I see a lot of counseling clients who suffer from anxiety. And one common denominator is that they ask themselves a lot of ‘What if’ questions.

‘What if’ questions are usually classified into three categories:  work-related, relationship-related and health-related.

Here are some examples of work-related questions: ‘What if I do a lousy job on that project my boss gave me?’ or ‘What if I say something stupid at the meeting tomorrow?’ Relationship-related: ‘What if he doesn’t call me today?’ or ‘What if she hates my friends?’ And health-related: ‘What if I got an STD from sleeping with her?’ or ‘What if this pain in my chest means I’m going to have a heart attack?’

Whether the focus of your anxiety is work, relationships or health, ‘What if” questions are almost always harmful. First, they are often irrational, meaning there’s no evidence or data to support it. In the case of a healthy and active 25-year-old male with no personal history or family history of heart-related problems, associating an occasional and minor chest pain with a heart attack makes no sense.

Second, not only are the majority of ‘What if’ questions negative, they are often catastrophically negative. They assume the worst-case scenario. This is known as ‘catastrophic thinking’.  When we think this way, it’s like taking whatever existing anxiety we have and multiplying it exponentially.

Third, ‘What if’ questions tend to take us out of the present and into the future.  We have control over the here-and-now, and only minimal, if any, control over the future. Yet, with these questions we place ourselves squarely in a place that’s inherently uncertain. It’s a pointless exercise.

So, what can you do?

First, challenge the irrational belief that underlies the ‘What if?’ question. Example:  “Have I ever actually said anything stupid at work meetings? No, in fact, I usually have pretty valuable things to add.” or “My friends are good people. There’s no reason to think my girlfriend would hate them.” Use logic and reason to deflate the power of your irrational thoughts.

Second, catch yourself as soon as you start to ask yourself one ‘What if’ question. Imagine the biggest, reddest STOP sign imaginable. This is important because ‘What if’ questions tend to snowball, getting bigger in scope and only leading to heightened anxiety.

Third, if the ‘What if’ questions persist, such as with the earlier examples of chest pain or an STD scare, take action and make an appointment with your doctor. Let him or her run some tests on you and provide conclusive data. Being proactive is one of the best weapons against anxiety.

To schedule an appointment with one our counselors, call our Washington, D.C., counseling office at 202.588.1288.

I go twice a week to a clinic called SmartTherapy in Chevy Chase, Md. The other five days a week I do my exercises at home. My physical therapist, Brian, is an interesting combination of ally and taskmaster. You like him and hate him at the same time, but realize he’s good for you as he pushes you to go beyond what you think are your limits. (Not unlike psychotherapy, at times.)

The exercises are sometimes tedious and the progress often follows a test-of-your-patience spike-plateau-spike flow. But I actually look forward to going to the clinic and I’m religious about doing the exercises at home, mostly because each day of therapy gets me back to resuming an active life again.

On my third day at the clinic, another patient, an athletic-looking woman in her 50s, made a comment that gave me pause. This woman also tore a ligament in her knee and she was a few months into her rehabilitation. We were commiserating about our injuries and surgeries when she said, “I don’t want to waste this opportunity.”

‘Waste this opportunity!? What opportunity?’ I thought. I just want to get through this so I can get back to going to the gym and playing tennis. She quickly moved on to another exercise machine and the small window of opportunity I had to ask her to elaborate vanished.

Since then I’ve given some thought to what she said. It’s interesting that she used the word ‘opportunity’ since it means that a favorable circumstance exists and that there’s a chance to grow and change. She was able to see the positive in this situation. What a great re-frame.

There’s one obvious positive outcome from physical therapy — that it’s possible, through a lot of hard work, to make the surgically repaired part of your body stronger than it was before. Professional athletes will sometimes say this about their surgically-repaired shoulder or knee.

But it also made me think of the difference between the process and the result of an activity, something I sometimes highlight in my counseling sessions.

Whereas I was just thinking about using physical therapy as a means to an end, perhaps she saw a different value in the clinic. For her, maybe SmartTherapy was not just a place to strengthen her knee and come back stronger than before but also a place to learn something about herself as a person — that she could be disciplined and committed to something and push herself beyond her limits.

I haven’t seen her since that day so I’m not sure precisely what she meant. But it almost doesn’t matter. The takeaway is that there’s opportunity in almost everything; you just have to be able to see it.

While I’m not looking forward to the next six to nine months of physical therapy, I’ll be ecstatic to be off crutches and off the couch. (I probably won’t be swinging a tennis racket until next spring, but I’ve accepted that.)

This has possibly been the longest six weeks of my life. Everything has been an effort — from getting in and out of the car to showering to dressing myself.

I now have a newfound appreciation for so many little things in life. To name just a few:  walking, standing on two feet without pain, being able to go up and down the stairs.

Two other things struck me:  how much I hate being inactive and how much I dislike having to ask others for help.

I consider myself a pretty active person. In the warm weather months, I generally play tennis twice a week (sometimes three), and I go to the gym about as often when it’s c0ld out. I stay pretty busy in other ways too — seeing friends, going on trips with my wife, contributing to this blog and the more mundane stuff like picking up dry cleaning or going to the grocery store. Bottom line, I don’t think I’m lazy.

But I have definitely felt lazy since my injury. I go to work and come home, plop down on the sofa and do my physical therapy exercises in front of the TV. I’ve probably watched more television in the last six weeks than I have in the past six months. I think my brain is getting mushy.

Along the way, I’ve definitely been aware of the mind-body connection. The less I’ve been able to do — and the harder it’s been to get around — the lower my mood has been and the more impatient I’ve been with family and friends.

Part of the reason I exercise regularly is that it acts as such a good mood regulator. I can absolutely see how easy it is for physically handicapped people to struggle with depression.

Asking for help has been a constant the past six weeks, whether it’s been strangers opening a door for me or, most often, my wife, Reagan, for just about everything else. I like to think of myself as a fairly independent person. The last six weeks I was forced to be routinely dependent, something I had to accept but that I don’t want to make habit.

My wife has been a saint through this process, but she’s had her moments when she’s been overwhelmed by all that she’s had to do for me. I can now see the emotional toll a caretaker can experience.

On Thursday I’ll have surgery. I can’t wait.

I see it as an opportunity to move forward with my life. Hopefully, I won’t forget the things I learned about myself and appreciate those things I’ve been taking for granted.

While I’m not looking forward to the next six to nine months of physical therapy, I’ll be ecstatic to be off crutches and off the couch. (I probably won’t be swinging a tennis racket until next spring, but I’ve accepted that.)

This has possibly been the longest six weeks of my life. Everything has been an effort — from getting in and out of the car to showering to dressing myself.

I now have a newfound appreciation for so many little things in life. To name just a few:  walking, standing on two feet without pain, being able to go up and down the stairs.

Two other things struck me:  how much I hate being inactive and how much I dislike having to ask others for help.

I consider myself a pretty active person. In the warm weather months, I generally play tennis twice a week (sometimes three), and I go to the gym about as often when it’s c0ld out. I stay pretty busy in other ways too — seeing friends, going on trips with my wife, contributing to this blog and the more mundane stuff like picking up dry cleaning or going to the grocery store. Bottom line, I don’t think I’m lazy.

But I have definitely felt lazy since my injury. I go to work and come home, plop down on the sofa and do my physical therapy exercises in front of the TV. I’ve probably watched more television in the last six weeks than I have in the past six months. I think my brain is getting mushy.

Along the way, I’ve definitely been aware of the mind-body connection. The less I’ve been able to do — and the harder it’s been to get around — the lower my mood has been and the more impatient I’ve been with family and friends.

Part of the reason I exercise regularly is that it acts as such a good mood regulator. I can absolutely see how easy it is for physically handicapped people to struggle with depression.

Asking for help has been a constant the past six weeks, whether it’s been strangers opening a door for me or, most often, my wife, Reagan, for just about everything else. I like to think of myself as a fairly independent person. The last six weeks I was forced to be routinely dependent, something I had to accept but that I don’t want to make habit.

My wife has been a saint through this process, but she’s had her moments when she’s been overwhelmed by all that she’s had to do for me. I can now see the emotional toll a caretaker can experience.

On Thursday I’ll have surgery. I can’t wait.

I see it as an opportunity to move forward with my life. Hopefully, I won’t forget the things I learned about myself and appreciate those things I’ve been taking for granted.

I felt deep sympathy for Ms. Ramos and was saddened that she had to endure such horrible random acts of violence. But the thing that stayed with me long after I finished the article is Ms. Ramos’ incredible resiliency.

After the rape, she struggled for several years with failed relationships, depression and financial problems, but eventually re-built her life, getting into counseling and finishing college in New York before moving to this area a few years ago.

Ms. Ramos had a plan to go to law school and was thinking about working with women who have been abused. She wanted to help others like her. Life was looking up. She had a purpose, and she seemed eager to pursue it. But then in November she was robbed at gunpoint at a Blockbuster store in McLean, Va., where she was a store manager.

Again, she sank. She rarely left her apartment, got behind on student loans, felt alone and hopeless. She’d now been a victim twice.

The article didn’t mention Ms. Ramos having post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and its common symptoms like nightmares, trouble sleeping and being started easily, but I imagine Ms. Ramos has to live with at least some of that nearly every day. What’s more, those symptoms are now magnified, now that the robbery has triggered painful memories of the rape. (Counseling can be very effective for those with PTSD, so I hope Ms. Ramos is working with a therapist.)

What are the odds of enduring two traumatic events like she has? How unlucky can one person be? And how do you trust others again or feel safe again? As she says, “If it can happen twice, it can happen three times, four times.” Ms. Ramos understands better than anybody that bad things can happen to good people, over and over.

And yet, she is rebuilding her life — again. She recently started a job as an aide at a law firm and plans to file for workers’ compensation from Blockbuster. It seems that she will survive.

What has happened to Ms. Ramos, as the article notes, are “facts of her life, not philosophical treatises.” While Ms. Ramos’s life has certainly been shaped by two traumas, it seems she doesn’t define herself as a victim. Ms. Ramos is a survivor, a resilient and resourceful woman. The hope here is that someday soon she will not just survive but thrive.

I felt deep sympathy for Ms. Ramos and was saddened that she had to endure such horrible random acts of violence. But the thing that stayed with me long after I finished the article is Ms. Ramos’ incredible resiliency.

After the rape, she struggled for several years with failed relationships, depression and financial problems, but eventually re-built her life, getting into counseling and finishing college in New York before moving to this area a few years ago.

Ms. Ramos had a plan to go to law school and was thinking about working with women who have been abused. She wanted to help others like her. Life was looking up. She had a purpose, and she seemed eager to pursue it. But then in November she was robbed at gunpoint at a Blockbuster store in McLean, Va., where she was a store manager.

Again, she sank. She rarely left her apartment, got behind on student loans, felt alone and hopeless. She’d now been a victim twice.

The article didn’t mention Ms. Ramos having post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and its common symptoms like nightmares, trouble sleeping and being started easily, but I imagine Ms. Ramos has to live with at least some of that nearly every day. What’s more, those symptoms are now magnified, now that the robbery has triggered painful memories of the rape. (Counseling can be very effective for those with PTSD, so I hope Ms. Ramos is working with a therapist.)

What are the odds of enduring two traumatic events like she has? How unlucky can one person be? And how do you trust others again or feel safe again? As she says, “If it can happen twice, it can happen three times, four times.” Ms. Ramos understands better than anybody that bad things can happen to good people, over and over.

And yet, she is rebuilding her life — again. She recently started a job as an aide at a law firm and plans to file for workers’ compensation from Blockbuster. It seems that she will survive.

What has happened to Ms. Ramos, as the article notes, are “facts of her life, not philosophical treatises.” While Ms. Ramos’s life has certainly been shaped by two traumas, it seems she doesn’t define herself as a victim. Ms. Ramos is a survivor, a resilient and resourceful woman. The hope here is that someday soon she will not just survive but thrive.

It’s about two behaviors I noticed that night in the theater — both striking enough that I’m thinking about them weeks later — and the possible connection between technology and public behavior.

Reagan and I walked into the theater early enough that the previews hadn’t started. Even though the room wasn’t completely dark yet it was hard not to notice the little white lights down almost every row. The lights came from people’s smartphones and other mobile devices. It seemed that every third person in the theater was engaged in some way with their mobile devices — texting, checking email, reading the news, etc.

Not much of a surprise there. I’ve come to expect that type of behavior among teens and people in their 20s and 30s. (Full disclosure: I occasionally check ESPN or look at my mail when I’m out, but never with my wife.) But the overwhelming majority of the audience that night was in their 50s and 60s. It was surprising to me to see so many people in that age category so enamored with mobile devices, to the point of ignoring their spouses and friends. I guess I expected more.

Eventually we spotted two seats together at the end of a row. I motioned to the first person in the row — a man in his 50s — that we’d like to get by him. He barely acknowledged me. Then, while staying seated, he slightly shifted his legs to the left. The rest of his four-person group followed suit (one of whom was looking at the screen on her phone), barely giving my wife and I room to pass.

Reagan went first and, not surprisingly, stepped on someone’s foot. I followed behind and nearly lost my balance because I, too, stepped on someone’s foot. To keep my balance I accidentally whacked the back of the head of someone in the row in front of us.

I felt terrible and quickly apologized. Weirdly, the man didn’t even turn around. Maybe he’s come to expect occasional bouts of brutality at the movies.

If that foursome in our row had simply stood up, they could’ve avoided that entire fiasco. I had to wonder if there was some connection between their rude behavior and the one person in their group engaged with her phone.

I thought about this some more when the movie ended. The credits had barely started scrolling when people up and down our row had already pulled out their phones, staring at their little screens. My wife and I were ready to leave, but nobody moved. It was a weird feeling of being trapped. Nearly as many people were looking at their phone screens than the big screen.

I’ll be the first to agree that mobile technology has made our lives better in many ways; I love the convenience and speed of my iPhone. But have we grown so addicted to our mobile devices that are we abusing them? Are we becoming worse-mannered because of it? (Worse, do we even care?)

Let me know what you think. I welcome your comments.

Thank God we did. We learned something valuable.

We needed coffee and warmth, so we decided to hit a Starbucks. We went to the one at Chevy Chase Circle, the closest Starbucks that was open. No surprise, it was packed. All the tables and comfy chairs were taken.

We ordered coffee, grateful for the warmth the building provided. We sipped our hot drinks and stood around for a table to open up. I started reading The New York Times. Even though it was standing room only, we were in no rush to go back home, which seemed sort of ghost-like without power.

About fifteen minutes later, a woman near the window got up to leave and Reagan took her seat. Shortly after that, we got lucky and a woman sitting next to us packed up her laptop and I sat down in her chair.

My wife and I settled in. It felt like home, which of course is the feel Starbucks is after. Amidst the low hum of conversations and laptop keyboard clacking, we spent the next two hours drinking our coffee (I went back for a refill) and passing sections of the Times back and forth.

We were quiet for long stretches, engrossed in articles we were reading. (Apologies to The Washington Post, but the Times is far superior.) Then, we’d share something we had just read that we found interesting. Intrigued, I wanted to read her articles and vice versa.

After a while, I leaned back in my chair. Time seemed to have slowed down. Lots of other people in the store were doing exactly what we were doing. It was a Thursday afternoon but it could’ve easily been a Sunday morning.

This simple act of drinking coffee and reading the paper with my wife was near perfect. And even though we weren’t talking much, I felt very close to her. The whole afternoon felt luxurious and yet so simple. We weren’t in a rush to go anywhere, which made it that much easier to savor the moment. I could’ve stayed there all day.

It also made me keenly aware of how rarely Reagan and I do things like that at home. Not that we can’t; we have a coffee maker and a subscription to the Post. Far too often other things seem to get in the way — household chores, running errands, going to the gym. Or, more accurately, we let them get in the way.

At one point, I leaned over to Reagan and said, “We need to do this more often.” She smiled broadly and said, “Yes, definitely.”

I’m not a big believer in New Year’s resolutions, but this one I’m going to stick to.

• NEW:  Listen to therapist Kathy Richardson’s interview on WAMU about managing your child’s anxiety in the wake of the recent shootings in CT:  http://bit.ly/12nJZFi
• EVENING AND SATURDAY APPOINTMENTS ARE AVAILABLE.
• Convenient to two Washington, D.C. Metro stops (Cleveland Park and Woodley Park)
• Click on the 1-minute videos below to listen to two of our counselors:

1. Don’t sweat the small stuff. If, for example, your spouse (in this case, me) doesn’t clean the kitchen as thoroughly as you do, let it go. Remind yourself that you love him or her more than you love a spotless kitchen.

2. Be open to differences. If you like watching ESPN and your wife likes ‘The Bachelor’, as is the case in our house, watch an episode with her. You may wind up liking it. I know I did. (A big part of the fun is laughing at the silliness of the contestants.)

3. Set some basic guidelines around your families. Since our parents live close by, there’s some pressure to get together often with them. My wife and I have a rule that we see one set of parents or the other every other week. That seems reasonable to both of us. And we stick to it.

4. Don’t forget your friends. I think there’s an expectation among newlyweds to spend most, if not all, of your free time with one another. Not true. My wife and I each have a set of good friends we like to see often — either together or separately. Schedule regular nights out with your friends.  That way the time that you do spend with your spouse is that much more special.

5. Divide household tasks. If you or your partner is doing the majority of the cooking, cleaning, and other household chores, resentment is bound to build. After a period of adjustment, my wife and I found a formula that works for us:  I handle the laundry, yard work and recycling duties. She does the majority of the dishes and the cleaning/organizing. We split the grocery shopping and cooking.

For more help for the newly married or those about to get married, call me at 202.588.1288 or email me at david@dctalktherapy.com