Just a thought

Read a fantastic African proverb earlier:

“A cat who wishes to become a lion must lose its appetite for rats” – meaning we must drop old habits to become a new version of ourselves, but it sounds much better this way.

I’ve found this to be true when dealing with anxiety. We have so many thoughts that race through our minds, most of which are negative, and most of which are repetitive. In the past, I’ve had many negative narratives about myself, my abilities and my character circulate through my head on repeat. When a thought enters our mind which is hurtful, frightening, and most importantly, believable, we tend to latch onto it and try to reason with it.

There’s an old phrase – “thoughts aren’t real” – and I agree with this up to a point. It’s true, they aren’t real, they are simply images/visions that appear in our minds sporadically, but if we latch onto them and replay them over and over again, they may become real – real in the sense that they drain our energy, affect our mood, interfere with our work; the indirect adverse effects are countless.

In counselling I learned the art of “stepping back” from our thoughts. It sounds overly simplistic, but with practice it can be quite effective. This is how it goes:

A negative thought enters our mind, perhaps its an anxious thought or a self-deprecating thought. Examples for me would be:
– A small hiccup in work causing me to believe that I’m a failure, or that I will be sacked.
– Hearing the slightest rattle in my car causing me to believe that my engine will “shit itself” and that I won’t be able to afford the repairs.
– A text left “on read” by a friend causing me to think I’ve deeply offended them.

Notice the common factor of catastrophisation in all of the above.

But rather than become completely thrown off by the thought, and beginning to reason with it or argue against it frantically, we just “step back”. I would say to myself “ok, that wouldn’t be a good thing if it happened (getting fired/car breaking down/losing a friend), but it hasn’t happened, I’m just panicking about what it would feel like if it DID happen, but it HASN’T happened”. So the idea is that I “park” the thought. I say to myself, “if this is something worth worrying about, there’ll be further signs”. Further signs would be as follows:

• The car makes MORE weird noises and maybe actually breaks down
• My superiors in my job tell me that yes, my performance actually IS a problem
• My friend pulls me aside and outlines that they DO have a problem with me

But in my experience, 99.9% of the time, these follow up signs NEVER happen. I’ve been waiting for the clutch to go in my car now for two years, still hasn’t budged.

As Matthew McConaughey once said – “I’ve had many crises, most of which have never happened”.

I hope this helps,
God bless,
Conor