At the weekend I took my nine year old “Petrol Head” son to the Classic Car Restoration Show at the NEC. We went last year and we both enjoyed it so much that we decided to train there again this year. Some how I had forgotten to buy the train tickets beforehand. I normally do this as I get very anxious when I use the ticket machine. For some reason it never wants to work for me, in fact I have even asked someone else in the queue to work it for me. Those who read my blog regularly know I have used my worry beads to get through the stress of travelling on the train with much success.
I felt quite calm at the thought of buying my tickets before travelling even though it was going to be my first time. My son was really excited as we got in the car. He kept asking how many minutes we had before the train would leave and strangely this was not adversely affecting me, either. A brief stop at road works was also dealt with whilst remaining calm, another surprise! We arrived at the station with 10 minutes to go and he rushed off to the ticket machine to get our place in the queue. There was no one there so we got to the machine first ahead of the others who were parking their cars. I was clam, but I had in my thoughts how I feel when I used my worry beads. I successfully used the screen to book my ticket but how did I book the second one I needed for my son? This is when I would normally get into trouble, but no, I moved forwards and backwards through the screens until I found the “not very well positioned” buy a second ticket button. I now had two tickets logged ready to buy, but what do I do next? No instructions on the screen so I put my card into the slot. It asked for my pin details and I bought my two tickets. I was curiously calm. The whole process had only taken two minutes and we headed off to the platforms. So which platform did we need? I read the signs, discovered the required information, and calmly directed my son to where we needed to go.
We still had 8 minutes to go and I sat and took time to reflect. Why had getting my tickets been so easy? Even when I booked tickets in advance the machine would not do as it was told. The simple answer was I had used my worry beads for a couple of train journeys recently and now I was calm when travelling by train. By being calm my brain could actually work and what was an impossible set of problems were easily solved. I smiled to myself as I tried to put a label on what had happened. I came up with, “Long term exposure to worry beads actually makes you calm without actually using them”. There was no other explanation. For over 20 years I had been suffering from horrendous anxiety whilst using the train but now I had broken the cycle it was so much easier and far more comfortable.
If you would like to comment on what I believe happened, please do so. If you use worry beads to manage stress please email me so that I might share your experience.
Kevin
The English Worry Bead Co
www.englishworrybeads.uk