This week, classes start up again at the MCI after the holiday break. After a restful few weeks, it will be nice to get back into the swing of things, and to see our students once again.
Still, if our current cohorts are like others before them, the atmosphere in both our online and onsite classes is likely to be a little different. With the start of the winter term, many of our students start thinking ahead to the end of the year exams. (Our Year 1 students have to pass the Transition Exam to continue in Year 2, and our Year 2 students have to pass the Exit Exam to earn their degrees.)
It is normal then, for students to begin to feel a bit nervous at this time of year. Looking down the road, they can see a big high-stakes milestone waiting for them. Nervousness can be a good thing. Most interpreters feel a little jittery when they start their day, and a few butterflies in the stomach help to kick-start the adrenaline rush that most of us need to do good work.
But what if you are more than just “a little nervous”? What if you are in the grips of anxiety? What if your emotional state, far from helping you get your job done, is actually sabotaging you? Well, here are a few pieces of advice that might help in a case like this.
1. Thoughts create emotions
Proponents of cognitive-behavioural therapy — like David Burns — tell us that feelings are created by thoughts, and not the other way around. It may not always be easy to tell, but when we are experiencing intense emotion, there is usually a little voice in our head somewhere that is telling us something about some sort of future calamity. The trick is to catch that voice in the act. Find a quiet corner where you can be alone, and still yourself. Breathe deeply and relax.
Think back to your emotional episode. Underneath the surface, what were you telling yourself? Were you saying, “I’m no good at consecutive”? Or perhaps, “I know there’s something in the simo speech I won’t understand”? Or maybe even, “I’m going to fail as an interpreter”? Figure out what it is that you’re saying to yourself that is hitting your panic button.
Most of the time, you’re making a dire prediction about the future that may not even come to pass. That’s the first piece of good news. The second is that, because you created your anxious state with a thought, you have the power to control it. As self-help author Eckhart Tolle puts it, you can “awaken from your fearful thoughts“.
2. Your mind can be occupied in other ways
Some people like to counteract negative thoughts by thinking positive ones. Authors Louise Hay and Gregory Flood both advocate making systematic use of formal affirmations to bring about positive change.
Other people suggest that we can occupy our minds with — nothing at all. When most of us hear the word “meditation”, we conjure up all kinds of mystical images of cross-legged sages on mountain tops trying to hear one hand clapping. But in reality, meditation is just a tool for making your mind quiet.
When we stop to take notice of them, our thoughts are extraordinarily volatile. We jump around from idea to idea, sometimes in a very disjointed way. To describe this, some teachers of meditation will tell us that the mind is like “a monkey jumping around in a cage”. But if we can get the monkey to sit still from time to time, it does us a world of good.
Try this. Sit or lie comfortably someplace where you will not be disturbed. Turn off cellphones and other distractions. Take ten minutes, and try to “be in the moment”. It helps to focus on something immediate, like your own breathing. Pay attention to the rise and fall of your belly, or perhaps to the cool sensation as air hits your nostrils on the inhale, and the warm sensation as air leaves your body on the exhale.
If you find yourself thinking of anything other than your breathing, take notice of this, and calmly return your focus to the task at hand. More specifically, if you find yourself reliving past events, or worrying about future ones, be aware of this and then allow your mind to return to your breathing. Your first goal is to pay attention to the present, and to forget for the time being about the past or the future.
In a similar vein, if you do find your thoughts straying, take a moment to notice if your thoughts contain a judgment. Do you feel positively or negatively about your past or future thought? If so, make a mental note of this, and return your attention to your breathing. Your second goal is to stop judging and to simply allow your focus to be neutral.
Do this for ten minutes a day, and see what it does for you.
Mental discipline can help you cope when anxiety strikes, a little bit better each time.
3. A mindful scan of the body (and mind) can help
One particular type of meditation is called “mindfulness”. To explain it simply, I will say that it basically involves using the techniques described above (focusing on the present, remaining non-judgmental) to be aware of something in our internal or external world.
For example, instead of keeping your awareness on your breathing, you can scan your body — from the tips of your toes to the top of your head — to just be aware of how each part of you is feeling. You’re not trying to change anything here. If anxiety has tied your stomach in knots, you are not trying to undo those knots.
Instead, you are just allowing yourself to be a dispassionate and non-judgmental observer of that reality within you.
If you need help doing a body scan, there is a recording of author Jon Kabat-Zinn on YouTube that you can use to guide yourself through the exercise. Try doing this a few times a week.
Once you have the hang of it, you can use the same technique to explore your emotional landscape. In the same way that you move your awareness through your body and allow yourself to dispassionately study the sensations there, so too can you guide your awareness through your feelings and observe them in a neutral way.
Obviously, there is a lot more to these three points. I only have room in a blog post to expose the tip of the iceberg. If you want to explore any of these ideas further, I strongly recommend
- Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now (ISBN 978-1-57731-152-2);
- David Burns’ The Feeling Good Handbook (ISBN 0-688-01745-2); and
- Jon Kabat-Zinn’s Full Catastrophe Living (ISBN 0-385-30312-2).
But there are two points that I would make in closing. First, practicing these techniques in short but regular sessions will grant you some respite from your anxiety. That, in and of itself, will do you some good. Second, when you are experiencing anxiety about your interpreting, you will be more used to mentally backing away from your feelings and looking at them neutrally. Having this discipline will help you cope when anxiety strikes, a little bit better each time.