How to Overcome Negative Thoughts and Lower Anxiety
It was a typical car ride disagreement.
"I’m freezing"...
"I’m hot..."
"I need air in my face but it’s blowing too hard and the air is too cold"...
"Why don’t you use the dial on your vent to adjust the air flow?"...
"I can do that? I always thought it was all or nothing"...
The dial was adjusted to an in between spot that let a little air out but not so much that it was overwhelming. Everyone was happy.
The end.
Then it occurred to me... This is *exactly* what can happen in our thoughts. I know. That’s a weird response to air conditioning. But stay with me.
Sometimes our thoughts can be so all or nothing
They can go full blast. They can change the entire temperature of our emotional state. All or nothing thinking, catastrophizing, and worst-case-scenario thought spirals can all get so strong that they overwhelm us, raising anxiety past the point that it feels manageable. This can feel beyond our control to change because we all tend to think that something happens and then we have a feeling as a result.
But what actually happens is that a situation occurs, we have a series of thoughts about the situation, and then it’s our thoughts that create our feelings.
Situation ---> Thought ---> Feeling
An example of how we can think a situation creates feelings...
Every time I have to speak up at work (situation) --------------->
I feel embarrassed (feeling)
When in reality it looks more like this...
Every time I have to speak up at work (situation) ---------------->
My mind goes to, "I sound stupid," "I bet they don't like me," "I'm not good enough," "Everyone can tell I'm not qualified," (thoughts) ---------------->
I'm embarrassed (feeling)
Do you see the cycle? It's not the situation that specifically creates the feelings, it's the thoughts that arise in response to situations that create feelings.
This is actually good news.
Sometimes situations are out of our control and we may not be able to change what happens. And we can’t always control our feelings, our feelings just come and go. But our thoughts are 100% in our control and it's within our power to change them. It definitely does not always feel like it, but we can figure out how to adjust the dial in our mind to a middle ground, where there’s a balance between attempting to completely shut the thought down or letting it go full blast.
Our thoughts are 100% in our control and it's within our power to change them
We can learn to balance thoughts. Balancing thoughts is not just trying to "think positive." Most people have tried to think more positively and found that it just doesn't work. The reason that positive thinking doesn’t usually work well is because you can’t tell yourself something you do not believe to be true. You’re too smart for that.
The goal of balancing thoughts is to:
Acknowledge that there are two things that are true in any bothersome thought (Name It to Tame It)
Find a balance between those two truths that changes the emotional state around the thought (Challenge & Balance)
“Name It to Tame It”
Daniel Siegel is a neuropsychiatrist who translates his neuroscience research into easy to understand concepts. In one of his books on parenting, The Whole Brain Child, Siegel identifies a strategy that he calls "Name It to Tame It," meaning that any emotion that is labeled and validated will start to diffuse and lose power. He points out that once a child is in a calmer state, it's easier for them to be receptive to feedback and problem solving.
I find this to be true with adults as well. It's an effective way to respond to strong emotions in anyone, including ourselves. How we talk to ourselves matters in moments of stress and anxiety, and can make the difference between a thought spiral that blows you away and a balanced thought that takes you to higher ground.
The first thing that’s important to do is acknowledge what the thought is, and that you're thinking it for a reason. You are not crazy. Our responses and what we each find distressing is based on our own experiences, and our reactions happen for a reason. Something about the situation you’re in is causing the out of balance thought because you associate it with something negative from the past. This can be hard to recognize, but the important thing here is just to validate the thought and that there's a reason it's there.
"I’m feeling anxious because something bad has happened before when I was in this situation."
No matter how hard you may want to will the thought out of your mind, it's trying to get your attention and your mind won’t relax enough to let other information in until you "name it to tame it."
Challenge and Balance
Now it’s time to recognize that this thought may not be 100% true. In general, when there’s high anxiety, there’s out of balance thinking.
To balance a thought you first have to challenge a thought. What things make this thought not 100% true? Start looking for evidence. Are there times you felt this way before and the worst case scenario didn’t happen? Is there anything you can point to in the moment that reveals a different reality? What feedback have you gotten that’s different than what you fear?
A balanced thought combines naming and taming with challenging and balancing. Here's an example...
"Every time I have to speak up at work I feel embarrassed. I'm scared something bad will happen because I've been criticized when I spoke up in the past.” (Name It to Tame It)
“But the times I've spoken up at work I've received positive feedback, and all of my reviews for the past 3 years have been positive.” (Challenge with Evidence)
“I'm scared something bad will happen if I speak up, but for the past 3 years I've consistently gotten positive feedback so it's unlikely this time will be different.” (Balanced Thought)
This can be really hard to do. Our thoughts are powerful and every thought we have creates an experience that our brains latch onto. Sometimes out of balance thinking is deeply ingrained. Sometimes it feels like it’s keeping us safe.
It can help to be very concrete about this process. Actually get out a piece of paper and draw a line down the middle creating two columns. In one column list evidence for the thought, reasons you think it’s true. In the other column list evidence against that thought and reasons it’s not entirely true. Think of putting the negative or distressing thought on trial using only concrete evidence, things you can see, hear, touch, or experience. Then create a balanced thought that combines the evidence in the two columns.
It may feel like it’s a heck of a lot of hard work to do this over and over and that these thoughts just hang on. That they’re so ingrained it’s hard to change them. When this is the case, EMDR is an approach to therapy that shifts and balances thoughts more organically and leaves them changed so that you don’t have to keep fighting them.
Whatever way we approach and balance negative thoughts and distressing beliefs, it is a key to lowering anxiety and feeling more present.
