Put It InThe Middle Of The Floor

Since the impact of a problem in your life is greatly influenced by the unique perspective and meaning you give it, anything to manage that subjective viewpoint can be an extremely helpful stress management technique. Sometimes a problem can appear overwhelming and the sense of futility that follows can make any adaptive response more difficult. This is where the image of a large floor comes in handy.

The trick of this technique is to take your seemingly overwhelming problem and visualize placing it in the middle of a large room. I like to imagine a very large unobstructed area such as a skating rink, dance hall or even a ball field. Simply take what is bothering you and mentally place it in the middle of this floor so that you can then "walk" around it. My experience isn't that the problem typically goes away, but I find this simple tool often allows a sense of manageability to begin to develop.

As an example, I'm going to the dentist today and I typically have a bit of anxiety when this occurs. I just sat quietly for a few moments and invited an image of this fear to appear. After a few moments the words "FEAR OF DENTIST" appeared in big carved stone letters inside my mind. I placed these words in the middle of my imaginary floor so that I could walk around it from all sides and notice the open space between it and me. This simple act allowed my dental anxiety to subside a little.

There is a lot of opportunity for creativity in this useful stress management technique. For instance, in performing the above mental exercise I just found myself imagining that the object in the middle of the floor was surrounded by a chorus line of dancers singing an uplifting song of hope and triumph (the image that emerged was similar to the opening credits of the cartoon "Family Guy", which struck me as pretty funny. Such incongruous imagery can be very useful in disrupting our typical patterns of emotional response).

Another technique is to take whatever shape that represents the problem and begin modifying its characteristics while it rests in the middle of the floor. For instance, I can imagine the carved letters shrinking in size until I can easily kick them over. Alternately I can change the image of stone letters to styrofoam (looks substantial but is actually quite light) or cotton candy that melts in the rain. When the characteristics of the imagined image begin to change, often the feeling of the original problem starts to subtly shift as well. There are endless variations.

Like any technique for emotional self-regulation, this mental imagery of placing a problem in the middle of a floor and walking around it takes practice to develop and will not always be fully effective. But often it brings a personal difficulty into manageable perspective and allows for a sense of coping and hope to develop.
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