The Rewind Technique

Speaker: 00:00:00

You might associate mind maps with studying for exams. But they’re also a great way to improve mental health and a tool that can help find clarity and calm. A mind map does exactly what it sounds like it does: helps you put down in black and white a map of your current mind. It’s yet another way to externalize anxiety. Imagine you are anxious one day. The feeling comes on slowly and then suddenly. It’s hard to say what it is exactly, or where it’s coming from. You just know it feels bad. There’s a jumble of unpleasant physical sensations, and weird feelings of discomfort seem to blur the lines between physical, mental, and emotional. There are thoughts whizzing around in your head, but they start and don’t finish, and they leap from one to the other without any rhyme or reason.

Speaker: 00:00:54

In other words, it’s a mess. This is where a mind map comes in—it helps you take a snapshot of that mess so you can untangle it and reflect on what’s going on. Any time you find yourself asking, “Why do I feel this way?" “What’s wrong with me?" “What’s happening to me?" Then it’s time to slow down and make a mind map. Here’s how. Step 1: Notice How Your Body Feels What physical sensations are you experiencing? Slow down and give them a name and locate them in your body. Too many of us have spent a lifetime ignoring what happens from our neck down.

Speaker: 00:01:38

We stop registering the information sent to us from our senses, and we become numb to physical signals of stress. Let’s say you get home from work one day and you feel really, really weird. You can’t put your finger on it, only you know it feels awful and you want it to stop. You sit down with a piece of A4 paper and write in the middle “How do I feel?” and draw a circle around it. You then draw a branch from there and label it “body." From that branch, you note: strange nauseous feeling, tight shoulders, pins and needles sensation over the top of skull, dry mouth, and so on. This is noting, however—not judging, diagnosing, or assuming. Step 2: Notice Areas Of Tension If your life itself was a body, where would it be tight right now? Let’s say you draw another arm and label this “concerns." What is capturing your attention most at this moment?

Speaker: 00:02:43

In the height of panic, it will feel like four thousand things. That’s okay—keep drawing another branch and list them all out. Eventually, you will feel like you’ve put everything down. There’s no way to do it wrong, so don’t overthink it. In our example, let’s say you note down discomfort around relationship with sister, worries about drinking too much, overwhelm at work, unsure what to do about event on Saturday, feelings that the world is going to end, irritation with what colleague said, and so on. For now, just identify broad areas of concern that pop into your mind immediately. Step 3: Get Specific If you ask the stressed mind what is wrong, it will yell, “Only everything!" But a calmer mind is able to see that only some things are a problem, if they are indeed a problem at all. So look at your mind map as it is and try to whittle down the general areas of concern to more detailed issues. In our example, “feelings that the world is going to end” is actually a definite response you had to watching a doom-and-gloom news report just twenty minutes earlier.

Speaker: 00:03:55

It was about how some governments collect recycling but secretly dump it without recycling it. In the moment, you panicked and catastrophized. But when you slow down and take a closer look, there was one specific thought that triggered this general feeling. So on your map, you draw a line from that general sensation to something more specific: “feeling alarmed by a news report about recycling." For the concern “worries about drinking too much,” you notice that this was also a specific thought that triggered the general fear that you were drinking too much. You came home, felt tired and overwhelmed, and then thought, I need a drink. That was instantly followed by the thought “What if I’m a terrible alcoholic?" Dwelling on this point, you realize that your fear is about how you might seem to others, and you draw another branch: “fear that people will think I’m an alcoholic." In this way, you move through each area of concern. Some will already be rather specific (such as a comment from a colleague), but some will need some refinement.

Speaker: 00:05:07

You may in fact notice that certain areas are strongly connected to one another, or that what you thought was one issue is on second thoughts more like two. Step 4: Analyze Your Mind Map You’ll eventually reach a point where you can’t put much more down without repeating yourself. Then it’s time to assess what you’ve written. First, try to connect the thoughts, feelings, and areas of concern with the physical sensations you experienced. See if you can find patterns. Try to put things in an ordered sequence. Are certain ideas/sensations/thoughts clumped together? In our example, maybe you notice that there was a definite order of events: first you got home after a stressful day, and then you wanted a drink (and felt guilty about it), and then you turned on the TV to relax but instead saw the distressing news report, and then all at once, the stress of the day seemed to explode into one all-encompassing negative feeling: “The world is going to end." You see how the bodily expression of this feeling is that sense of nausea and neck tension. Gradually, you are drawing a comprehensive map of your experience.

Speaker: 00:06:29

Then what? What do you do after you’ve mapped your experience this way? The original question in the middle of our mind map was “How do I feel?" After taking a few minutes to create this mind map, it may be clearer to you: You’re overwhelmed. This thought “the world is ending” is actually a culmination of many smaller stresses and demands. Slowing down allows you to see that. You can go back in time and piece together exactly where this feeling started, how it built throughout the day, and how it was finally created in the end, like a wave. Now that you know what you feel, you can do something about it! If you are overwhelmed, the solution is to reduce stress, stop, and pause and consider only the next step rather than the next twenty steps. Your solution will maybe depend on a little self-care or a well-earned break.

Speaker: 00:07:30

What was an undefined brain mess a few moments ago is now clearer and more structured. Ask yourself the following questions to help you further analyze the picture you’ve created: •Are there any overlaps with this current experience and experiences you’ve had before? •Is there a connecting theme between all your areas of concern? •Can you see the same cognitive distortion playing out across these areas of concern? •Is it possible to link up separate sensations and thoughts to show cause and effect? Now look at the initial question again and see if you can answer it. Step 5: Make A Resolution Remember the power of action. Your mind map is there to generate insights, but those insights only have power if you can translate them into change in the real world. In our example, you might come to the conclusion that you need to go easier on yourself that evening, and that you need to start making some changes at work to reduce overwhelm. You may decide that you need to have a conversation with your colleague, or that it’s time to just let the feud with your sister go.

Speaker: 00:08:48

You might implement a new time management system at work or tighten a boundary. Maybe you do something simple like commit to getting eight hours of sleep a night that week or double check that you don’t have a vitamin or mineral deficiency. In the process of determining what actions you can take, try to keep a clear idea of what is actually in your zone of control. Ask yourself: out of these areas of concern, what can I realistically control, and what is outside my control? Then target your efforts to those things you can control, while mustering as much acceptance as possible for those things you can’t. You might realize, for example, that you are not singlehandedly responsible for your entire country’s recycling policy, but you are in control of what you buy and how you throw it away, so you focus on that. By regularly using mind maps, you can gain a finer, more detailed understanding of what is happening to you. Instead of simply saying “I’m anxious” or “I’m stressed,” you can start to say more useful things like “I’m overworked and need a break,” “I need a moment to process a feeling of loss,” or “I’ve let my expectations get the better of me." Most of us, even those who don’t suffer anxiety, find the modern world overwhelming. If we don’t regularly pause to process, untangle, and work through our emotions, they simply become bigger and more chaotic until they force us to stop.

Speaker: 00:10:27

Think of a mind map as a way to do a kind of daily mental spring cleaning and checkup. You need to give yourself time to reflect, to digest, and to adjust your attitude, rather than running on some invisible rat wheel, disconnected from how you feel and living reactively.