Book Review DARE by Barry McDonagh

One of my sons suffers from anxiety. I took him to a wonderful psychologist who gave him a “toolbox” to pull different tools from to help when he gets in a difficult situation. One of the tools was to name the feeling. This made the feeling a real thing. By naming something, you have power over it. That is why in exorcisms, the priest asks the demon for a name. But back to the toolbox...I thought about this idea when reading Barry McDonagh’s book Dare: the new way to end anxiety and stop panic attacks fast. His toolbox has the acronym DARE-- Diffuse, Allow, Run toward it, and Engage.

 DEFUSE: Respond to your anxiety by saying “so what?” “who cares?” or whatever phrase you prefer for acknowledging you're not in any real danger.
ALLOW: Accept the anxiety and allow it to manifest in whatever way it wishes. Become the observer of your anxiety – notice it with curiosity, welcome it, and allow it to stay.
RUN TOWARDS: Run towards your anxiety by telling yourself you are in fact excited by your anxious thoughts and feelings.
ENGAGE: Your anxious mind might still be clinging onto whatever it can to keep you in an anxious, panicky state, even after completing the previous steps. To avoid this, you need to engage with something else that takes up your full attention.

I think this is a great way to deal with anxiety because you are living with it. There is no great goal to “cure” yourself. It is all about becoming comfortable with the feeling of anxiety. So you name it and it becomes another part of your life, but not a part of you. And you are not trying to suppress it. He gives a great analogy of how suppressing anxiety is like pushing a beach ball under the water. When you let it go it shoots up out of control, even higher than where it was when it was resting on the water. I think this would be a teachable program for your child. He has lots of questions that you can ask your child to help them become comfortable with the steps. If you want a quick breakdown of it and enjoy podcasts, I recommend The Formula #41 - DARE-ing to Face Your Anxiety with Barry McDonagh. It does have some language in it, but it gives a great summary if you don’t have a lot of time. If you are going to do the program I suggest the book because it has all the questions to ask. 

Have you tried the DARE program?