Fact or Fiction: What’s feeding your anxiety?
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Are you an anxious soul? Do you think that sometimes you are busy being upset about being upset? Do you find that you are overwhelmed with stress about something one day only to find that after rest and reflection you don’t know why you reacted so strongly?
Sometimes our creative minds elaborate details of a situation to actually make it harder to cope. The following is a simple, powerful exercise to identify and learn from thoughts that have developed a mind of their own (forgive the pun, please).
With regard to an event that is bothering you, write the details of what happened…just the facts.
Now write how you feel and all of the interpretations of the event that bother you…the fiction.
Finally, write the story (or a couple of sentences) of how you can successfully deal with this event. Identify all of your resources and highlight the resilience that you know yourself to have.
How you feel when you separate the fact from fiction? Notice if and how much your worried mind created a story far worse than reality. Reflect on how anxious you were before separating the details from the worried thoughts. Do you have more energy to cope with the situation when you relate to the facts without allowing your worried thoughts to influence and overwhelm your emotions? Do you feel energized by thinking through the ways in which you can handle the situation when you identify your strengths?
Click below for a worksheet to guide you in this exercise.
FACT OR FICTION
*Disclaimer: Contents of this blog and throughout this site are intended as additional resources for people already in or considering psychotherapy. It is not a replacement for therapy and if at any point you feel you are in crisis, please call the National Crisis Line 1-844-493-8255, Text "Talk" to 38255, call 911 or go to your nearest emergency room.