Its Just Not True

Dear Beautiful You,

I know I have talked about this before, but it is such an important point, that I want to revisit it again and again. 

Thoughts. 

We all have them. 

And we ALL have negative thoughts. 

Studies have shown we have anywhere between 40 thousand to 60 thousand thoughts every day.And of those, about 60 percent (and even higher) are negative. So why is this important ?

People without anxiety or other mental health conditions are able to discard the negative thoughts rather quickly, and go on to the next thought. However, people with anxiety tend to hold onto a negative thought, become fearful of the thought, and try to fight it. This tells your mind that it must be important. Therefore, it gives you MORE of the same sort of thoughts. As these negative thoughts bombard your brain, they can become more and more grim, to the point you cannot even believe you are having such thoughts enter your mind. It feels impossible to disengage from the spiral of pictures and words that are circling around in your head. 

On the outside, to the rest of the world, you may look like you have it all together. But, inside you are trying to keep your shit together, because you think that you may be going insane, dying or just a really bad person for having such weird thoughts. I had such odd thoughts I could be found in my room crying for hours thinking I was going to be hospitalized and that I was going insane. 

However, this is the anxiety trick. Anxiety tries to get your attention in any way it can. If you become fearful of your thoughts you will try to fight, flight or freeze when you have them. When anxiety gets you to do this, it now knows this is what it has to do to get you ready for the perceived danger. But there is no danger, it is a false alarm. This is a survival mechanism from thousands of years ago that is not needed as much as it was way back when. You have to teach yourself not to respond to these thoughts and as you do, the reaction becomes less and less. 

You cannot change your thoughts once they are here. What you can do is not to engage in them. Allow them to be there but see them for what they are, an attempt to get you to be ready for action that is not needed. As you let them be there, without reaction, they go away.  This was pivotable for me.

My mantra about thoughts: 

Just because you have a thought doesn't make it true.

If you are struggling with anxiety know there is a way out. With diet, exercise and understanding of anxiety you can beat this. I did, you can too. 

With love, Lucie