Good for you! I'm proud of you. Don't check them for another week at least. And I bet it gets easier.
And here's what I want you to do about the anxiety: I want you to practice watching BOTH movies.
What do I mean by that?
Well, when we have anxiety, we are watching a bad movie. It's a movie that says -- what if, what if I have breast cancer, what if i get the flu, what if i die, what will that do to my parents, i won't get to go to school, i won't get to grow up -- all that. We don't have any problem imagining the bad movie. We create it all and it seems very real to us. We can see it in our heads, can't we?
But when you find yourself watching the bad movie in your head, you MUST also then watch a good movie to balance it out. And the good movie is this: I won't get breast cancer, I won't get the swine flu. I will finish school, and college, and go on to have a fun career. I'll have friends and a marriage and kids if I want them. Life will be so great. You have to PICTURE this. Not just say it, but PICTURE it.
That's a harder movie to create, isn't it? But you have to learn to do it. You have to learn to actually SEE it in your head. To WATCH it. If you are afraid a plane will crash, then you also have to run a movie of the plane landing safely. If you are afraid you'll lose your purse, you have to also SEE it safely on your shoulder, or at home, or in your locker. Whatever the bad movie is, you have to watch the good movie right after it.
This will slowly help your anxiety go away because you will realize that the good movies come true more often than the bad ones.
Can you practice doing that a little? Is it hard for you or easy?
Comment Reply
Good for you! I'm proud of you. Don't check them for another week at least. And I bet it gets easier.
And here's what I want you to do about the anxiety: I want you to practice watching BOTH movies.
What do I mean by that?
Well, when we have anxiety, we are watching a bad movie. It's a movie that says -- what if, what if I have breast cancer, what if i get the flu, what if i die, what will that do to my parents, i won't get to go to school, i won't get to grow up -- all that. We don't have any problem imagining the bad movie. We create it all and it seems very real to us. We can see it in our heads, can't we?
But when you find yourself watching the bad movie in your head, you MUST also then watch a good movie to balance it out. And the good movie is this: I won't get breast cancer, I won't get the swine flu. I will finish school, and college, and go on to have a fun career. I'll have friends and a marriage and kids if I want them. Life will be so great. You have to PICTURE this. Not just say it, but PICTURE it.
That's a harder movie to create, isn't it? But you have to learn to do it. You have to learn to actually SEE it in your head. To WATCH it. If you are afraid a plane will crash, then you also have to run a movie of the plane landing safely. If you are afraid you'll lose your purse, you have to also SEE it safely on your shoulder, or at home, or in your locker. Whatever the bad movie is, you have to watch the good movie right after it.
This will slowly help your anxiety go away because you will realize that the good movies come true more often than the bad ones.
Can you practice doing that a little? Is it hard for you or easy?
July 10, 2009 - 9:57amThis Comment
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