I’m not sure if there’s a correlation between imagination and anxiety, but it sure feels like it. If you’ve been blessed with a vivid imagination, it doesn’t take much for it to run rampant and take over, setting off your inner Young Lad (see Wednesday’s Words of Wisdom)

My Young Lad has gotten A LOT of exercise this week. I also have an AMAZING imagination. Coincidence? I THINK NOT!

Did you know that you can turn the tables and make that imagination work FOR you instead of AGAINST you? I KNOW! MIND BLOWN!

I’ve decided to start by replacing my anxiety triggers with imagining a tiger instead, since that’s the evolutionary reason for fight or flight response in the first place. I’m hoping this will help reframe my anxiety and make me laugh. I need a good laugh.

TRIGGER SCENARIO #1 – Making a Phone Call

ME: I need to make a phone call

MY ANXIETY: But a TIGER is going to answer!

ME: It’s just a phone call, there’s no tigers here

MY ANXIETY: A tiger is going to ANSWER the phone and roar FEROCIOUSLY in my ear!

ME: …seriously?

MY ANXIETY: The tiger is going to travel through the phone lines and then jump out of the phone and SWALLOW ME WHOLE!!

ME: I’m using a cell phone. They don’t use phone lines. This isn’t the 1980s.

MY ANXIETY: It isn’t?

ME: While I don’t know exactly how cell phone technology works, I’m pretty sure that the tiger would be hard pressed to be able to make itself incorporeal, drift through the cell waves to your phone, then jump out and attack you. We haven’t managed to master jet packs and hoverboards, let alone any sort of teleportation technology.

MY ANXIETY: Oh.

ME: Even if we did still use phone lines as the primary form of telecommunication, the tiger would need to shrink itself down ala Honey I Shrunk the Kids, then crawl through the miles and miles of lines, not get lost, then use the last of its energy to bust through the phone’s receiver. At that point it’s tiny and exhausted, and lacking the equipment needed to grow back to its original size. All you’d have is a cute little tired tiger that would rather curl up in your palm and take a nap.

MY ANXIETY: It is kind of cute. I think I’ll name him Terrence.