The way we think about things has an impact on our anxiety levels. These thoughts are often outside of our control and can be negative or unhelpful. It is important to remember that these are just thoughts that pass through someone’s mind without any reality and are not necessarily true. When we are anxious we believe that these unhelpful negative thoughts are true. It is good practice to question these thoughts as they may be based on the wrong assumptions.
It is helpful if you start to recognise if you are thinking about things in an unhelpful or unrealistic way.
You worry about your future and fear builds up about how you are going to cope with work, being on your own, social situations or whatever is concerning you.
Living your life thinking the worst about the future creates unhappiness and depression. As with the other effects of anxiety this habit of worry will only increase as your thoughts and feelings have a compounding effect leading to even greater unhappiness and more anxiety.
You need to break the cycle; releasing your feelings of worry and the emotions that accompany them.
The patterns of worry/unhelpful thoughts might be:
- Predicting the future
We get into thinking about what might happen and predicting what could go wrong. For example: you think you will perform badly at a forthcoming interview.
- “Should” statements
We get into the habit of saying I should have done this or I should have behaved in a certain way. For example: “I should not be anxious” This really piles the pressure on ourselves and results in more anxiety. This statement sets us up for failure. Removing completely all “should” and “ought” statements from our thinking is really liberating.
- Over-generalising
Based on one incident you assume that all others will follow a similar pattern in the future.
- “What if” statements
What if no one talks to me at the party? This type of thinking can often result in us avoiding going places or doing the things we want. “What if” statements can be powerful affirmations as well. One of the therapies I use has a protocol for really embedding these into our psyche. So, we can turn these around to say, “what if everybody talks to me at the party”.
- Labelling
This is where we attach negative labels to ourselves Some examples are
“I am Weak”,
“I am stupid”.
We do not have any real evidence for these statements and they can heighten our anxiety.
- Mind Reading
This is where we make assumptions about what other people think about us. Some examples might be
My boss thinks I am stupid
People think I am odd.
Such thinking is not based on any evidence and naturally makes us apprehensive.
- Catastrophising
When we are anxious we often blow things out of proportion. We think something is going to be far worse than it really is. They may think something terrible in the future will happen when there is no evidence to support this.
Anxious people have a habit of focusing on negatives which keeps their anxiety going. For example, they might focus on the person who does not like them at work when they are very popular with the rest of their colleagues.
I have spent a lot of time challenging these unhelpful thoughts by using the powerful therapies in my toolbox. These have changed the underlying beliefs and the emotional charge which my own childhood and later life experiences brought about.
Using my 3- step approach we can identify what in our lives has created these self-defeating thoughts, eliminate the emotional charge around those events/experiences and go onto embed positive affirmations into our mind using the powerful therapies in my toolbox. So, if you want change in your life and happiness, take control now by contacting me.
Take the opportunity of a free 30 min consultation either person to person at a suitable location or via skype or telephone where we can discuss in confidence how I can help or assist you.
Roy Gough
Springtree Therapies
www. springtreetherpies.co.uk
Tel 07817979493
Skype edward.roy.gough