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A common question asked in allergy support groups relates to how to move from fearing food allergies to confidently managing them. The honest answer is: It's a learning process. So let's explore that process. Once you've adjusted to life with a food allergy, you'll likely find yourself in the allergy comfort zone. It's a place filled with routine, a sense of comfort, and most likely, limited risk-taking - all of which helps keep your anxiety manageable. Since we feel safe in our comfort zone, it can feel incredibly hard to motivate yourself to leave it. So then, why would you want to leave a place that feels so comfortable just to welcomes more fear? To learn, grow, and develop food allergy confidence! Sure, it's possible to stay in the allergy comfort zone forever and there's no judgement if that's the choice you make. But what happens when we stick within these rigid walls of comfort is that we limit our ability to engage in a number of meaningful life experiences because we experience fear and discomfort even just thinking about them, never mind trying them. Therefore, let's look at the zones we move through in order to develop allergy confidence, and why its beneficial to be willing to step outside of your allergy comfort zone!  THE FEAR ZONE Yes, the fear zone is just outside of the walls of the allergy comfort zone, but reminding yourself that it's just part of the process of developing confidence is useful. Many experience increased anxiety, a lack of self-confidence, and even physical panic sensations while in the fear zone. This is understandable! When we are faced with the unknown, increased risk, and something new, it's common for anxiety and fear to increase. However, we don't have to stay in the fear zone, and we don't have to run right back to our allergy comfort zone either (as much as we may want to). By reminding yourself that fear and anxiety are normal parts of this process, it can help you feel more empowered to keep moving forward to the next zone! THE LEARNING ZONE The learning zone is where we do AND learn! It's where we develop new skills that help us move closer to feeling food allergy confidence. Yes, this means we actually have to practice these new skills - which can make us feel very uncomfortable. But by practicing new skills, you are allowing yourself to experience situations that are useful for developing new insights that will truly make a difference in your mindset about allergy management. This is crucial, because confidence is developed by building competence - or building your ability to do things effectively, such as navigating an anxiety-provoking situation. Just because we're in the learning zone doesn't mean we don't still feel fear - these stages aren't as linear as the image shows. Again, anytime we're facing the unknown, unpredictability, uncertainty, newness, and transition, it's common for increased anxiety, and if there's perceived risk associated, an increase in fear as well. But these feelings of discomfort don't always signify danger - sometimes they signify growth! THE GROWTH ZONE This is the zone we can't wait to get to! The growth zone is where we develop more confidence in our ability to navigate the feared experiences we've wanted to learn how to handle better. As a result, this often leads to decreased anxiety and fear, and essentially brings us to a new and expanded version of our allergy comfort zone! Tips to Help You Move Through The Zones: The following can help you stay committed to moving forward (rather than moving back to the allergy comfort zone) and towards growth and confidence in managing your allergies:
Final Thoughts: When we're brave enough to leave our comfort zone, and push through the fear zone into the learning zone, we allow ourselves to develop the skills that help make things feel less scary. Skills that help us assess allergy risks, logically think through scenarios, and ultimately increase our belief in ourselves. All of this then helps us develop a more empowered attitude about living with food allergies! Want more tips to help you when you're outside of your allergy comfort zone? Check out this FAC content: want more empowering allergy life tips like this emailed directly to you? subscribe to receive "food allergy counselor corner" emails!And don't forget about ALL of the FAC resources there to support you!
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Did you know that you can use the perspective of time to help you decide how deeply to engage with an unhelpful or uncomfortable thought, feeling or decision, and that time can help you look at things from a different point of view?  Here's how to use the 5x5 rule to help you gain space between yourself and unhelpful or stressful thoughts and decisions.... Start by asking yourself:
Asking yourself these questions helps gain perspective on how important the thought you're having or decision you're struggling with is - just how much impact it will truly have on your life. Something that's pretty minor (even though it's stressing you out currently) likely won't matter to you 5 days, 5 weeks, or 5 years from now. In that case, give yourself 5 minutes to think about it. In that time, you're going to allow yourself to connect with all the thoughts and feelings you're having, and then once that 5 minutes is over, you'll make a decision that will help you move forward, and/or remind yourself that you're done thinking about that topic because it's not worth more of your energy. If what you're anxious or stressed about is a more major decision that might matter to you in 5 weeks or 5 years from now, then it's appropriate to feel more stressed and anxious about it. In that case, give yourself a specific amount of time to think about it, but then set it aside and come back to it at another point in the future. By doing this, it allows you to take a break from it, but commit to revisiting it at a time when you may be able to process it differently. Here's another approach for using the 5x5 rule.... Ask yourself:
Maybe you're stressed about all of the allergy-safe cooking you have to do for the week ahead. Yes, that may still feel stressful in 5 hours, but will you see it differently in 5 days? Probably! You'll likely feel BETTER in 5 days because you prepared meals today! In that case, remind yourself that you'll be able to see this as helpful once you're removed from the situation, so don't spend too much time overly-engaged in the stress you're currently feeling. When you asked yourself these questions, also think about the following...
Looking for videos on perspective-taking approaches to help build these skills for your anxiety and stress management toolkit (allergy-related or otherwise)? Check these videos out:
want more empowering allergy life tips like this emailed directly to you? subscribe to receive "food allergy counselor corner" emails!And don't forget about ALL of the FAC resources there to support you!
Have you heard of this useful metaphor for overly-engaging with our unhelpful thoughts? Sometimes our mind gets fixated on certain thoughts, so much so that we can't think about anything else. Or maybe it's not a specific thought your mind is focused on, but rather, a belief or internal rule you've made for yourself about how things need to happen, or a rigid set of expectations. In Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), we call this concept cognitive fusion. We can become fused with our thoughts, our emotions, a desired outcome - truly, we can become fused with almost anything! One the other hand, the concept of cognitive defusion is allowing room for our mind to consider more flexible thoughts rather than staying overly-engaged with unhelpful ones. A common metaphor or visual that ACT practitioners use to explain cognitive fusion is this (and actually give this exercise a try):
Well, in this metaphor, your hands are your thoughts! Our hands covering our eyes represents being overly-engaged (or fused) with our unhelpful thoughts - typically these are the ones that feel sticky, persistent, and stubborn. When those are present, we tend to become overly-engaged with them. And that cognitive fusion with these unhelpful thoughts then typically gives way to judging ourselves, increased anxiety, stress, overwhelm, unhelpful actions....you get it. But by moving our hands away from our eyes, we were able to see more around us again! And that's the same with our thoughts. We can't delete our thoughts, just like we can't get rid of our hands that were covering our eyes. But we CAN move them or change their positioning, which then gives us a different perspective! Here's an example: You find yourself overly-engaged with the thought that you can't go out to eat at restaurants because the kitchen will always make mistakes.....
Looking for other ways to separate from your unhelpful thoughts? This video is another wonderful visual representation of cognitive fusion, offering additional practical strategies to help you defuse from your unhelpful thoughts. (Recommend this video for teens and older). want more empowering allergy life tips like this emailed directly to you? subscribe to receive "food allergy counselor corner" emails! And don't forget about ALL of the FAC resources there to support you!
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