Three steps to heal anxiety and negative thinking
Anxiety & Negative Thinking
Do you struggle with anxiety, perhaps an abundance of negative emotions, and you’re not quite sure on how to address them?
If only there was, however, there’s no handbook for life. Sometimes negative thoughts, feelings, and emotions can actually leave us feeling broken and overwhelmed. In this blog, we will share three simple steps to help promote emotional healing to help reduce your anxieties.
Our brains are designed to prioritise survival amongst all else, not to make us happy. That doesn’t mean we can’t be happy, especially if we practise tips, tricks and techniques to promote happiness.
ANALOGY
Whilst our brains can be considered to be really complicated, just consider this simple analogy. Imagine that you’re in a darkened room, and you want to illuminate that room. You could get the wiring diagram from an electrician and find out that there are many lights in that room. Discovering then that some lights are wired from the floor upwards, and some are wired from the ceiling downwards. You might also realise that some lights have different voltages to others, or different amperages (are you bored already? We’re bored typing this!)
The fact is, you have a dark room – what’s the simplest solution? Find the light switch and flick it, that’s it!
Our world sometimes can make us feel completely overwhelmed, which has a knock-on effect on our mental health, however this can be combatted. If we just keep it simple.
If you’re feeling anxious, the fact is, your brain is designed to make you feel anxious, it’s all part of your internal mechanism to protect you from danger. Understand that this is step 1.
ANXIETY – STEP ONE
if you understand what’s going on, then immediately it feels better. So if you feel anxious, great news, your body is working NORMALLY. There’s nothing wrong with you; what’s abnormal is the fact that you may have your flight-or-flight mechanism linked to something that isn’t a danger.
Which leads us to step 2; knowing that your flight-or-flight response is being triggered and making you feel anxiety in situations that actually you know is safe – the next question is how do I solve that?
The best and easiest thing to do is write a timeline of your life events, because anxiety is a symptom, and behind every symptom is a cause. We need to look into the past and see what cause or causes, traumas you’ve endured, what issues you’ve had – grief, heartbreak, being embarrassed, humiliation – any kind of trauma could lead you to be triggered in similar situations moving forward, which creates anxiety.
STEP TWO
So step 2, its time to create a timeline. We have an amazing video on our YouTube channel and our TikTok channel, explaining in more depth how you can complete your timeline.
What’s then great is that you can take that timeline to a therapist. You can then say these are some of the events that have happened in my life, and some of the things that I would like to address. Or, you might actually be able to look through your timeline and address them yourself. You can do this by changing your perspective into something more positive, and begin to sever that fight-or-flight response which then creates the anxiety.
STEP THREE
This is all about looking at things that you can adopt in your life, which can make your life happier. Things such as gratitude. Practising gratitude is so important and it’s one of the main keys to happiness. We have some great films on gratitude our YouTube channel.
Reviewing our friends and our environment, and how can they affect your mood on a daily basis is a good exercise. We all know the means to promote positive physical heath (we have to exercise, eat well etc.). We do however overlook the need to create a good, positive mental attitude as well for mental health as well.
You need to make these things habitual, and depending on what you read, the average is, that it takes 60 days to create a habit. You therefore, you have got to practice these (like gratitude and setting goals) on a daily basis.
Another great habit that you can adopt is saying ‘but luckily’. A lot of people say I’m just a negative thinker, I always think of the worst possible outcome; and it is true that if you have had traumas in our life, we can expect the worst. ‘But luckily’ would give you a nudge and helps to end your thoughts in a positive way.
