Strategies to Control Worry and Negative Thinking
Psychologist
This is an extract from the book:
Imagine that your mind is like a garden. It constantly produces life – in the form of thoughts and feelings. If you leave your garden unattended for a period of time, it will grow weeds and undesirable vegetation. Likewise, if you leave your mind uncared for, it will create negative and undesirable thoughts, leading to unwanted objectives and negative feelings. Your first task is thus to “clean” your mind of these “mental weeds,” the undesirable thoughts leading to stress and failure. In doing so, you cultivate the ground ready to plant seeds that will grow into positive mental images and direct your subconscious machinery towards success.
Here is a brief sample of some popular thought stopping techniques:
1. The Awareness Technique
When you are feeling upset or distressed, become aware of what you are (or have been) thinking. Ask yourself: “What have I been thinking to feel this way?” and simply decide to stop. If the thought returns, continue to be conscious of it; this awareness will act as a deterrent.
2. The Stop/Replacement Technique
Step 1: Identify or select three events from your daily life that give you a pleasant feeling. Use these as your pre-selected replacement thoughts.
Step 2: When you experience a worrying or upsetting thought, silently shout at yourself “STOP” (or something similar) and (with your eyes shut if possible) visualize a large “STOP” sign covering your whole field of vision, blocking all thoughts and mental images.
Step 3: Take a deep breath, relax, and switch the “STOP” sign with one or more of your pre-selected replacement thoughts. Dwell on these positive thoughts for as long as you can.
Step 4: If the negative thought returns, repeat Steps 2 and 3.
3. The Worrying-time Technique
When you become aware of dwelling on something negative, decide that you are going to deal with it, or think about it, at a pre-set future time, your “worrying time” or “thinking time” (e.g. at 3 o’clock, when driving home, or after dinner). Decide how long you will set aside, for example for 1 minute, 5 minutes, or until you are satisfied that you have worked out an answer. Then postpone your upsetting thoughts until the allocated time. At the designated “worrying time,” you can either choose to deal with the matter or not. If you decide to work on it, you must stop when the allocated time is up, postponing it again until the next worrying time. Refrain from thinking about it in the meantime. If you elect not to work on a particular thought during the worrying time, you still need to wait until the next designated time before thinking about it again. This frees you from any upset as you attend to daily matters.
The techniques above are a brief description of a complete guide to develop Effective Thinking and Mind Power.
Special information for Psychologists
