What Makes You Feel Anxious?

What Makes You Feel Anxious?

Because our beliefs act as a filter for how we see anything, which directly impacts how we feel about anything, it makes sense to consider any beliefs which can contribute to our feeling anxious.

Three of the most common beliefs that contribute to our feeling anxious are catastrophizing, mind reading, and all-or-nothing thinking.

Catastrophizing is blowing things out of proportion and predicting the worst possible outcome.  It’s making a mountain out of a molehill. An alternative is recognizing the self-inflicted pain of predicting what will happen with certainty and fostering a belief that you can flow with whatever happens.

Mind reading is making assumptions about what others are thinking, and getting anxious in reaction to your assumption.  An alternative is to train yourself to pause, take a deep breath, then become curious to see if you understood correctly and/or why they are thinking that.

All-or-nothing thinking is the belief that everything is seen in terms of absolutes, there is no middle ground or gray areas.  An alternative is to believe that there are degrees of success/failure, true/false. Few things are totally black or white - there are shades of gray.

As you go through your day, become curious when you find yourself feeling anxious.  What is the belief/filter you are using to look at something that is creating what you are feeling?  What might be an alternative way of looking at something that will serve you better?  Then try it out and see how it feels.

And, as always, there is a free resource at empoweredselfhelp.com which can help you to shift from any limiting, anxious creating belief toward a more empowering and peace creating belief. You can find it in the Freebies section.

Thoughtful Quotes From Others

A Question to Ponder

What is one belief you can start to change and begin to feel greater peace?

Stay curious and be well,
Larry