When catastrophic thinking gets in the way

Faced with uncertainty, there are only two things we can control: our thoughts and our behaviour. But sometimes thoughts come in a flood, take over our minds, and end up occupying the driver's seat. If intrusive thoughts run the show, things can get messy and our perception is skewed.

When we are confronted with moments of fear and discomfort or suddenly meet a new challenge, the mind can begin to create a self-defeating narrative that has little to do with our current experience, cognitively coloring and distorting it in ways that make us feel even more anxious and afraid.

Without us even noticing it, thoughts can easily slip into full-blown projections about possible catastrophic scenarios that are unlikely to ever happen to us and yet are imagined to be very real outcomes.

A few years ago, I remember finding a missed call from my daughter’s school showing up on my phone. My mind immediately raced ahead, believing it must have been the nurse trying to get hold of me to say she had been hurt or injured. It turned out, as it often happens, that the call was about something completely innocuous: a reminder to sign her field trip form.

Most of the things we worry about never actually happen.

Since that day, I began to notice how we can drag ourselves into deep waters by jumping to dramatic conclusions with no concrete evidence, making inferences based on what we believe this or that situation means for us and what effect it may have on our future.

In time, I began to inquire about how I could skillfully respond to this kind of catastrophic thinking, asking myself what we could all do when fear gets a grip on us and we begin to project our anxiety onto reality.

Is it useful to chase away those negative thoughts or maybe try to stop the mind? Do we cover up the drama in candy floss or simply attempt to deny the worry?

Here's what I found: thought stopping or attempting not to worry doesn't work and can actually make anxiety worse.

Instead, becoming aware of our thoughts and the patterns that trigger catastrophizing mental reactions can help us improve our focus and creativity while contributing to our overall sense of calm and well-being.

To avoid negative thoughts from spiraling into worse-case scenario imaginings, we need to slow down and center ourselves in the neutrality and spaciousness existing in the present moment.

When a threat is not imminent, fear and anxiety always take us away from the here and now.

So, firstly, we need to plant our feet well on the ground and remind ourselves of where we are so we can actually focus on 'what is' instead of ruminating on what could be or is not.

As cliche as this may sound, turning our attention towards the breath is the quickest way to reconnect with the present moment because the breath is the one thing that is always happening in the now.

The importance of deep breathing can never be overstated.

Once we are centered, we can actually play out the worse-case scenario we had conjured in the mind, beginning by congratulating ourselves for the fantastic imagination we still possess!

Yes, a pinch of humor can work magic.

It can also allow us to normalize things, to see that it's ok for us to have negative thoughts and natural for us to worry about things especially if they have to do with health, relationships or money.

In this sense, bringing more compassion into our lives, can naturally silence the inner critic without us needing to shut it down. But excessive worry is never useful and can in fact keep us stuck in cycles of negativity.

So here is what I found changes the game: simply realizing that thoughts are just thoughts.

Once we truly get this, we know that we don't have to make thoughts actually mean anything about our life, ourselves, or the world around us. Now that is a real game-changer.

We begin to understand that thoughts travel with us and so can be allowed to be in the same car as us, just not sitting in the driver's seat.

We start to see that it is always our interpretation of thoughts, not the thoughts in themselves, that becomes problematic.

When we really understand that 'thoughts are just thoughts' and test this out in our daily life, things just don't end up disrupting us the way they used to.

And when things really get rough, we can generate solutions that actually make things better instead of wasting our time thinking about what is wrong or could potentially become catastrophic.