Today was rough. You were late to not one, but two Zoom meetings. Or, you and your spouse/partner’s relationship feels like it is grinding instead of flowing. Or, maybe the crush of expectations you feel are placed upon you is unrelenting. Plus, the phone never stops dinging with new notifications driving you further into a panic at every chirp, ding, or buzz.
Days like these seem to come quite frequently.
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Traditional therapy can be essential to help combat the anxieties and stressors which afflict us at an ever-increasing rate. But, we can’t live in a therapist’s office. We have to build personal tools and techniques to deal with problems as they arise.
In that spirit, I invite you to consider Twig Therapy – a technique I developed when I was seven years old and haven’t considered for 31 years.
Take a walk or sit still in a quiet place. If you can, leave your phone and your electronics behind. If you feel safer carrying your smartphone, try to make it as dumb as possible by turning off everything that is inessential.
Find a twig or stick. The exact type is important. You want one that is already on the ground. Do not break one off of a tree because it will neither work well for this therapy nor be very good for the tree.
You want it to be relatively dry. No thicker than your pinky but wider than a basic Bic pen. The perfect twig is about the length of your arm or perhaps a little smaller.
When you have one, think about how you think the twig got there. Did a squirrel knock it off while jumping from a neighboring tree? Did that storm last week blow it off? Imagine the exact circumstances in which your stick came into your hand.
As you walk and think, go up to a tree or a telephone pole and give it a good whack. Swing it hard enough that you hear and feel that whoosh as the twig flies through the air before landing with a slap on the wood.
Did it break? If so, find another stick. Maybe a little thicker or not as decayed.
If it didn’t or when you find the right one, smack a few more trees or poles each time trying to increase the volume of that whoosh or seeing if you can differentiate the different tones of the slaps against various points of contact. Can you make a song?
Keep walking and focusing on your twig. If you don’t know the name of the tree from which it came, make one up. Pretend you are the first person to discover this tree and are assigned to give it a name. “Oh, this is the Great Northern Grey Tree.”
Now, here’s where Twig Therapy really takes off.
Break your twig into a hand-sized piece one small section at a time. With each piece you break drop it or throw it away. What do you think will happen to it? Will a bird find this small section of stick and carry it off to be the perfect piece for its nest?
With your hand-sized piece ready and as you walk, peel the bark off starting at one end. Feel your fingernails cut into the bark where you find a crack or a place where it has lifted from the wood.
Focus all of your attention on trying to peel off the best piece of bark you can. Maybe that means a whole ring comes off in one satisfying section or you can pull one long strip from top to bottom.
Keep peeling and walking. Try to focus your mind on either your twig or perhaps a happy memory from childhood when you were free of technology or work or stress. As you peel and reminisce, breathe in the healthful odor of the decaying wood. Take in each breath from your belly filling your nose and lungs with that nostalgic smell of nature.
Have you peeled off the bark of your entire stick? How much time has passed? More than you thought? How’s your heart rate? Perhaps elevated from the exercise but not pounding to the beat of your anxiety anymore?
If you want to keep going, Twig Therapy won’t charge you for another hour. Just pick up another stick and start over.
Greg Behr is a local husband and father, as well as a writer and co-founder of Triangle-based strategic communications firm GBW Strategies.