Improve your internal dialogue by stopping automatic thoughts
Surely you don’t realize this yet, but you are sabotaging yourself regularly. You probably don’t even notice, and that’s only natural. It’s something all humans do, but anxiety sufferers seem to just excel at putting themselves down through mistaken beliefs and automatic thoughts.
This article will illustrate some of the most common negative thought patterns in anxiety patients, as well as suggestions to improve your mental dialogue by learning how to deal with said thoughts. Changing your internal dialogue is fairly easy, provided a bit of determination.
Top 5 negative thought patterns and how to stop them.
5 – “They think I’m a weak person”. Are you a mind reader? If not, how can you know for sure what other people think of you? More often than not, you would be surprised with how others perceive you in a different light than yourself. Sometimes they’ll actually have a favorable impression, other times they won’t. In all case, you should be wary of trains of thought that revolve around assuming you know how others see you or think of you.
The antidote: If you want to know what someone thinks, then you need to ask them. Even then, you may not know for sure, but if you just stand around trying to read the minds of others, then you will surely fail. Stop living in your head all the time, and you’ll be happier.
4 – “I will never be normal again”. Being caught up in this kind of thought is fairly common, especially when you’ve been suffering from anxiety for a long time. After a while, you may feel as though you’re beyond repair and completely incapable of leading a normal life. The problem with this kind of reasoning is that it easily becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The antidote: There is no such thing as normal, you know? You should put things in terms of being able to cope, which is just a skill like any other. If you don’t believe you can learn coping, that will severely hinder the actual learning process. Believe in yourself! Each year, millions of people cope with anxiety disorder to reclaim a normal life, and so can you!
3 – “Everything is going wrong”. Extreme negativity is a close companion to anyone who suffers from anxiety or depression, and it can become one of the major obstacles in the mind of such patients. It’s very easy getting caught up in a cycle of undoing, where you assume that you’ll fail at everything you try or imagine that all things that can go wrong will go wrong. The problem with this kind of reasoning is how it actually contributes directly to your failures!
The antidote: Learning how to see the bright side of things is a habit, as well as an acquired taste. You must try to routinely question your negative assumptions and challenge yourself to think differently. “Maybe this time it won’t go wrong” or “It might go wrong, but not before I do everything I can to stop it”… those are examples of alternative trains of thought that you should try to embark every time you feel as though negativity is taking hold of you.
2 – “It’s always going to be the same”. Generalizing is also one of the most corruptive bad thinking habits that usually squat on the mind of anxiety sufferers. When this happens, you will start focusing on a little bit of negative experience and use it to block all your prospects of future enjoyment. For example, last time you tried asking someone out on a date, they turned you down. So it’s better to just quit asking people out because they’ll always turn you down, right? Wrong… very much so!
The antidote: try to look at each new experience as a new chance to make things differently. Each day is a chance to become a happier and more adjusted person. Challenge your tendency towards generalization by creating room for being surprised by life. When you open yourself up for a change, you will often be amazed at how things will suddenly be different, usually for the best.
1 – “What if?” There’s nothing wrong with using your imagination to contemplate alternative scenarios to reality. But when doing so becomes a compulsive thought that frequently assaults you and plants the seeds of doubt, it can be very damaging. If you spend most of your time wondering how things might have been or how they could be, that will not bring you anywhere but down. What if you were to spend the rest of your life wondering how things might have been and doing nothing about it? Now, there’s a scary thought.
The antidote: If nothing else, remember this: only in the present that you can make a difference. You should learn from your past, and you should be hopeful for the future. But all the while, you should know that everything is always happening right now, and that’s where you can make a difference. Start using your power to make a difference in the future, rather than wondering why you didn’t make a difference in the past. It’s actually as easy as changing your focus.
Improving your internal dialog is a full time job (worth all the effort)
Remember: the key to improving your internal dialogue is staying vigilant to your thought patterns, so you can detect negative thoughts that accurse you before they get a chance to cause much discomfort. Once you get used to watching your own thoughts, it will become progressively easier to weed out many unreasonable ideas that source your discomfort on various levels.
For best results, you should get in the habit of observing your thoughts. It’s simple enough when you’re used to it, and the results can be substantial since you’ll start noticing the roots of your fears and negativity. Once you realize this, change comes quite naturally.
