Don't Make a Drama Out of a Crisis.

Why worry solves nothing, and how slowing your breathing changes everything.

There was an insurance advert I discovered from the 1980s - Commercial Union - with a slogan that stuck in people’s heads for decades: “We won’t make a drama out of a crisis.”

Simple as hell. But absolutely spot on. Social media is full of it.

The crisis is what it is. The drama is what we add to it. And that seems to be the norm nowadays - not anyone’s fault particularly, but we’ve let it happen. Insecurities get amplified more than they used to. Social media doesn’t help. The 24-hour news cycle definitely doesn’t help.

But here’s the thing - most of what we call a “crisis” isn’t actually a crisis at all. It’s just something that happened. Something inconvenient. Something we don’t like.

The boiler packed in? That’s not a crisis. That’s just another day.

Someone disagreed with you online? Not a crisis. Just someone with a different opinion.

Didn’t get the job you wanted? Disappointing, sure. Crisis? No.

But we take these perfectly manageable situations and turn them into full-blown catastrophes in our heads. We add all the drama ourselves. Then we sit there wondering why we’re stressed out of our minds.

It’s a growing sign of learned helplessness, really. We’ve taught ourselves that we don’t know how to handle things. That everything’s a disaster. That we’re always one step away from complete collapse.

We’re not. We’ve just convinced ourselves we are. We’re living in conditioned realities - experiencing what we’ve been taught to experience, not what actually exists.

Conditioned realities aren’t real. They’re self-manufactured constructs.

Where Learned Helplessness Comes From.

But here’s the thing about learned helplessness - it has to be taught. It’s not a natural phenomenon. You’re not born helpless. You’re conditioned into it.

So where does it come from?

Education systems that punish wrong answers instead of rewarding problem-solving. That teach you to stay quiet, follow instructions, don’t question authority.

Workplaces that demand compliance over initiative. That tell you to stay in your lane. That anything important is above your pay grade. That you wouldn’t understand the bigger picture.

Media that bombards you with problems you have zero control over. Twenty-four hours of crisis after crisis, making you feel small and powerless while pretending you’re informed.

Social media that gives you the illusion of a voice while making you feel like nothing you do matters. Like you’re shouting into a void.

It’s systematic. It’s been happening since childhood. “Don’t question this.” “Just accept it.” “Leave it to the experts.” “You’re not qualified to have an opinion on that.”

And here’s the why - because helpless people are manageable people. They don’t ask awkward questions. They don’t challenge systems. They accept what they’re told. They’re easier to govern, easier to employ, easier to control.

You’re taught helplessness because it serves institutional interests to keep you that way. These conditioned realities keep you manageable.

But it’s learned. Which means it’s reversible.

Taking On Other People’s Problems.

When you take on someone else’s problem as if it’s yours, you’re not helping them. You’re just creating two people who now feel helpless instead of one.

Rogers talked about empathy with boundaries - understanding someone’s experience without drowning in it yourself.

But modern culture encourages the opposite. Hive mentality. Everyone piling into every crisis. Making it bigger. More dramatic. Collective catastrophising.

It appears supportive - all that solidarity, all that shared outrage. But is it helping? Or just enlarging the problem?

Now you’re carrying everyone else’s catastrophes on top of your own. Your nervous system treating their problems like yours.

No wonder everyone’s exhausted.

Why Worry Never Solved Anything.

There’s this bloke called Eckhart Tolle - you might have heard of him, you might not. He talks a lot about living in the present moment, which is something I’ve learned from myself over the years. Buddhist philosophy, that kind of thing. It’s shaped how I think and definitely improved my overall wellbeing.

I’ve known about his work for some time now, and to a large extent, I accept what he’s saying has relevance. Particularly this one point: No great solution was ever found by worrying about something.

Same goes for Carl Rogers and his person-centred approach to counselling, which I also studied. Rogers talked about unconditional positive regard - accepting what is without judgment, without adding your own interpretations and catastrophes on top. Observing reality as it actually exists, not as your worried mind tells you it exists.

Both of them, coming from different angles, land on the same basic truth: most of our suffering comes from what we add to the situation, not the situation itself.

Think about that for a second.

When was the last time you actually solved a problem while you were properly worrying about it? Not just distracting yourself from it, but genuinely solving it?

You haven’t. Because it doesn’t work that way.

Worry lives in your head. In the future. In all the what-ifs and maybes that haven’t happened yet and probably never will.

Problem-solving lives right here, right now, in the present moment where you actually have the ability to do something about it.

And here’s the bit that matters - they don’t exist at the same time. Physiologically incompatible.

What Happens When You Worry.

When you’re worrying, your nervous system’s in fight-or-flight. Heart racing. Chest tight. Brain scanning for threats.

Your sympathetic nervous system thinks you’re being chased. So it shuts down the thinking parts of your brain and fires up the panic parts.

You know that feeling lying awake at 3 AM spinning disaster scenarios about things that haven’t happened? That’s your nervous system treating your unpaid gas bill like it’s a sabre-toothed tiger.

Hard to think clearly when your brain’s convinced you’re about to be eaten.

The Physical Cost.

That worry state takes a physical toll. Ulcers. Digestive issues. Heart problems. High blood pressure. Weakened immune system. Tension headaches. Muscle pain.

All from adding drama to situations that don’t warrant it.

But when you stop catastrophising, the physical symptoms ease. Your mental state directly impacts your physical health. Drop the drama, your body stops treating everyday life like a war zone.

How Language Shapes Your Wellbeing.

The words you use about yourself shape what you believe about yourself. They create your conditioned reality.

Say “I’m useless at this” enough times, you’ll believe it. Say “I don’t know how to handle this yet,” you leave the door open.

Say “I always mess things up,” you’re creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. Say “That didn’t work, what else could I try,” you stay in problem-solving mode.

Take the word “can’t.” It’s a prison. “I can’t do this” closes every door. “I haven’t figured out how to do this yet” keeps you in the game.

The Simple Fix Nobody Talks About.

When you slow your breathing down, properly slow it, you trigger your parasympathetic nervous system. The one that says “we’re safe now, we can think clearly.”

Slow breathing sends a signal to your brain: we’re not being chased. And when that happens, the same problem you were catastrophising about five minutes ago? Suddenly looks different.

This is what Rogers meant by congruence - when you’re in worry-mode, you’re experiencing a disaster that doesn’t exist. You’re trapped in a conditioned reality. When you’re present, you experience what’s actually there. Just the problem. Not the drama.

Same Crisis, Different Brain.

The problem hasn’t changed. The boiler’s still broken. The job application still got rejected.

But how you see it? Completely different.

The worried brain catastrophises. Spirals into worst-case scenarios. Makes a drama out of it.

The present-moment brain sees patterns. Sees options. Sees what actually needs doing next.

Same problem. Different neurological state.

The Three Questions.

I’ve got three questions I run everything through:

• Is it practical?

• Is it logical?

• What’s the likely outcome?

These only work when you’re present. When your breathing’s sorted. When your brain’s not in panic-mode.

The worried brain won’t answer them - it’s too busy imagining disasters. The present-moment brain will. That’s the one that shows up when you stop making a drama out of the crisis.

What This Actually Looks Like.

Most people try to solve problems while their brain’s in threat-detection mode. Like doing surgery while running from a psychopath.

You slow the breathing down. The problem’s still there. But now your brain has the capacity to think about it instead of panicking about it.

That’s when solutions show up. The crisis is still the crisis. But without the catastrophising, it’s just a thing that needs dealing with. Not the end of the world.

Back to That Advert.

Commercial Union had it right back in the 1980s. “We won’t make a drama out of a crisis.”

The crisis is what it is. The drama is what we add.

And if you train yourself to drop the drama - through breathing, through staying present, through observing what actually is rather than what you’re afraid it might become - you might actually solve the bloody thing.

Instead of lying awake catastrophising about things that haven’t happened and probably never will.

Which won’t destroy your life. Because it’s not a crisis. It’s just another day.