The Dangers of Absolute Thinking
One of the best ways to stay anxious is to be inflexible.
The biggest reason why many anxiety sufferers are inflexible is because they think in absolute terms.
Everything is all or nothing. In other words, you don’t just get chest pain, you get potential heart attacks. You don’t just get headaches, but potential brain tumors and so on.
Learning how to break the chains of absolute thinking is essential to getting rid of your abnormal anxiety.
At the height of my anxiety illness I’d always rely on my best guess about what was going to happen because of my severe anxiety. I sat around and dreamt up outlandish disasters and always thought in terms of worst case scenarios.
Every time I experienced anxiety I absolutely thought something bad was going to happen to me. And it was this long term anticipatory anxiety that kept my anxiety alive and kicking.
What I didn’t know then was that this is normal for someone with an anxiety problem. See, anxiety doesn’t just turn on fear. It also turns on worry, hostility, assumption, and insecurity, among other things.
All of your emotions, thoughts, and physical symptoms get interlocked and aimed at the same target, namely how to find ways to forecast and avoid your worst fears. Of course, just because your brain wants to do this doesn’t mean you have to let it.
There are steps you can take to regain control of your thoughts and behavior, so you can stop living in the future.
Over the last few weeks I’ve talked about the importance of learning how to adapt to anxiety and change. Both of which are key ingredients for reducing anxiety. Today I want to share with you a podcast about how you can stop thinking in absolute terms.
In this podcast I discuss:
- How inflexible and rigid thinking feeds your anxiety.
- Why you think in absolute terms.
- My own experience with absolute thinking.
- What you can do to stop absolute thinking.
Press play now to listen.
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11 Responses to “The Dangers of Absolute Thinking”
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I like how you’ve been adding the podcasts to the end of your posts recently. I’m much more prone to listen to them this way…and they’re really, really good!
Oh…and also, this post is SO spot on.
Hi Emily,
Thanks for your support! I’m glad that you’re enjoying the podcasts. Making podcasts is always fun for me and I think it’s a great way to share my thoughts on anxiety issues.
Such an enlightening podcast. A closely related problem I have is dealing with uncertainty. I have so much fear because I’m afraid of the unknowns, of what will happen in the future. That should be your next topic!
Hi Sara, that is actually a great idea. Will do.
Thanks for another great one, Paul!
You bet Bryan. I love doing this!
This podcast really spoke to me, this whole issue of control and flexibility in the face of the unknown. That is my little can of worms I suppose. Not being able to CONTROL my reactions, my heartbeat, thoughts etc is a real blow to the ego and self confidence. Your podcast helped me to see the problems with rigid thinking. Thanks for all that you do!
Another good podcast! I really enjoy these, and I appreciate the effort you put into preparing them.
I have been thinking about the information you have been sharing with us, and I have come to realize that most of my anxiety isn’t about a situation, but instead it’s from me being afraid of how I will react. I am afraid of myself! Sounds nuts, but isn’t that what a lot of this is all about?
I have enjoyed your podcasts that touch on this, since I thought I was the only one feeling this way!
Hi Sue,
Afraid of yourself, you’ve never said anything more true. Indeed, that is a big part of the problem. Afraid of your own thoughts, potential reactions, others people’s reaction to you and so on. This is a universal problem for those that suffer from anxiety. You’re not alone by a long shot.
Thank you so much for the podcasts I recently found this website and it helps so much! I’m 21 and have suffered from anxiety for about 2 years now but it never used to be as bad as it is and I felt like I was the only person in the world who had it and I refuse to take medication. But I found this website yesterday and for the first time in a year I walked through the store without having an anxiety attack thank you!!