I once had a job interview where I was sweating so badly I wanted to apologise when I shook the interviewer’s hand. It honestly must have been pretty grim for them.
The context for this is that it was my first interview for a trainee therapy position and I had been applying for one or two a week for over a year, and I was working in a job that was slowly crushing me. I was desperate for this job. So, I was nervous to begin with, but it also happened to be a very hot day and I ended up wating around for around five hours in my suit, feeling very self-conscious about the fact that I was hot.
I ended up in a loop:
And before I knew it I was sweating in places I didn’t know had sweat glands.
This kind of loop happens a lot. A common example is when you are in a group and you are all asked to introduce yourselves, one by one, and as it gets closer to your turn your mouth starts to feel dry and you feel like you need to cough or have a sip of water. The idea of having to speak produces a little bit of nerves, one of the symptoms of which is a dry mouth, then you notice the dry mouth, which makes you concerned that you might not get your words out properly, which dials up the anxiety, which dries it out even further.
This kind of loop highlights the impact of where your attention goes.
Dealing with anxious thoughts is something that is spoken about a lot and usually this focuses on the message of the thoughts i.e. if you could change the message in your head from “This is going to really badly.” To “This is going to go OK.” That would change the level of anxiety you might feel. However, another way of dealing with thoughts is redirecting your attention.
When we are self-conscious (about how dry our mouths are, how much we are sweating, whether we are standing awkwardly) our attention naturally goes inwards. We start thinking about and focusing upon how we feel. In my example about sweating, the more I thought about my armpits and my forehead, the worse it got. Sometimes, it even makes you notice things you didn’t notice before (like how I was sweating on the backs of my knees).
An example here would be if I asked you to pay attention to how your legs feel at the moment.
As I type this, I am sat cross-legged on a desk chair (perfectly reasonable behaviour, I know) and I can now feel pressure on my thighs, a tightness in my right ankle, and I can feel the chair pushing against my bum cheeks. Before I started thinking about that, I wasn’t really aware of it. It doesn’t produce anxiety, but it demonstrates the idea that when we focus on something, it can highlight things we just weren’t thinking about or bothered about before.
When you find yourself stuck feeling self-conscious our anxious about a feeling in your body, it can be useful to practice just drawing your attention back to the things outside of yourself, the things going on in front of you.
Rather than thinking about your dry mouth, try to focus upon really listening to what other people are saying
Rather than focusing on how much your palms are sweating, focus on the faces of the people interviewing you, on the questions they are asking
Rather than thinking about how to stand or where to put your hands, focus on what is going on in the room. The things you can hear, and see.
Something to think about
This principle of moving your attention is one that can work well for worry, too. If you find yourself stuck worrying about something and you can’t get out of it, the same principles apply.
Something to do
Try out what it is like shifting your attention when you feel self-conscious or worried. Try getting outside and spending some time paying attention to what you can see, smell, hear and touch.
Thanks for reading! Until next week,
Ted
P.S. I did get the job. It turns out "Level of palm sweat during an interview" was not one of the criteria they were using to evaluate whether or not someone would make a good therapist.
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