go but they just see it as a big adventure they'll
figure it out as they go whereas on the other end of the continuum if a person is highly intolerant
of uncertainty and they're traveling to europe they're going to have a clearly laid out itinerary
they're going to know exactly what they're doing on every day they're going to have backup plans
for if the weather's changes they're going to know exactly how they're going to get from point a to
point b everything is going to be highly organized those people are highly intolerant of uncertainty
now what we know is that for people who worry a lot they tend to gravitate more towards the
highly intolerant end of this tolerating uncertainty spectrum so the way intolerance
of uncertainty works is it's kind of like a lens through which a person views the world
so you have this person and they're faced with an uncertain situation and they're looking at this
uncertain situation through this intolerance of uncertainty lens what the intolerance of
uncertainty lens is going to do is it's going to bend the person's perception or prediction
of what's going to happen to be a negative outcome so they're going to think about all of the
positive all of the possible negative things that can occur when faced with that uncertain situation
but you can probably also recognize on a logical level that on certain situations don't always lead
to negative outcomes that there can be a range of potential outcomes that on certain situations can
result in so some are negative but some uncertain situations can turn out neutral or they're neither
good nor bad they just kind of are what they are and then there are some uncertain situations that
turn out really positively so they turn out much better than a person anticipated the situation was
going to turn out i call these happy accidents not expecting them to happen they happen and they're
really great so uncertain outcomes can fall anywhere on this continuum of possible outcomes
but the intolerance of uncertainty lends prevents a person from really
considering the possible positive or neutral outcomes and all the person ever focuses on
is the potential negative outcomes so it's not so much the uncertainty that is so sort of scary or
anxiety provoking for a person who's intolerant of uncertainty it's not the uncertainty itself
it's what they feel that uncertainty represents which is the negative outcome the negative
potential outcome that they focus on that this intolerance of uncertainty lends
bends their predictions and their perceptions to be all about so what do you do with this
information how exactly does this work and how can you use it to better manage worry
well think about the dilemma that someone who is intolerant of uncertainty experiences
on one hand i'm intolerant of uncertainty yet on the other hand there's uncertainty
in the world around me and so i have to try to find some way of reconciling these two things
the inherent uncertainty of the world and my intolerance of uncertainty
and invariably what people do is they tend to focus on ways of trying to eliminate uncertainty
in their world trying to control their world trying to be highly organized
try to seek lots of information avoid things that they are uncertain about it's all designed to try
and eliminate uncertainty in the world but how effective do you think that is
do you think there is any way to fully eliminate uncertainty in the world
well the answer is no if you think back to the original model of worry that i talked about it
starts with a trigger and what i mentioned and why i pointed out is that anything can be a trigger
so anything can trigger worry anything can trigger uncertainty any situation
can have uncertainty associated with it so trying to eliminate uncertainty in the world
as a way of trying to manage this intolerance of uncertainty is kind of like a losing battle
it's sort of like i'm at the bottom of a pit and i want to get out of the pit and
the approach i use to try and get out of the pit is to pick up a shovel and to start digging
now i'm doing lots of work i'm putting lots of effort and energy into trying to get out of the
pit but is picking up a shovel and digging actually getting me out of the pit no it's
just a lot of work that's not actually getting me anywhere and that's what i find for a lot
of my clients who deal with excessive worry and struggle with excessive worry they feel exhausted
because everything they've tried to do to manage their worry hasn't really helped all of the ways
that they try and control their world all of the ways that they try and gather information all of
the ways that they try to avoid or eliminate the uncertainty in their world isn't really helping
it's like i've got a bucket and i'm trying to fill that bucket with water
but the bucket's got a big hole in the bottom of it so i'm constantly pouring water into the bucket
but the bucket's never getting full i will never be able to fully eliminate
uncertainty in the world so the only way of dealing with this dilemma
the world has uncertainty in it and i'm intolerant of uncertainty the only way
of really reconciling this dilemma isn't to focus on eliminating uncertainty from the world it's to
focus on becoming more tolerant of uncertainty and that's one of the keys to worry management
so that's one of the things that we're going to be talking about in future videos we're
going to talk about how exactly you go about building tolerance for uncertainty
so i hope you found this video informative i hope uh this helps explain a little bit about
intolerance of uncertainty and how intolerance of uncertainty can really fuel the worry process
i would love to hear your thoughts and ideas and questions about this i'd also love to hear your
ideas about future topics you'd like me to talk about so please leave me some comments down below
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thank you for making it all the way to the end of this video and i will see you in the next one