chapter 5
Emotional Inf lex ibility
C
an you remember a time you got into a heated argu-
ment and ending up fighting for a position you didn’t
necessarily agree with, just because you felt as if you couldn’t
change course? This sort of thing can happen to everyone at
some point, but sometimes people have difficulties letting
go of a certain emotion. It takes a lot of effort to reassess
your situation and detach from what you were feeling before,
especially in the case of anxiety. As we highlighted before,
anxiety is cyclical and repetitive in nature, which makes it
very difficult for people with anxiety to be f lexible in
responding to their emotions. In this chapter, we will take a
look at how emotional inf lexibility can inf luence anxiety
and ways to overcome this.
Trying to Control Your Emotions
People often experience anxiety as something that’s
unwanted and involuntary. It’s not as if people have a keen
desire to feel nervous or threatened. In many ways, excessive
anxiety can be thought of as an unwanted house guest. We
will discuss two different ways of dealing with this
“houseguest.”