When we are under a lot of stress or otherwise dealing with stressful situations, our minds can prove to the biggest area of concern for us. With negative thoughts that automatically pop up, and an inability to see a way out of the current situation, many of us find that the ideas that our mind throws at us actually contribute towards making a challenging situation even worse.
There is a part of of us that does nothing but over think situations. It turns thoughts related to these challenging situations into a run-away train of never-ending worry.
You may experience negative thought patterns that include the following.
- “I will never get through this”
- “This is the beginning of the end”
- “Disaster strikes at every corner”
- “My life is getting worse every day”
- “I hate my life!”
While it seems like negative thoughts may be automatic right now, they don’t have to hijack you and make you feel worse. Automatic negative thoughts like these can work towards making you feel even more depressed, anxious and hopeless about managing the stressful situation that you are currently struggling with.
Learning how to retrain the part of your brain that comes up with this type of exaggerated negative stuff can help you to keep a tough situation from being unnecessarily overwhelming and emotionally devastating to you.
So many of the things that happen in our lives, on a day-to-day basis, can appear to be much bigger and so much worse by the negative thoughts that our minds are being allowed to produce. This is known as “catastrophizing” by cognitive behavioral therapists. This means that the worst possible outcome becomes the focus, no matter how unlikely that outcome may be. Individuals start to believe that the situation they are in is completely impossible and unbearable.
Affirmations are a very simple and yet incredibly powerful antidote for the catastrophizing mind. Let’s take a look at how you can apply simple affirmations towards your own stressful situations.
- When you notice that you are in a negative mood (mad, stressed, anxious, irritate, sad) take the time to ask yourself “What am I thinking right now?”
- Try to identify the exact thought content – “I am thinking about how unfair it is that my boss is making me work over the weekend to catch up. It is so unfair! He is probably going to expect me to work every weekend…next thing you know I will wind up losing my job!”
- Then say to yourself or think about a positive affirmation. An affirmation is a powerful, short, present tense statement like:
- “I stay calm and peaceful no matter what is happening around me”
- “I let go of the tension and stress in my body”
- “I let relaxation in even though I don’t like this”
- “This isn’t worth getting stressed out about right now”
Repeat these affirmations while you are focusing on 10 deep breaths.
The point to this affirmation exercise is that you want your body and your mind to override the stressful provoking thoughts and feelings. Calming affirmations combined with the focused breathing can help you to accomplish this.
Copy down the affirmations that you believe will work for you and your unique situation, write them down on an index card that you can slip into your wallet or a bag that you carry with you. When you feel that you are getting agitated, irritated, or otherwise upset, you can make use of your affirmations in order to help you head off a much worse mental situation. The sooner that you intervene, the earlier you will be able to keep those catastrophizing thoughts from making a mountain out of a mildly stressful mole hill.
