I have adapted this method of mind state balance specifically to treat social and performance anxiety. The theory has its roots in a type of psychology called transactional analysis, which traces its history from Sigmund Freud to contemporary psychologists and scientists such as Eric Berne. But don't worry: Mind state balance will not be full of psychobabble. We are not interested in abstract concepts here. We are interested in concrete examples that show you, step by step, how to identify and work with your mind states for proper balance. (Remember your most valuable resource? It's time. My own internal atomic clock compels me to be as clear and direct as possible in introducing this process to you.)

Each of the five mind states is a specific form of energy that serves a useful purpose as a component of personality. The mind states are dynamic and cooperative. They work together, and when they are balanced, you are poised for high performance. Chapter 4 will introduce the five-step technique that allows you to integrate and balance the mind states.

All five mind states exist at all times at various levels, so their collective energy is finite or limited. They all work together, which is why balancing them is so important. With all five mind states in balance, a person can "hear" the various internal scripts and take the most productive, effective messages from each. The mind states comprise not just the internal scripts I have mentioned, but also the emotions, actions, and physical sensations that go along with them—each mind state has an associated F.A.T.E. that can be positive or negative.

A healthy mind state balance is the basis on which to build a healthy, productive work life. People suffering from workplace anxiety do not have a healthy mind state balance. Whenever anxiety is present, some of your mind states' internal scripts are too loud, and some are too quiet. Your thoughts, feelings, actions, and physical well-being do not coordinate with each other in support of high performance. The objective, then, is to balance them out—dialing some of them down by bringing others up. Again, their collective energy is finite.

Understanding this objective is critical. Balance your mind states by increasing the energy of some while decreasing the energy of others. Once you achieve mind state balance and learn to sustain it, your F.A.T.E. will have optimum energy. You will be operating with a High Performance Mind.

TUNE IN: How are you feeling? Are you distracted? Are you focused? Mind state balance is an exciting concept, but it also can be intimidating to confront those "internal critical scripts" that tend to repeat over and over in your mind.

Please take a few moments now to center yourself before we move further. Breathe in through your nose 1 ... 2 ... 3 ... 4 ... then slowly exhale through your mouth, pacing yourself 4 ... 3 ... 2 ... 1 ... One more time, slowly inhale through your nose, then slowly exhale 4 ... 3 ... 2 ... 1 ... By now, you should be automatically pacing your rhythmic breathing at 8 to 12 seconds per inhale–exhale. If so, excellent! If you need more practice, spend an extra few minutes throughout the day until you can meet the 8-to-12-second target. The more diligent you are about practicing the breathing exercises in this program, the more they will become a healthy reflex for you. This simple breathing exercise is something to turn to throughout your day whenever you wish to focus, concentrate, or calm down. It's effective, it's free, and it's as portable as they come—and it takes only seconds to work.

How often do you look at your watch during the workday? A lot? A little? Try the following for a while. Every time you look at your watch or check the clock or the time on your computer screen, take in a long, slow deep breath as a means of centering yourself. Try it for 21 days, and you'll establish a healthy relaxation habit. Amy adopted this practice when we started writing this book and raves about it. "When I feel anxious, I experience something called costochondritis—excessive tightness around my ribs," she explains. "Pausing for a deep, expansive breath gave me the stretch I needed to eliminate this symptom, which had been chronic. I was amazed."

Right now, you are in the process of absorbing a lot of critical information. Specifically, you are sifting through your own internal scripts as you learn about the mind states. As you "attach" to this information—recognizing and accepting what is true for you—you are likely to experience variable emotions. The more willing you are to attach to this process, the faster and more completely you will be able to triumph over your anxiety and become a high performer.

TUNE IN: Connect to your dominant hand for a moment. Feel it with your mind. Now place that hand to your cheek. Is your hand warm or cold? Is your hand dry or do you feel perspiration? What are your thoughts? What are your feelings?

Is your hand cold? If your hand is cold, identify the thoughts and feelings that are translating into stress—and remember, cold hands can mean good stress is at work!

Is your hand warm? If your hand is warm, be clear on the thoughts and feelings that are translating into emotional relaxation. Return to the Feelings List at the end of Chapter 1 and clarify the exact emotion you are currently experiencing. Did you take a look at the list? Please follow through on that every time you are asked to do so. Learning to identify and name your feelings is a critical skill that you will use as you work through this program. If you like, you can write down the feelings you identified in your notes.

As humans, we usually think in words. That may seem like a simple thing to say, but it's worth considering for a moment. It's true we can recall images, sounds, smells, tastes, and physical sensations. But we use words to name those things for ourselves even as they occur. When you experience a sensation such as a chill up your spine or you recognize a friend in a crowd, do you use words to narrate the incident? Those words interpret your experience: The chill might cause you to say to yourself, "Wow, that's spooky," or "Autumn's in the air." Seeing your friend may prompt you to say, "This is a great surprise!" or "Jeez, I should have called her back last week." We say things to ourselves all the time.

Think of the mind states as actors, each with a role to play. Below, the mind states are given names and definitions. Read these definitions and memorize them so that the five character names are clear and easy to remember.

All five of these inner scripts are present in you all the time. When you are experiencing anxiety, it is the Critical Parent and the Adapted Child that dominate the others. The other three—the Nurturing Parent, the Adult, and the Natural Child—are there, but they are weaker than they should be. Remember, the sum total is finite, so the key is balance. If you strengthen NP, A, and NC, CP and AC recede. (Merely "turning down" CP and AC will not work. You need those personality components to be effective.) Enhancing your self-nurturing (NP) energy and opening yourself to exploration and discovery (NC), plus opening yourself to logic (AC), creates the synergy that decreases your critical and adapted energy. You do not have to tell those mind states to "shut up"—they will simply fall into proper balance as you increase your NP, A, and NC mind states.

This is something many physicians often fail to take into account when they prescribe medicine—you cannot decrease energy in one area without creating energy elsewhere. Self-medicating with alcohol is a good example of why decreasing CP and AC does not work: Having a few drinks or using a recreational drug to take the edge off may feel good for a short time, but it ultimately has the effect of dulling all the mind states—including those you need to increase. (A very bad long-term solution!)

Figure 3.1. Unbalanced Mind States—the Twin Towers Anxiety Graph

The Mind States Graphs in this section are valuable visual tools we will refer to throughout the book. They depict the balance—or imbalance—of the mind states. We will consider the Twin Towers Anxiety Graph first (see Figure 3.1). This represents your mind states when you are experiencing performance or social anxiety.

The Critical Parent and the Adapted Child are the twin towers in this graph. They dominate the anxious mind. At the same time, the Nurturing Parent, Adult, and Natural Child are underdeveloped.

Think about each of these mind states and what they say to you when you are experiencing anxiety. It could sound a little something like what's shown in Figure 3.2.

Here, the twin towers stand so tall that they totally dominate your F.A.T.E. (Functions + Actions + Thoughts + Emotions). Those two scripts probably make it hard to even hear the other three messages. That is what you need to change. When you have balanced mind states, you can harness all five aspects of your personality to achieve a High Performance Mind.

See Figure 3.3 to view the balanced mind states—the twin towers are gone, replaced by a more evenly placed skyline of row houses that make up a healthy, cooperative neighborhood in which all mind states work together.

Figure 3.2. The Mind States Speak

When anxiety is resolved, the five mind states are properly balanced. Notice that the Nurturing Parent is now somewhat louder than the Critical Parent, and that the Adult is slightly more dominant than the Critical Parent, Adapted Child, and Natural Child. One thing is clear: You need your Critical Parent and Adapted Child as well as your other three mind states. You cannot achieve balance without them!

Figure 3.3. Balanced Mind States

Now, let's take some time to explore the internal scripts in your own five mind states. As you learn more about each mind state and its role in your personality, you will begin to identify the ways in which they influence your F.A.T.E.

On our Mind States Graphs, the Nurturing Parent (NP) appears on the far left. The NP mind state is the energy that provides support and promotes growth. It teaches. It is responsible for learning in general and acquiring new skills specifically. The nurturing parent embraces challenges. It includes the dynamics of reassurance and acknowledgment. Picture a father or mother playing catch with his or her son or daughter in the back yard. The child misses the ball. The parent says, "Good try! You will get it next time." This is an example of nurturing. The NP lets you know it's okay to make mistakes. It lets you know that learning is a lifelong process for everyone. It lets you know that you are valued and loved whether or not you perform successfully.

Nurturing is not the same as rescuing. Rescuing, although important sometimes, can inhibit growth. Nurturing is promoting growth while providing support—for example, "I know you can do it! I'll help you learn how" (nurturing) rather than "I'll do it for you" (rescuing). I have worked with countless families with well-intentioned and loving parents who mistook nurturing for rescuing. When this occurs, caregivers are unwittingly teaching overdependence. A typical example is the child who talks when he is at home with family members but is nonverbal with adults and children outside his family. His parents enable this behavior by talking for him. Ask him what he likes best about school, he'll quickly cast his eyes toward his mother, who says something like, "Oh, he likes lots of things, don't you, Scott? He likes math, and reading, and social studies." That type of enabling only inhibits verbal skills development and allows the child's anxiety to flourish. Right now, there is an epidemic of selective mutism among children; one in seven children experience it. Selective mutism is one of the earliest indicators that social phobia and performance problems are developing. It all derives from rescuing—and a person's expectation of being rescued—which is a situation that can perpetuate avoidance and dependence. It happens with adults as well as children.

Rescuing and the expectation of being rescued can be subtle; even so, they can harm both relationships and careers. An adult who refuses to participate in critical meetings may not receive a year-end bonus or a raise. Someone who can't bring himself to participate in networking opportunities may attend an event, but stand mute on the edge of the room—giving up the chance to make connections that could lead to greater effectiveness on the job or even a new and more satisfying job at another company. When colleagues and friends allow this behavior to continue by pitching in on aspects of a project or efforts to network for the person, the rescuing not only reinforces the behavior, but it can also cause resentment.

Balanced mind states work in sync to enhance your decision making and improve your performance. For example, I just invested several thousand dollars in some PR software that I am planning to use to generate publicity for the book we are currently writing. All five mind states are balanced and at work in my decision to do so. My NP and A mind states led me to plan eight months or more in advance as an investment in a realistic and productive learning curve. My CP mind state led me to acknowledge that my assistant and I are not very tech-savvy and may not catch on to it easily; I accept this as constructive, not harsh and demoralizing. My AC mind state is telling me I should make the most of the software in order to maximize my time and financial productivity. And my NC mind state embraces exploration for the purpose of learning: I encouraged one of my staff members to play around with the software now so it will be familiar by the time we really need it. Mind state balance works.

Like most people with workplace anxiety, Amy wrestles with a nurturing deficit. Her perfectionism—her "You must be perfect" internal critical script—is too prevalent. Without an inner script telling you that it is okay to need something, okay to try and fail, the twin towers of CP and AC grow too tall.

Roger, the hedge fund banker mentioned in "The Faces of Workplace Anxiety," was 46, married with two children. He was attractive, a good athlete, a nurturing father and good husband. In addition, he made a seven-figure salary. The irony was that he suffered from public speaking anxiety while being the "go to" guy for public speaking in his firm. Only his wife and I knew that he had this issue. His public speaking performances were usually quite successful; however, a month before an important date he would worry relentlessly, often struggling with depressive feelings. He could feel his adrenaline while speaking.

On a deeper emotional level, he did not appreciate and attach or connect emotionally to his accomplishments. His father had abandoned his mother while she was pregnant with him. While he downplayed this issue in therapy with me, stating that his mother was very nurturing, which was true, the absence of his father and the lack of paternal acknowledgment and support nonetheless played a major role in his nurturing deficit. He was adept at learning new skills, which was in some ways a positive way of self-nurturing. His CP and AC mind states also contributed to his being extremely skilled in his profession. His NP mind state manifested as enthusiasm for learning what he didn't know. But the AC and CP mind states were also responsible for his perfectionism—another case of the twin towers being too tall relative to his other mind states. Perfectionism overload is toxic in people who suffer workplace anxiety.

At my suggestion, another patient, an accountant named William, was working Toastmasters religiously—something I often recommend as a laboratory for building public speaking comfort and skill levels. One week, he reported that his Toastmasters group had suddenly grown from 20 to 30 people. He had what I call an "adrenaline blitz," becoming obsessed with pleasing his new audience. "I want to be so good," he said, "that people are going to talk on the street about how great I was!" Talk about perfectionism! Only if the whole world marveled at his performance could he consider himself good enough.

I have heard thousands of similar stories—from people of all generations in all different cultures. Sometimes, a particular culture places an emphasis on one style of communicating or behavior over another. Bella, a native of Colombia, was an interpreter at the United Nations. Ivan, who was from Bulgaria, was a professor at a prestigious university. Both were quite accomplished in their respective fields. Both had public speaking anxiety. And both were very uncomfortable discussing their considerable professional accomplishments. Each one had said to me (I'm paraphrasing here), "In our country we were taught not to boast." Somehow, for these two people who grew up thousands of miles apart, taking credit for achievements was prohibited by the Critical Parent and became a nurturing deficit! Their internal critical script would say, "Don't acknowledge yourself. It's wrong. Don't draw attention to yourself."

Some of my clients have generalized about their own cultures, saying not just their own but also their extended families and their heritage downplayed dealing with emotion and had a critical perspective on therapy. For example, I've had clients of both German and Irish descent tell me that, in their extended families, they were discouraged from talking about their feelings—again causing a nurturing deficit that led to anxiety.

I consider the Nurturing Parent to be the primary state that needs to be developed.

So let's begin. The following exercise will help you to identify your NP mind state.

Identify a situation or event in your childhood where you learned a new skill.

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Identify a scenario during childhood where you were acknowledged for doing something well or for trying something new.

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Identify a situation in childhood where you were encouraged.

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Do some self-nurturing now. Acknowledge that you are currently in motion for learning! You are taking action by working through this book. You have learned the importance of skin temperature. Feel yours for a moment. Identify your feelings right now. Embrace my challenge to do this rather than get annoyed or frustrated. This is "nurturing." Make the Feelings List at the end of Chapter 1 your bible. The more that you attach to your feelings, the more you will be able to control anxiety. Again, whenever I ask you to return to the Feelings List, do it! It is an essential part of this program. (In Chapter 4, you will encounter a similar chart that provides some nurturing statements to be incorporated into your thinking as you learn to balance the five mind states.)

Now let's go a step further with self-regulation and relaxation techniques. Clench your right hand. Make a fist. Feel the tension. Keep it clenched for 21 seconds, and really tune into the tension. Now slowly release your fist and let the fingers come apart. Feel yourself letting go of the tension. Feel the sensations of looseness replace that tension. Now, do the same with your left hand. Make a fist. Hold it. Keep holding it for 21 seconds, tuning into the tension. Now slowly release your fist and let the fingers come apart. Feel the looseness replace the tension.

Differentiating between muscle tension and relaxation builds your awareness of internal sensations. Of course, you already know what a clenched fist feels like. But doing this exercise labels the sensation as "tension" and labels the release as "relaxation." Developing that awareness will facilitate your learning more self-regulation skills.

Survey your body for a moment. Locate any areas of your body where you currently are experiencing muscle tension. Focus on that part of the body while you take in a deep breath and slowly exhale, pacing yourself 4 ... 3 ... 2 ... 1 ..., feeling the muscle becoming soft and loose. Say to yourself three times, "My muscles are soft and loose."

The Critical Parent mind state is energy that represents authority. It makes rules! It teaches "shoulds"! It evaluates and analyzes. It passes judgment and criticizes. And that can be a very good thing. When your parents told you not to touch a hot stove, that was good criticism. You need your Critical Parent for guidance. The Critical Parent serves many important purposes: It keeps our primitive urges in check. It allows us to consider how we performed and how we might do better (For example, I have taped hundreds of my television and radio shows and analyzed and critiqued them for the purpose of improving my performance.) For society as a whole, the police represent the collective Critical Parent, because without them our primitive urges would overtake us and there would be chaos.

But when our Critical Parent gets too loud, it no longer serves us positively. Often the critical script with performance anxiety goes something like "You're going to get nervous," "You will screw up," "You will make a fool of yourself," "People will see who you really are," "People will not get to see who you really are because you will screw up," "You'll embarrass yourself," and so on. Not very helpful, is it? These are obviously negative suggestions. This is a state that must be decreased.

Here's something to remember: It's wonderful to be involved in the pursuit of peak performance. It's absurd to be paralyzed by fear of not being perfect.

Who is perfect? Nobody. The fear of not being perfect is an example of excessive internal critical script, which is often a part of perfectionism. While the critical script is important in facilitating achievement and success at work, its excessiveness is a major cause of performance anxiety. Look again at the Unbalanced Mind States graph. See the twin towers? If you suffer performance anxiety, the Critical Parent is a primary cause of your problem because of its unrealistic expectations.

The Critical Parent is a learned script—but it is your own internalized script, not merely the voice of the parents who raised you. It is a product of your values, your parents, your teachers and authority figures, your peers, your culture, and society. It is acquired through experiences that you then interpret as good or bad. For example, Shelly was the CFO of a billion-dollar company. She had experienced a panic episode during a board of directors meeting about a year before she contacted me. Since that time, she had been obsessing that this panic could occur again. As she said to me, "What if I go on television and have a panic attack? The viewers will obviously think there's something wrong and the stock of the company will go down." I did not disagree with her, but I did disagree when she said there was no reason for her anxiety.

When we explored her background, I gained insight into her critical script. Together we began to map out a way to balance her mind states. Shelly's father was a very successful businessman who was also an avid hunter. I'm not an advocate of hunting, but the story has an interesting and important point. When her father went hunting, he took one bullet with him. His thinking? If he could not get the animal with one bullet the animal deserved to live. How's that for a perfectionist challenge? This kind of thinking integrated itself into Shelly's internal critical script and prompted her own endless quest for perfection. That drive to be the best led her to become tremendously successful in her career. But it also caused her anxiety problem.

Again, I ask you: Who is perfect? Nobody. When a person tries to achieve what is impossible, anger and frustration result. Anger, when repressed, recycles. It is a force that drives anxiety and obsession, among other problems. Anger is deep-rooted and may not even resonate on the surface because of detachment. People with anxiety don't want to feel that anger—and so they don't feel it consciously. They are so busy operating in the Adapted Child mode that they don't allow themselves to feel it, and they haven't been conscious of its development. Instead, they stuff it down into the unconscious. It is hidden, but it is by no means gone.

TUNE IN: Take a long slow deep breath in through your nose now, 1 ... 2 ... 3 ... 4 ... and slowly exhale for 4 ... 3 ... 2 ... 1 ... What's the temperature of your hands now? Warm? Cool? Again, I wouldn't be surprised if there is some vasoconstriction going on right now given that you are currently attaching to potentially highly emotional content. What are you thinking? What are you feeling?

It is often our observations, not any words we actually hear while growing up, that help to form our internal critical script. Though Ethan owned a successful construction supply business with 25 employees, he was unable to enjoy his financial success. Looking at his upbringing, he remembered his parents as always "flipping" houses, never staying in one place for too long and always working. He never remembered his parents having fun or enjoying things. Over time, he internalized the message they seemed to be giving him: Work hard, but don't have fun. It's not as though his parents told him directly, "Don't have fun and always work." But this is the script that he learned through osmosis during his growth and development.

As I have mentioned, our Critical Parent script is not only the voice of our actual parents, but also something we ourselves devise based on a number of different experiences and interpretations. The messages can come from anyone, anywhere. Remember Carol, the ovarian cancer survivor who said anxiety was worse than chemo? When Carol was in 10th grade, her Spanish teacher called on her. In front of the class, the teacher said, "Oh, look, you are blushing." For some people, this might not be a big deal. For Carol, however, being singled out in that way caused humiliation and shame that was paired with her blushing. The result was that she hated her blushing and tried to avoid it at all costs. This sequenced into her repressing her curiosity and spontaneity (NC) and her objective understanding that asking questions was sometimes necessary (A); she was that much afraid of being the center of attention. She gave up the career in medicine she really aspired to. (You can hear Carol's interview at www.socialanxiety.com, "Public Speaking Anxiety and Blushing Resolved: Carol: Ovarian Cancer Survivor.")

It's wonderful to set your goals high, strive for perfection, break records, or make a discovery. If your goals are high, it's crucial to deal with frustration and anger. It's vital to learn from mistakes and reposition your definition of perfection as a requirement for success. The closest you can get to perfection is learning to expect the unexpected. When you can "go with the flow," you are in control—not operating from a rigid script. It's those too-rigid scripts that cause emotion that turns into a temper tantrum of anxiety (more on that later). Trust in being yourself. The more you learn this, the more you will be in control. The pursuit of perfection is a never-ending learning process. Fear of not being perfect kills creativity, which is crucial to high performance. Productive performers learn from mistakes. Any other thinking, especially that one should never make mistakes (and believe me, I have worked with many people who have this belief), is dysfunctional thinking. Who's perfect? Nobody.

Perhaps nowhere is failure more visible than in sports competitions, where there is a clear winner and a clear loser. John Madden, the NFL's most popular, now retired commentator, is legendary for his Yogi-isms: "If Dallas has more points at the end of this game, they are going to win." How do athletes cope with failure? Take a lesson in letting go from the Tampa Bay Rays baseball team—well known for being the underdog winners of the 2008 American League Eastern Division Championship and winners of the American League Pennant, beating both the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox. After a loss, the team would gather in the locker room for a 30-minute debriefing in which they looked closely at what (and who) went wrong. And then, after 30 minutes—they just let it go. On to the next game! This is an example of engaging the positive Critical Parent mind state.

Amy has a perfectionist streak that is both good and bad. She says:

I see perfectionism in two ways: First, it is the reason I am successful at what I do. But it has also kept me from moving out of my comfort zone or even shooting for something I really wanted, but had no idea whether I could be good at. Writing sitcoms, for example. Or working for a big-time advertising agency. I am feeling anxiety symptoms right now just admitting to those long-ago dreams. I sometimes say that "I am so ambitious I can't even leave the house." What I mean is that I want to do big things and to do them so perfectly that I am afraid to even begin, to even step out into the world and try something. Listening to my internal critical script has, to a great extent, robbed me of the ability to dream big. It always seemed like the cost of failure would be devastating.

Amy is not alone in this. Many people with workplace anxiety don't set their goals high enough because of the critical script that says "You are not capable," "Why bother, you won't succeed anyway," "You are not worthy enough," "Be very careful about what people think of you," "Bad things will happen if you make a mistake," "Avoid what makes you uncomfortable," "Taking risks will screw you up," or "You will regret trying." These messages kill the learning process as well as one's self-esteem. They breed frustration, resentment, and anger. Andrea began working as a temp for a luxury real estate agency and quickly demonstrated her ability to manage the marketing tasks at this exclusive firm. The owner offered her a permanent position; one year later, he let her know he was giving her a promotion to team leader. She took the news quietly, then went in to work the next morning and quit. "I couldn't handle being in charge of other people," she explained. "I was awake all night saying that I didn't deserve the new job, that the other people in the department knew I was a fraud, that I had no right to try to tell other people what to do. It was too much. I didn't want the promotion. Looking back, I can see that I really did want it. I just could not handle that internal critical script. It didn't seem like it would ever go away, so I had to!"

Answer the following questions, the purpose of which is to help you identify your Critical Parent mind state.

Identify a message that you learned from your parents (either directly or indirectly) regarding values that you disagree with, or that causes confusion or conflict.

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Now give an example of a message that you learned from your parents along the line of values that you agree with.

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Identify a situation during childhood when you felt criticized inappropriately or for no good reason.

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Identify a situation during childhood when you experienced constructive criticism.

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Identify a recent situation where you felt criticized inappropriately.

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Identify a recent situation where you felt criticized constructively.

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The middle mind state on the graph is the Adult (A). The A is your internal computer. This is the energy of logic and objectivity—no emotion, no influence or contamination from emotion, just the facts at hand. The Adult is not the same as intelligence—it specifically refers to facts, not interpretations or opinions. (If you stopped to consider whether your intelligence was an issue here, take my word for it that you are intelligent. How do I know? If you are reading this book and are concerned with performance anxiety and building confidence at work, it's a good bet that you are an intelligent person.) What would your Nurturing Parent tell you? It takes a great deal of intelligence to recognize a problem and tackle it head on as you are doing—intelligence and courage!

When the internal critical script is too strong, our Adult gets drowned out. "'Don't take things personally' is good advice," Amy says. "But when people tell me not to take things personally, I sometimes take that personally!" It's easy to get confused between the basic facts and the way you interpret what happened. It's the difference between "I failed" and "I'm a failure." One of my patients was president of the PTA. She seemed hard-wired for stress and anxiety. Once, when speaking in front of her PTA group, a person at the back of the room said, "I can't hear you." At that point, she had a panic attack. When she was in my office for a therapy session I said to her, "Put yourself in your Adult mind state—all objectivity and logic, no emotion. What did he mean when he said he couldn't hear you?" "He couldn't hear me," she replied. It was as simple as that; however, what he had said was enough to activate her excessive internal negative critical script, which resulted in her defensive positioning and adrenaline spike. The perceived threat—via criticism that objectively did not exist—sent her mind to a dark and negative place. It took only seconds. And it was years before she got a handle on it.

Once, while driving to a radio station to do a show, I was abruptly cut off by someone experiencing road rage. This person almost caused an accident. Emotionally, I wanted revenge—an impulse that came from my Natural Child mind state. My Adult, however, said to me, "This guy is so crazy, if I look at him, he may get out of the car with a crowbar." Operating with logic and objectivity, I avoided eye contact and looked the other way.

Logic will tell you that you need a learning process to control anxiety and develop confidence at work. Learning does take time; it can't be accomplished all at once or by magic. Logic will also tell you that you need to get out of your comfort zone with F.A.T.E.—Functioning+Actions+Thoughts+Emotions. The next section will tell you how to do this.

This book does not promise that you will never be nervous again. But it does promise that you will be able to process those feelings of anxiety in such a way that you gain power and improve your performance at work. Expecting to be comfortable in the first phases of learning anxiety management and getting out of your comfort zone is not logical. Far too often, in therapy and in life, it is the desire to avoid discomfort that keeps people from doing the hard work it takes to heal. Real healing means you have to get uncomfortable.

As you experience initial discomfort, employ a nurturing interpretation. Discomfort means "I'm in the process of learning new skills," "I'm in motion," "My health is improving," "I'm learning," or "My self-esteem is in the process of improving."

In choosing to read this book and work through this program, you have obviously realized that learning to control your nervousness at work is an essential part of your self-growth and personal development. As you do so, you will be less susceptible to exaggerated emotion and excessive adrenaline. You'll be more productive with problem solving. The Adult mediates and negotiates between the Critical Parent and the Adapted Child (which is the state of learned emotion, to be considered next).

Now answer the following questions, whose purpose is to help you identify your Adult mind state.

Identify a situation recently where you felt angry toward someone, but you controlled yourself and responded appropriately for the betterment or negotiation of the situation.

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Identify a situation where you used logic for objective analysis in problem solving.

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Identify an example of where you need to utilize more logic and objectivity and less emotion.

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This is a good time to pause for a moment again. Picture a medical diagram depicting how air enters and leaves your body. Take in a long slow deep breath through your nose and slowly exhale 4 ... 3 ... 2 ... 1 .... Inhale and exhale, pacing yourself to 8 to 12 seconds. What's the temperature of your hands now? What are your thoughts at this very moment? Pair your thoughts with the awareness of your hand temperature.

Your hands may be cool. That is normal. Often my hands are cold when I am in the process of problem solving and analytical thinking. I've seen that during the process of the actual problem solving my hands are cold due to vasoconstriction, and when I find a resolution to the problem my hands often become warm. This is an example of awareness of subtle internal cues. Think about this possibility for yourself.

Continuing with your Adult, logic and objectivity tell you that there is a difference between performance and identity or personhood. Often the intensity of the Critical Parent (the twin tower on the left) and concurrent nurturing deficit result in confusion about the difference between what you do or have done and who you are. The anxiety sufferer all too often gets stuck with negative feelings and goes too deep into an interpretation of what the discomfort means. In other words, when you do not perform as well as you would like, this does not mean you are not okay as a person. You can fail without being a failure.

You want to develop and sustain the analytical and logical skills of the Adult to enhance your problem solving and skills acquisition. The challenge is to keep moving, whether you think of it as piloting or quarterbacking. Keep going. This is nurturing! You do not want to get stuck recycling or obsessing on negative thoughts and emotions.

I use my Adult as a way of not staying stuck. In 2004, for example, I was booked on the Anderson Cooper show on CNN. I remember the date because the Red Sox were playing the Yankees in the playoffs in New York, and I am a Red Sox fan. The focus of my three-minute presentation was public speaking anxiety. Anderson Cooper was in Colorado and I was in a studio in Manhattan. The assistant producer took me to a small, isolated room where my picture was sent via satellite to Cooper and his to me. I delivered my message well verbally (with the exception that I was cut off before I could get my Web site address on. There went any marketing productivity).

When I returned to the green room where my wife and stepson were waiting, both had disturbed looks on their faces. The camera the producer had directed me to look into was the wrong one; alas, to the television audience, it had appeared as though I were looking at the floor. It was not a good image for a role model for public speaking on international television! I was obviously upset for a number of reasons. I looked ridiculous and the marketing potential of that appearance was very limited.

By the end of the evening, I was beginning to let it go, getting distracted with the Red Sox game and a glass of wine. After lamenting, I analyzed the situation with my Adult mind state. It was out of my control! I did not have the power to replay the evening. I learned then and there that beating myself up was not productive. What sense would it make to beat myself up? That would be excessive critical script. The bottom line was that my performance was horrible. But my self-esteem was intact. I was ready for the next media opportunity. After all, when a member of the Red Sox or Yankees strikes out, he doesn't go back to the dugout and cry.

Now, being a Red Sox and baseball fan, I must say that anything is possible. In 2004, the Red Sox beat the Yankees and finally won a World Series, ridding themselves of the "curse of the Babe" (Ruth). If they could do that, then who knows what else can be achieved! Certainly you can learn to control anxiety and develop the confidence to succeed at work.

Often there are two levels of fear with performance anxiety. Level one goes something like "people can see I'm nervous." Maybe that's true. I have, however, worked with countless people who thought that they were being perceived as nervous when objectively speaking they were not. This is called projection: Like a film projector shining an image from the film inside it onto a screen, you are taking the self-perception inside you and projecting it onto others. You are saying that other people see or hear or believe something that in fact you yourself see or hear or believe. The second and deeper level of fear often goes something like, "They can see who I really am" or "They can see I'm a fraud." That feeling of fraud is common among workplace anxiety sufferers. No matter how accomplished you are, when your critical script is exaggerated, it takes very little to make you believe people don't take you seriously. Logic is needed here instead of exaggerated emotion, which brings us to the Adapted Child mind state.

In his role as supervisor of 20 people in a hedge fund, James is supposed to lead group training each month. But he always enlists an associate to conduct the trainings for him, claiming he has schedule conflicts and even deliberately scheduling other meetings so that he can avoid his responsibility. His staff sees what's going on, and his boss has spoken to him more than once about the issue. But he continues to manipulate and avoid—a classic example of a too-strong Adapted Child mind state. This issue developed into a full-on phobia of public speaking. By the time James came to me for help, he had been on antidepressants for six years—yet he still had problems. The attempt to chemically "dial down" his AC was failing because the treatment failed to balance the mind states by bringing up NP, A, and NC.

The Adapted Child is learned emotion. It conforms, cooperates, compromises, and manipulates in an effort to please. It is in this state that your negotiating skills are located, as well as many learned successful, healthy, and productive behaviors. It is also in this state that your anxiety and avoidant or phobic behavior are located. As you can see on the Mind States Graph, the twin tower on the right is the Adapted Child, and it complements the excessive nature of the critical script.

The excessive and underlying emotions of embarrassment, humiliation, shame, fear of rejection, and unresolved anger reside in this state. Unpleasant memories, characterized by the previous emotions as well as feelings of loss of control and insecurity also reside in this state. Overdependence on medication or other substances is part of this state.

Right now, do a historical link exercise. Go back in time as far as you can in your own life and identify a situation where you felt embarrassed or rejected. How old were you? Where were you? With whom? This memory is located within your Adapted Child. The Adapted Child makes an important contribution to your success; you can't do without it. It is only when the AC tower gets so tall that it overshadows the other mind states that problems result.

Like all mind states, the Adapted Child is very important, but as one of the twin towers, it must be decreased, along with its counterpart, the Critical Parent.

On the far right of the Mind State Graph is the Natural Child. This is the state of pure emotion. Think of it as containing the truth of desire. It's what you really want—not what you were taught you should want. The Natural Child is the energy of pleasure, joy, and fun. It is the energy of exploration, creativity, the development of ideas, discovery, and spontaneity. It is the expression of your most basic instincts, including sexuality. The Natural Child mind state is pure, but it is not solely the source of good emotions or behavior. It is also the source of aggression, of sexuality, and of all our most primal urges. It has no limits. Therefore, it needs the Critical Parent, Nurturing Parent, Adult, and Adapted Child to balance it out. Remember, the CP and AC are only overwhelmingly negative when they appear as the unbalanced twin towers. In proper balance, the Critical Parent and Adapted Child mind states are positive forces in our personality, without which we simply could not succeed.

I saw an example of the Natural Child mind state as I sat on the beach one beautiful summer day. There were two families about 10 yards from each other. Each family had a child who was about three years old. They did not know each other. Yet naturally and spontaneously the children made eye contact and gravitated toward each other to play in the sand. They were not influenced by an internal critical script—there was no "What if she doesn't like me?" No "I'm not good enough." No "I don't know how." These two children engaged with each other spontaneously, creatively, and joyfully.

The Natural Child mind state is not all about play. It is also about openness—the willingness to explore, the willingness to not know something. For example, when I was in graduate school and requested the correctional institution internship, I was operating from my NC mind state. The same was true when I chose to invest in and explore public relations by seeking radio and television appearances. Combined with the other mind states, the Natural Child is a wonderful and fulfilling quality to tap into.

Answer the following to help you further identify your Natural Child mind state. Give an example of something you did for fun as a child and that you still do—or something similar—now:

Emotions such as sadness, anger, happiness, and joy are the realm of the Natural Child. As adults, we are far more adept than actual children at suppressing those emotions by using our other mind states.

For a moment, picture a child you care about having a temper tantrum—whining, crying, hitting or kicking, maybe lying on the floor. What would you do? Ignore the behavior? Give a spanking? Try reasoning with the child? A nurturing parent would try to comfort the child. Now, think about a time when you have had an anxiety response at work. Take a deep breath in, then exhale 4 ... 3 ... 2 ... 1 ... Attach to that moment. Access that memory. Now, associate that memory with your AC emotions and the related unpleasant physical sensations. I am positioning your anxiety as an internal temper tantrum because it is an exaggerated emotion coming from your AC mind state. Can you buy this interpretation? Think about it. Exaggerated emotion is the basis of your anxiety, perhaps along with autonomic sensitivity. The logic of your Adult will tell you that it's not some unknown organic entity that's causing your exaggerated emotion. (If you think your anxiety response may actually be a physical health issue, go to a physician to get appropriate tests to rule it out.) The exaggerated emotions include anger, frustration, embarrassment, humiliation, shame, and fear of rejection. Therefore self-nurturing is the primary dynamic of healing. What exactly is nurturing? My definition is "to provide support and promote growth."

Look at the twin towers on the Unbalanced Mind States graph (Figure 3.1) carefully now. The left twin tower, your exaggerated Critical Parent, causes your problem. Remember, the energy inherent in all states is important. We are addressing the balance or synergy here. Messages in this state, such as "Don't trust yourself," "Bad things happened before. They could happen again," "You will be nervous," "You'd better be perfect," "You will embarrass yourself," "You are not good enough," and so on, create the excess emotions of fear, worry, and insecurity located in the Adapted Child—which is learned emotion. The twin towers very often become a reflex. Think of the CP-AC as a nervous tic of the mind. Obviously they have to be decreased—not gotten rid of, just decreased, because they are extremely important to your health, happiness, well-being, and ability to perform productively.

Look at the Balanced Mind States graph (Figure 3.2) again carefully, and you will see your objective: a balanced mind state that makes room for the best that each of the mind states has to offer. With balance comes flexibility, and with flexibility come choices. In Chapter 4, we will explore in depth the way to achieve this balance.

Given the definition of Nurturing Parent as providing support and promoting growth and understanding—a multidimensional concept—list three ways that you need to self-nurture:

Given the definition of the Adult as logic and objectivity, list three ways you need to utilize logic instead of emotion:

Given the definition of Natural Child as exploration, creativity, happiness, and the truth of desire, list three ways you need to invest in this state:

Scientific research has demonstrated the power of imagery or "behavior rehearsal" on personal effectiveness. For example, one study showed that a group of basketball players who "practiced" taking foul shots during the week by picturing doing so in their minds, without ever getting on the court, did just about as well as those athletes who actually practiced. Behavior rehearsal is powerful stuff.

Picture your lungs—two expandable vessels that take oxygen in and let carbon dioxide out. Picture the oxygen enriching your blood, which then travels through your body and brain. Really do it! Get a visual. Now, take in a long slow deep breath. Really feel the oxygen as your lungs take it in. Feel the moment. Then, slowly exhale 4 ... 3 ... 2 ... 1.... Be aware of your chest and lungs as you inhale and exhale in a conscious yet natural manner. In a moment, I will ask you to begin the following exercise but read these instructions first: Close your eyes for about 60 seconds while visualizing an anxiety challenge scenario. The goal is to picture yourself accepting the adrenaline. To maximize the power of the image, use your five senses. See the scene. Hear it. Smell it. Taste it if possible. Really feel it! When discomfort occurs during the exercise, focus on your breathing, then return to the image.

Okay, now for the next 60 seconds do the exercise. Then open your eyes.

Were you able to attach to the adrenaline? Describe the experience to yourself in as much sensory detail as possible. Put it into words—write it in your notes if you like.

If you were not able to attach, your excessive critical script is at work, saying "Don't do it." This is a big clue that you need to overpower your critical script with your nurturing self. What sensations did you experience? Could you feel any stirrings of adrenaline? What is the temperature of your hands now? What are your thoughts?

Next, in Chapter 4 we will discuss in detail how to activate and balance your mind states for high performance. But before we begin, stop and pat yourself on the back for having completed the challenging exercises in this chapter. How about giving yourself a few encouraging words courtesy of your Nurturing Parent?