The figure of the witch has always been linked to the gift of predicting the future. Macbeth’s three witches, the powerful völvas (Viking witches), Galadriel in The Lord of the Rings. They are all endowed with a special intuition that, in a society that faces great uncertainty alleviated by social networks with esoteric tendencies, just look at the success of accounts like @charcastrology OR @oroscoponegro—, it is possible to think that you have it too. Curiously, this ability to predict the future is often cited, in most cases, to confirm it a I already knew it when you get bad news.
Although it can be exciting to believe that you have magical powers like those of Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock Practical magic, You’re probably not predicting the future, but by placing yourself in all these potential future scenarios you may be suffering from anticipatory anxiety. That is, in the words of Silvia Vidalhealth psychologist expert in anxiety and trauma and author of Embrace your fearsthe excessive worry and discomfort felt in anticipation of a future event that is normally perceived as threatening: “The function of anticipatory anxiety is to prepare us for everything terrible that can happen. The more prepared we feel, the more control we think we have. The point is that when our mind imagines everything terrible that can happen – even if the probability is low – it goes from being an adaptive resource to something totally limiting and very painful.”
a crystal ball
The Polish sociologist and philosopher Zygmunt Bauman, author of the essay Liquid modernity It speaks, among other issues, to the fact that, given the instability of the socioeconomic, cultural and emotional contexts of these times, uncertainty is the only certainty.
Conflict arises because human beings, by nature, do not get along with the unknown: “Whenever something unexpected happens, our body can perceive uncertainty as a danger because we understand that if it happened once, it can happen several times. Managing this insecurity implies having a high tolerance for discomfort”, says Silvia Vidal. Perhaps this is why, in moments of less solidity, we tend to seek answers and self-knowledge by all means, including esotericism. Millennials and young people belonging to generation Z have put ancient divinatory techniques such as tarot cards or horoscopes on everyone’s lips, as well as terminologies linked to the universe of energies. Nowadays, it is very common to hear a I will express it try to attract the desired reality or I will light a candle for you as an act of generosity that replaces the classic one I want you fortune. If someone goes back to their ex-partner, you automatically think that maybe they decided to give that second chance because it’s Mercury’s retrograde season. Years ago, at most, you knew what your zodiac sign was, but today it is customary to know the rest of the birth chart, at least the ascendant and the moon. Playing cards was a practice generally perceived as extravagant and limited to very specific areas, while today it is even common to see groups of friends commenting on the meaning of the major and minor arcana that are placed face up on a table full of canes.
This context is the perfect breeding ground to reinforce the idea that you may be endowed with a special gift that explains why when you have a bad feeling it ends up passing: “If the environment reinforces certain magical beliefs, the likelihood that this behavior will be maintained increases. We live in a culture that reinforces the feeling of certainty more than contact with doubt, so magical belief systems function as escape behaviors: they momentarily relieve the anxiety generated by the lack of control,” he says. Desiree Llamasdoctor of psychology.
Furthermore, there is another important issue to keep in mind, which is that when you suffer from anxiety, the physical sensations and thoughts are so real that it can actually seem as if these disasters are about to happen: “You can feel that something as strong as what you think and feel is just the sign that it is about to happen. And that’s not the case. It’s simply anxiety, not powers,” says Silvia Vidal.
Everything that didn’t happen
Anticipatory anxiety could be defined, simply put, as the fear of suffering. They awkwardly try to prepare for the worst and have the false feeling that, if bad luck comes, the blow won’t hurt as much: “It’s a hidden behavior of avoidance. Instead of exposing ourselves to the event or uncertainty, we begin to plan or worry to try to prevent future discomfort. Paradoxically, this anticipation becomes the main source of present discomfort,” explains Desirée Llamas.
To avoid this suffering, the expert recommends choosing to break these patterns of false control and reduce approval or signal-seeking behaviors. Furthermore, he defends the usefulness of gradually exposing oneself to uncertainty and ensuring that nothing catastrophic happens, or of focusing not so much on what one thinks, but on why: “If the aim is to avoid feeling anxiety, then we reinforce the problem”, he explains. Ultimately, no matter how much we try to predict the future and avoid its low blows and misfortunes, reality always happens in a genuine way and full of unexpected nuances.
in the movie The worst person in the world, by Joaquim Trier, Julie, the protagonist, is going through the classic mid-life crisis. With erratic actions, emotional swings, and the other ingredients of the process that comes from finding oneself, the work could be understood as a millennial version of Joseph Campbell’s literary structure of the hero’s journey. After a misfortune that completely changes his life and his decisions, he comes to a conclusion: “I wasted a lot of time worrying about what could go wrong, but what went wrong was never what I worried about.”
Even if you go through a whole spectrum of possibilities and there is a temptation to assume the worst, the suffering will not disappear. It therefore makes sense to keep a crystal ball and avoid dwelling on everything that ultimately goes wrong, ignoring all those times when predictions failed and, in the end, it wasn’t a big deal.
