118 Don’t Let A nxiety Run Your Life
to an imminent threat. The illusion of threat can arise easily
for those who are predisposed to perceive danger and mis-
fortune at every turn. You can use mindfulness- based tech-
niques to do the healthy opposite: become immersed in the
present! W hen you are more focused in the present moment,
you are more attuned to your environmental demands. By
this, we mean the ups and downs of your daily life that
require certain emotional responses for you to engage with
your environment effectively. At a party, for example, feeling
relaxed and content would be most conducive to having a
good time. Likewise, at work, being focused and interested
in your project would be best for your productivity. W hat
worry does is remove you from the present moment and
transport you to a world fraught with distress, uncertainty,
and threat.
So all you have to do is figure out what emotion is best
suited to your present- moment circumstances and then try
to adopt that emotion. It seems so easy, right? Well, it can be
difficult to do by force of will alone. Our main strategy to
help you accomplish this kind of f lexibility is mindfulness.
Mindfulness is a great way to become centered in the
present moment. In fact, it might even be a link between
f lexibility and less anxiety. In one of our own studies (Curtiss
and Klemanski 2014a), we attempted to determine why psy-
chological f lexibility is associated with fewer symptoms of
anxiety and depression. We administered several psycho-
logical assessments to various people who were diagnosed
with clinical levels of anxiety or depression. Essentially, we
found that very specific facets of mindfulness were respon-
sible for this link, and two models of psychological f lexibil-
ity emerged. In the first model, we looked at the relationship
between psychological f lexibility and anxiety, and we found