Invicta Vlogs
Converting Anxiety into Excitement or Going into Winter on the Polar Express.
This summer, Mr Giles and I set out, amidst all the uncertainty created by the pandemic, on a ‘bit of an adventure’. After arriving at Victoria station, we had decided not on our “normal” London activities of theatre going, mooching around shops, strolling in the parks, or exploring undiscovered corners of the metropolis, but instead, we wandered down the Kings Road, crossed the Albert bridge and sat on a bench in Battersea Park. As we sipped our coffee looking over the wide Thames, we thought ahead to the next two weeks’ adventure of walking all the way to the river’s source at Cirencester. Just another 175 miles to go!
Psychology professor Lisa Feldman Barret has recently written about how our interpretation of our emotions can dictate either our happiness or misery. Now this may sound glib and of course cannot detract from the horrendous sufferings caused by many irremediable conditions in life, but for many of us, the continued uncertainties surrounding the present situation and prospect of an approaching bleak midwinter creates all sorts of fears, trepidations and anxiety. Barret argues that a great deal of such emotion can be re-pointed into much more positive feelings. She recounts a story where just before her daughter took an important exam, her teacher told her to “get your butterflies flying in formation.” Instead of pre-exam anxiety, she now had an energised determination.
Another recent study has found that, those who live in latitudes above the arctic circle, have a much more positive outlook on months of winter darkness; where, for instance in Tromso, Norway, they will not see direct sunlight from mid-November to January. Just focusing on the plus sides of winter: cosiness, seasonal changes, snow etc. itself generates an optimism not found in those at lower latitudes. In one memorable experiment, Alison Wood Brooks, an associate professor at Harvard Business School, asked participants to face their fears of public speaking. Brooks found that simply asking the participants to repeat the phrase “I am excited” helped to reduce their anxious feelings and led to a better overall performance, since it encouraged them to view the situation as a new challenge rather than a threat.
So, to return to our summer odyssey, two weeks after finishing our coffees on that bench in Battersea park, Mr Giles and I finally reached the small cairn of stones that marked the source of the River Thames. In between, we had not had a day we didn’t wake up and feel excited about. We had walked through English history at Runnymede and Windsor, swam with swans at Tadpole bridge, felt part of a new community of paddle boarders, walkers and kayakers who like many of us, spent the holidays exploring our own national backyard. We had seen the Thames transform from a wide tidal river to a trickling thread narrower than our own bath. And what had been a time of anxious uncertainty became, step by step, an achievement to remember.
As we again enter a period of uncertainty, I try my hardest to look forward to what the winter can offer and what I can achieve, with just a few first determined steps.
Mrs M Giles
Head of Lower School
