One of essentially the most destructive day by day habits I carried with me for a very long time and I feel is a quite common one for many individuals was the thought habit of catastrophizing.
What is catastrophizing?
This is if you construct up a nightmare scenario of how all the things could go totally flawed in some situation and picture a giant catastrophe in your mind.
You can have a presentation tomorrow and your mind starts to drag up a scenario where you’ve gotten left your notes at home, you make a idiot of yourself, you might be embarrassed in front the entire company and your boss yells at you for 20 minutes after the meeting.
Scary stuff of course.
So how did I learn to handle this one?
Let me share 7 steps which have really helped me out.
Step 1: Loudly say stop to your inner critic.
The catastrophe that has began to brew in your mind comes from your inner critic.
He is telling you: “You will fail because it is what you always do.”
Or that you’ve gotten not prepared enough.
Or that your boss won’t be pleased together with your presentation for some reason or other.
Or all of that.
So stop the inner critic quickly. In your mind, as soon as these thoughts pop up, shout:
“NO!”
Or: “NOPE, we are not going down that path again!”
This will disrupt that train of thought and allow you to to begin feeling more level-headed again.
Step 2: Focus in your respiration.
After disrupting the thought be still for a minute or two. Sit down if you happen to can.
Focus on just your in-breaths and out-breaths. Nothing else.
This will calm your body down from the stress and it helps your mind to think more clearly and to return to what is going on straight away on this moment as a substitute of being lost in future nightmares.
Step 3: Look to the past for the reality.
Think back to your past.
How repeatedly previously have these catastrophe scenarios that your mind throws at you truly change into reality?
Never or only a few times I might imagine. That has definitely been the case for me.
So remind yourself of the particular facts from the past to calm yourself down much more and to attract yourself back to the more centered version of yourself.
Step 4: Talk it through and get input from a level-headed friend.
In many situations in my very own life the primary three steps have helped me to snap out of the catastrophe scenario and to think more calmly and clearly.
But sometimes that combination isn’t quite enough. Maybe there are still some lingering negative thoughts and inner tensions that might start snowballing again.
If that’s the case then one thing I wish to do is to let the catastrophe out. I talk it over with someone near me.
By doing so, by just venting and having someone listening for just a few minutes I can often see the situation for what it truly is. And so I calm down.
Or the person listening will help out me out a bit more if needed and lend me his or her perceptive.
That helps me to ground myself in point of fact again and it has also helped me repeatedly to seek out an answer or a primary step that I can take to begin changing this example into something higher if that is required.
Step 5: Stop making a mountain out of a molehill.
Another thing that always helps me is to ask myself a matter that lets me zoom out and see if I’m truthfully just making a mountain out of a molehill here (or out of nothing in any respect).
So I ask myself:
Will this matter in 5 years? Or even in 5 weeks?
The answer is often that it won’t. Even though it would at first seem that way if you’re in a wired and anxious headspace.
Step 6: Say stop to yourself when you realize you just can’t think straight.
When I’m hungry or I want to go to bed and get some sleep then I do know from experience that I’m vulnerable to catastrophizing and pessimistic thoughts.
So what do I do?
I tell myself this:
No, no, no, we should not going to take into consideration this now. We will take into consideration this example or challenge later, after getting some sleep or food.
Doing that straightforward thing helps quite a bit.
Because once I’m not hungry or I’m well rested once more then my issue that I used to be getting worked up about will most frequently be small to non-existent when revisited with some clear-headed pondering.
Or it should not less than be quite a bit easier to seek out an answer or a plan to enhance things if there’s actually an actual challenge here that I want to face.
Step 7: Reduce any weekly input that pushes these disaster scenarios into the forefront of your mind.
The people and the opposite sources on the market like TV, social media and various web sites or forums have a giant influence over your pondering.
So watch out about what you let into your head on a day by day and weekly basis. Ask yourself:
Is there an individual or source in my life that strengthens my catastrophizing habit?
Examples of such sources may very well be someone who could be very pessimistic or news online or a social media platform that you simply find is feeding an excessive amount of negativity into your mind.
When you’ve found something like that in your life ask yourself:
What can I do that week to spend less or no time with this person or source?
Then take motion on that and spend the time you’ve now freed up during this week with one or just a few of essentially the most optimistic sources / people in your life.
Do this – in the approaching weeks or months – with as many sources as needed to piece by piece construct a healthy environment for yourself and in your thoughts.
