Anxious Thoughts
Anxious thinking can become a habit which is often hard to break. Eventually, anxious thoughts come to mind automatically and the person begins to accept these thoughts, without question, as facts. Examples of such automatic thoughts are: ''They will think that I am stupid'' "1 won't be able to cope'' ''If I go to the meeting, I will faints Any person who has such anxious thoughts will feel anxious a lot of the time.
Recognizing automatic anxious thoughts:
- - They seem to come out of nowhere as a flash in your mind.
- - They are voluntary - you do not deliberately dream them up, they
- are just there.
- - They seem quite believable and justified at the a time.
- - They tend to be short, snappy phrases such as ''I'm no use''
- ''They don't like me", or "I can't cope''.
- - Such automatic thoughts are the kind of thoughts that would
- make most people anxious or depressed if they believed them.
- - You know these thoughts are unreasonable when you come to
- consider these thoughts more closely.
- 'Should' statements
- For instance, thinking you 'should' be able to stay calm all the time or you 'must' never get angry. Such rigid statements are over demanding and unreasonable - they cause unnecessary pressure and often guilt.
- Labelling and mislabelling
- Labelling yourself as ''a useless person" on the basis of a mistake you made is not helpful. Self blaming Self blaming is when you assume it is entirely your fault when something goes wrong. For instance, if your child has a poor school report card then you blame yourself.
- Self blaming
- Self blaming usually causes guilt. It leads you to assume responsibility for happenings that are probably due to many factors (only one of which might be yourself).
