Book Therapy: Be Mighty
Are you a woman struggling with anxiety? If so, this month’s Book Therapy selection is perfect for you! Be Mighty: A Woman’s Guide to Liberation from Anxiety, Worry, and Stress Using Mindfulness and Acceptance by Jill A. Stoddard, Ph.D., is an excellent resource. In this book, you will find helpful tips, exercises, and knowledge to empower you to become the strong and resilient woman you aspire to be. The book utilizes mindfulness and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) techniques to provide you with practical tools. Dr. Stoddard, a Clinical Psychologist specializing in Acceptance in Commitment Therapy and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for anxiety and related issues, authored the book. I found her writing style to be informative, engaging, and humorous, which I thoroughly enjoyed.
Table of Contents
Watch the video on Be Mighty
Read blog on Be Mighty
Be Mighty Summary
The premise of this book is geared towards not just women, but women who struggle with anxiety and stress, and gives concrete tools on how to move through that to ultimately ‘be mighty.’ A big portion of the book is learning how to change behaviors to step into the woman you want to be and then the author goes through different skills and explains them. She uses a lot of metaphors, and I think she does a great job of explaining these concepts in an easy-to-understand way and highlights them for you. She wraps them up through these exercises so that you can apply it to your life.
Anxiety vs. Stress
I wanted to highlight a little bit of the difference between anxiety and stress. The majority of the book is focused on women who struggle with anxiety, and helping them learn how to let go of the constant struggle with anxiety, worry, and stress. It’s helpful to break it down into what the difference is between the two.
Stress is a response to a specific situation. For example, if you have an interview coming up or a presentation, you might have a stressful response to that stressor. You might not notice that the stress goes away until you’ve actually gone through it. Typically, what you’ll notice is once that stressor is gone and you’ve gone through it, then the stress goes away. After the interview or after the presentation you feel like back to your normal self.
Dr. Stoddard also explains that it’s helpful to think of stress as a state where you’re prepared for action. In this example, you’re prepared to take on the interview or prepared for the presentation but you need to be wary of thinking the stress is just because of a stressful situation. It’s your appraisal of this situation because it’s something that you might perceive as stressful, but a friend, partner, or family member might not. For instance, I know I get stressed when I’m out with my friends or out in a restaurant and I feel like we’ve taken too long at the table. When the waiter or waitress is walking back and forth, I start to get stressed by that by thinking we’re wasting their time taking a table and we should probably go. My friends find it funny because they don’t feel stressed by this and this doesn’t cause any reaction for them because this isn’t something that is stressful for them.
When we think of a situation and appraise it as a threat, we also appraise our ability to handle it as less than. So, we may feel our coping mechanisms might not be successful and we feel like we might not be able to cope with it which causes more stress.
Anxiety is a bit more consistent and it lingers. It’s not necessarily just situational. It can be but, once the situation resolves itself, the anxiety is still there. Back to the interview or presentation example, even after kicking butt on the performance or presentation, you still feel nervous about your job performance and you still have an overall sense of anxiety about it. Even though the stressor has gone away, the anxiety lingers.
Another helpful way to think about it is when you’re prepared for perceived danger, and I say perceived because a lot of time our anxious thoughts aren’t always correct or accurate, recognize the Three Amigos that fuel anxiety.
The first one is intolerance of uncertainty. The second one is perceived lack of control, so not feeling in control and not liking that feeling of a lack of control. Most people don’t like that, but when you notice there’s an elevated discomfort for you. The third one is when there’s an over-inflated sense of responsibility, so you feel responsible more so than some of your peers to take on challenges or handle situations.
The Me I Choose to Be
As mentioned earlier, the book has a lot of tools and techniques. I’m in therapy and one of the premises is leaning into your values and showing up as the type of person that you want to be. I believe Be Mighty has this stance throughout the book of noticing your values, how you want to show up, and gaining clarity on that. There is an exercise from one of the middle chapters related to values, which is ‘the me I choose to be.’ She asks you to think about a recent situation where you feel like you didn’t handle it the best, and you’re less than excited about your actions or behaviors. Regardless of the outcome of the situation, you’re not excited about how you showed up to that moment. It’s helpful to think about what thoughts and feelings the situation triggered. What did you actually do? Which behaviors or actions did you take or not take in that moment and what was the payoff? Analyze how you felt immediately after with the pros, cons, cost, impact. It’s important to know that, even if you didn’t show up in the best way, there’s something about that that felt like either reinforcing or motivating. All behaviors make sense, even if it’s a small one. For example, if you slam the door on your way out and you’re angry at someone, even if that’s not your best self in the moment, that feel feels good. Again, noticing those feelings and reactions and being honest with yourself.
Another question to ask is ‘was the choice in line with the me and who I truly wish to be?’ If you could go back and hit rewind for a do-over, what would you do differently and why? I like this exercise because, not only does it help you start to understand different situations and what is it about the situation that’s getting you a little bit stuck, but it’s also to start to understand what the impact of your behaviors is. Is this the type of person you want to show up in this scenario? It can be any type of scenario such as parenting, work, or relationships. Analyze what you would want to do differently and which behaviors you’d like to change. A caveat that I want to point out with these exercises is that if you start to notice that you’re getting self-critical or shaming yourself, that that is not the point of this exercise and it defeats the purpose. You want to understand the cost the impact, what’s going on for you underneath the surface, and then tap into the type of person that you want to be. I thought this was a good insight from the book.
The Cycle of the Anxious Uncertainty
Insight number three is a fun little diagram, but I think it’s helpful as it goes through the cycle of anxious uncertainty. Circling back to insight one, the intolerance of uncertainty is something that can fuel anxiety. Let’s say we start off with that sense of uncertainty that triggers anxiety, and then you do something that you do when that anxiety shows up to try to make it go away whether that’s seeking reassurance, over researching, or drinking to numb out. However, notice that this is short-term relief and that the anxiety will come back, there’s more questions, and then you have to start the cycle and that uncertainty all over again.
One of the exercises to maintain this loop is to recognize this pattern and how it could be keeping you stuck, but it’s also helpful to know what do you do to get your short-term fix because that’s also some work that you can do to start to shift that piece. When you start to recognize what you do to get instant gratification, think about which behavior I can do differently in this moment to not engage in this fix, but also what am I going to feel. Because you’re not getting that short-term relief or reassurance, what type of comfort will show up to be willing to sit with the feeling and break this cycle. Again, from this perspective in the book in general, anxiety is anxiety and it will happen, but what can keep anxiety stuck is our resistance and our continued unwillingness to have it. The more anxiety is doing its thing, the less you’re willing to have it the more. So, shift that mindset so you can let go of that struggle with the anxiety to reduce its power in your life. Acknowledge that there are going to be moments of discomfort or pain, and that’s just part of the buy-in and, unfortunately, we all have those moments.
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