Trying to shut down your anxious thoughts with “logic” and “reason” sometimes doesn’t work, and instead just makes you feel annoyed with yourself and a bit of a fool.
Here are three alternatives that work in a different way.
Compassion
If a small child is scared of something, explaining the cold, hard facts in order to try to tell them why they don’t need to be worried is not necessarily going to work. What they need in those moments is a soothing tone of voice, warmth and understanding. Someone to sit with me and speak to me kindly.
That is something we are a bit rubbish at doing for ourselves, but we can learn to. Try out using for yourself the level of compassion and the tone of voice you generally reserve for other people.
Attention
When we are anxious, often our minds are focusing on something in particular. If I am worrying about something, my mind is off in the future, thinking about something that could happen but hasn’t yet, or in the past, going over something that has already happened. Either way, it isn’t focusing on what is in front of me.
If you are self-conscious, your attention goes towards how awkwardly you are standing, what you are going to say next, how dry your mouth feels.
In both situations, practicing noticing where your mind is putting all it’s attention and (gently, kindly) bringing your focus back to what is going on in front of you can really help.
Defusion
This is a concept from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (see The Happiness Trap by Russ Gilbert, for example) which is essentially about just recognising your thought as a thought, and not the truth. You can do this in a few ways:
Labelling your thoughts as thoughts: “I am going to mess this all up” becomes “I am having a thought that I am going to mess this all up”
Changing the tone of the thoughts by either singing them (“I’m screwed, dah buh dee dah buh dah” to the tune of Blue by Eiffel 65, for example), or putting them into a voice that you find amusing (Darth Vader or Homer Simpson, for example).
It doesn’t change the content of the thought, but it changes the tone, makes it a little bit easier to not get 100% sucked into it, and gives me a greater ability to not get dragged along by it.
Something to think about
Brains aren't supposed to be logical and reasonable. They are supposed to spot possible danger to try to make sure we don't hurt ourselves or make a fool of ourselves. That is usually what they are doing when we start to feel anxious. That is why it is a bit unfair for us to expect ourselves to be cold and "rational" all the time.
Something to do
Try giving each of these three ways of thinking a go this week.
Thanks for reading! Until next week,
Ted
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