Bucket Emotions

Anxiety and stress in the veterinary profession seems like an inevitable reality for many of us in the profession.

We regularly describe ourselves as begin “stressed out” or “anxious” people.

Some of us have been wearing these labels for a long time. We believe them to be true. They are part of our identity.

But most of us have never considered what being anxious or stressed out really means.

Anxiety and stress are what I call Bucket Emotions. They are lots of different negative emotions, existing simultaneously, and dumped all into one container which we carry around.

This is part of the reason they feel so overwhelming…  it’s hard to fix what you don’t really even understand.

When we give ourselves the opportunity to analyze our buckets of anxiety and stress we often find emotions like fear, sadness, inadequacy, scarcity, and frustration.

If we then remember that emotions are created only from thoughts, we can ask ourselves these questions:

What am I believing that is creating fear right now?
What am I believing that is creating sadness right now?
What am I believing that is creating inadequacy right now?
Etc.

The answers to those questions will reveal much, including opportunity to consider the validity of each thought, and to offer yourself alternative perspectives.

Getting to know the real causes of our anxiety, instead of just accepting it as inevitable and pushing on to function despite it, is the key to decreasing it, or even helping it go away.

It’s not an easy process.
It will require you to question things you’ve long-believed to be true.
It will force you to grow.
But, it will always be worth it.

So I’m wondering, what’s hiding in your bucket?