™
Example of a Big 5 Challenge
© Dr Jim White 2014
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Amy works in a team of 12 people. Once a week, she has to attend a
team meeting in a small, claustrophobic room. She is prone to panic
and this is one of the worst places for her to go. She often tries to find
an excuse to get out of going to the meeting.
She knows she has to try to go to the meeting. Her stress level starts rising the
night before at home. She doesn’t sleep well and, all morning, gets more and
more uptight. She can’t concentrate on anything but the upcoming meeting.
Fight/flight is set-off on the way to the meeting; her body reacts and she is highly vigilant, looking for
(and finding) threats, focusing on her faster breathing, faster heart rate and dizziness. By the time she
walks into the meeting room, her stress level is already high.
Her first stressed thought is:
"If I don't get out of
here, I'm going to faint"
This is the loud stress voice at full volume. The blinkers are firmly on and any
better ways to think about how to cope are firmly stuck on the wrong side of
the blinkers. So while Amy knows there are better ways to think about this,
she can’t grab hold of them as her common sense voice seems so indistinct
and weak as the stress voice drowns it out and overwhelms her.
© Dr Jim White 2014
Page 2
This is the critical point. If she does not challenge this stressed thought, she
will start grasshopper thinking with one thought leading quickly to one that
is even worse. Things will quickly spiral out of control. She will panic, flee
from the meeting, feeding her stress. Her self-esteem and self-confidence
will get mauled once again, e.g.:
‘If I don’t get out of here, I’m going to faint’
‘I’ll make a complete fool of myself’
‘My workmates will have had enough of me. This must embarrass them’
‘The boss will find a way to get rid of me’
‘I’ll never get a job again’
‘What’s wrong with me, I’m just so useless’
© Dr Jim White 2014
Page 3
How does Amy pull this back and stay in control? Her first step is to:
Build the foundation
Stand back, pull back the blinkers, wait a minute
Amy imagines herself standing back, pulling back the blinkers so that she can see the
whole picture. By building the foundation, this gives her the chance to really listen to
her common sense voice as it stops the grasshopper thinking in its tracks. This gives
her a greater sense of control as she moves to the second step:
Big 5 Challenge
Amy needs to choose the best challenge for this stressed thought. She has five
options:
What’s the worst thing?....
OK but she never does faint in the meeting
so not the best challenge
The Court Case
‘Weighing the evidence’ would work well
The five year rule
Nothing really bad is likely to happen so this
isn’t a good challenge for this particular
thought
What is this worth?
Puts things into perspective. Could work
but…..
What are the chances?
© Dr Jim White 2014
This one is perfect…..
Page 4
"What are the chances of me fainting? I always
think that I am going to faint yet I never have
since I was pregnant. On the few times when I
haven't been able to get out, I have felt very faint
but then the feeling passed and I was OK. So just
stay calm and brave it out. Get my breathing
under control. I'll be fine"
This is Amy’s common sense voice talking and, because she has pulled back the blinkers, she can hear
it clearly and, in her heart of hearts, believe it. By doing this, her stressed voice is now a lot quieter and
no longer overwhelms her as it is no longer as believable. She also uses a skill she learned in Session 2
– belly breathing. By doing these things, she stopped the grasshopper thinking and so stopped the
stress building up. She stays in control and is able to get to, and stay in, the meeting.
She will probably be pretty stressed but it will be at a level she can cope with and so control. As a
result, her self-esteem and self-confidence get the chance to start to rebuild. The next meeting, with
this victory under her belt, will be that bit easier as she again uses the skills she has learned to fight
back against the stress. She will stop dreading the meetings as much as she now believes in her own
ability to cope.
So you can see that controlling stressful thoughts does not happen by chance. You have to, firstly,
understand how stress gets a grip and, then, learn the control skills. Then practice, practice, practice.
© Dr Jim White 2014
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