Reduce Your Anxiety by Changing Your Faulty Thinking
(Part 1 of 2)

Are you aware that some of the ways you think could be causing you anxiety? It's true! When you use faulty thinking, you are creating problems of anxiety for yourself. The good news is that when you identify your faulty thinking you can take steps to make changes, and reduce your anxiousness!

There are ten common types of faulty thinking (better known as "Cognitive Distortions"). I'll discuss five of them here, and show you how to change your thoughts to reduce your anxiety. In Part 2, I'll discuss the other five faulty ways and how to change them as well. Notice if you identify with any of these faulty ways of thinking.

  1. ALL-OR-NOTHING THINKING: You see things in black-and-white categories. If your performance falls short of perfect, you see yourself as a total failure.

    2. Here's an example of this: My client, "Mark," was seeing me to reduce his general anxiousness. He loved playing the guitar. He wanted to socialize more with others, and was excited about an opportunity to play the guitar in his church band.

    Then, looking dejected, he told me he couldn't do that. When I asked why, he said that he didn't play the guitar perfectly enough.

    Mark was suffering from "all-or-nothing thinking": His faulty thinking made him believe that the only way he could play his guitar in the church band was if he was perfect at it.

    I asked Mark to observe his church band while they played on Sunday, to check out if their playing was "perfect." Turns out (of course!) that he detected the band didn't play every song "perfectly." I suggested he talk to the band's director about the guitar position. The director asked him to play for him, loved what he heard, and invited Mark to play in the band!

    Mark's "all-or-nothing thinking" had been causing some of his anxiety. His faulty thinking – that he had to be perfect – was getting in his way of his peace of mind. By changing his thinking, he was able to join the band and enjoy the benefits of socializing more.

    If you suffer from "all-or-nothing thinking," consider changing your thinking. Most situations really don't require you to be "perfect;" they require you to be "good enough."

    Give yourself permission to be "good enough," not perfect. Then, you can relax and enjoy life a whole lot more!

  2. OVERGENERALIZATION: You see a single negative event as a never-ending pattern of defeat.

    3. If this is you, you can change. Remember, if one bad thing happens to you, don't over-generalize about it! When you over-generalize, you discourage yourself, and you increase your anxiousness and worry!

    Instead, recognize the negative event for what it is: it happened just once (or maybe even a couple of times.) Your situation can change; stay open to good things happening for you, too!

  3. MENTAL FILTER: You pick out a single negative detail and dwell on it exclusively so that your vision of all reality becomes darkened, like the drop of ink that discolors the entire beaker of water.

    4. Like my client, Bruce. He went on a great two-week vacation to visit family and friends in Colorado. Almost the entire trip was happy, relaxing, and enjoyable.

    He had one incident of stalled traffic one day when he was driving in Denver on the interstate. He was stuck in gridlocked traffic for a more than an hour. When he was describing his trip, he focused almost entirely on that negative event, "proof" that bad things always happened to him.

    It was only when I questioned him closely about the entire trip did he then describe his happy vacation in Colorado. Bruce had been wrongly focusing on one negative detail, letting it nearly destroy a mostly enjoyable vacation!

    Don't make this "faulty thinking" mistake. Often, events and situations can include some stressful difficulties. Notice, though, if overall, the situation was more positive than negative. If so, let yourself enjoy the parts that are pleasurable or satisfying!

  4. DISQUALIFYING THE POSITIVE: You reject positive experiences by insisting they "don't count" for some reason or another. In this way, you can maintain a negative belief that is contradicted by your everyday experiences.

    5. Let me give you an example of how this kind of thinking can create anxiety for you: I had a client, "Janice," who started working with me because of problems of general anxiety, fears and worries.

    One of the problems that created anxiety for her was her lack of friends. "I've had a problem my whole life making friends. People just don't like me." The thought that people didn't like her caused Janice great anxiety.

    When I asked her if she had any friends now, she told me about 3 women she was friends with, for about 6 years now. I pointed out the obvious: Maybe in the past she had a hard time making friends, but now she had 3 genuinely good friends. Turns out, people DID like her!

    At first, she kept insisting that these friendships were a "fluke," and somehow didn't count.

    Janice was stuck in faulty thinking and that caused her undue anxiety. She was disqualifying the positive: Discounting her 3 friendships, and "maintaining a negative belief" that she couldn't make friends and people didn't like her.

    It took her a few sessions to be able to see and accept the obvious: people DID like her, and she was capable of making friends. She was able to relax about this old problem, and thus lessened her anxious, worried feelings.

  5. JUMPING TO CONCLUSIONS: You make a negative interpretation even though there are no definite facts that convincingly support your conclusion. Here are two ways people do that:
    1. MIND READING: You arbitrarily conclude that someone is reacting negatively to you, and you don't bother to check this out.

      2. My client Andrea was an example of how she created anxiety for herself with "mind-reading." Her daughter, who lived in another state, rarely returned her phone calls. Andrea was in tears when she told me that her daughter didn't like her. The "evidence" for Andrea was the un-returned phone calls.

      As it turned out, this daughter also didn't return the calls of ALL the family members. It wasn't that she didn't like them; the daughter was busy and a bit self-centered, and just didn't focus on her family relationships.

      But the daughter did remember family birthdays, and visited every now and then. And, Andrea did share some genuinely warm phone calls with her daughter.

      Andrea had wrongly employed "mind-reading," and created a lot of anxious feelings for herself. Although she wasn't happy that her daughter didn't call often, Andrea was able to relax more about the situation once she and I discussed realistically.

      You can change your faulty thinking by NOT jumping to conclusions about a situation. Check it out first, and get more realistic information. You may just save yourself from getting worried and nervous about nothing!

    2. THE FORTUNE-TELLER ERROR: You can anticipate that things will turn out badly, and you feel convinced that your prediction is an already-established fact.

      3. Be careful about "predicting" the outcome of a situation. You could be stressing yourself over a future that hasn't happened yet.

"Denise," who was afraid of flying, was freaking out about her plane trip, certain it was going to be a bumpy ride, hitting air-pockets. She had already "predicted" a bad flight, and was really upset in our session as she painfully described how bad the trip was going to be.

When she returned from her trip and was telling me about it in our session, she was happy to report that it was a smooth flight, and she had a seatmate that was enjoyable to talk with.

By using the faulty "fortune-teller error," Denise had needlessly suffered before the flight. Don't make the same mistake! Stay relaxed, and be open-minded enough that your situation could turn out well. After all, only God can truly predict the future.

If you're ready to reduce your anxiety and feel relaxed and good about your life, please contact me for a free phone consultation. We can then decide how I may be able to help you with counseling or hypnotherapy to reduce your anxiety, panic attacks, fears or phobias.



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