Anxiety is like a distorting lens through which you view the world. Your anxiety lens filters out rays of hope, blocks your view of possible good outcomes, blurs anything positive, brings the negative into sharp focus, and magnifies any kind of threat in your life.
You are probably reading this chapter because in chapter 2 you identified misappraisal as one of the problems that significantly contributes to your anxiety. Misappraisal is the inaccurate or distorted assessment of danger or threat. When you consistently overestimate the level of threat you are facing, you set yourself up for chronic anxiety.
All misappraisals of threat arise from three negative thinking patterns, or habits of perception that distort reality. The three negative thinking patterns that comprise the anxiety lens are:
In this chapter you will determine which of these negative thinking patterns you use most often and practice exercises that will help you correct your anxiety lens, more accurately assess threats, and reduce your anxiety.
The first step in correcting your anxiety lens is to practice identifying the three negative thinking patterns. In the first exercise you will analyze typical anxiety thoughts and categorize them. In the second exercise you will do the same, using your own anxiety thoughts from a Thought Log that you keep for a week.
Your mind does its best to prepare you for possible danger, assess your ability to cope, and keep you safe. It’s part of your human survival instinct. But sometimes the anxiety your mind creates is more of a problem than the threats it seeks to avoid. The exercises in this section will allow you to take a step back from your thoughts, to notice how your mind’s natural survival instinct can go too far, and to see how your anxiety thoughts go beyond protecting you and instead make you feel scared and unable to cope. Take your time doing these exercises and don’t skimp on them. They will lay down a solid foundation of analytical skill that will serve you well in the rest of the chapter and the rest of your life.
Recognizing Negative Thinking Patterns
This exercise will give you practice in discriminating among negative predictions, negative focus, and problem magnification. To get you started, here are some examples of the three types of negative thinking:
Now that you have some idea of the differences among the three negative thought patterns, categorize the anxiety thoughts below as:
Answer key: 2. C, 3. A, 4. B, 5. C, 6. A, 7. B, 8. C, 9. A, 10 B.
How did you do? Don’t worry if you got some wrong answers. It is not easy to make these subtle distinctions among the three types of negative thinking that lead to anxiety. They tend to overlap and blend into each other, since all anxiety is to some degree concerned with predicting the future, highlighting the negative, and magnifying problems. And short statements like these are open to subjective interpretation. You will probably find the next exercise easier, when you are dealing with your own anxiety thoughts, expressed in your own words, in situations where you know the full details.
For the next week, keep a Thought Log. Whenever you feel anxious, jot down a few words to sum up what you are thinking. Then note whether the thought is primarily negative prediction, negative focus, or problem magnification.
Make several copies of this worksheet so you’ll have enough for the week. (A downloadable version of this worksheet is available at http://www.newharbinger.com/34749.)
Thought Log
| Thought | Negative
prediction |
Negative
focus |
Problem magnification |
|---|---|---|---|
After a week, look back at your log and notice which type of negative thinking pattern most often creates your anxiety. Take some time to consider how your habits of thought have contributed to painful anxiety over the course of your life.
The exercises that follow are organized according to which of the three negative thinking patterns they most directly target. You should read over all of them to familiarize yourself with the various methods of correcting your anxiety lens. Then go back and really get to work on the exercises that are most appropriate for your particular style of misappraisal.
This whole chapter is designed to increase your cognitive flexibility. Cognitive flexibility means that you are able to come up with several explanations or interpretations for any event or situation. This section teaches three ways to handle negative predictions flexibly: by calculating the “Validity Quotient,” by keeping a Predictions Log, and by exploring the purpose of your predictions.
Calculating the Validity Quotient
This exercise will give you a concrete number to score how accurately your negative predictions forecast the future. It targets a single negative prediction, going back five years in your life to count how many times the prediction has come true.
Pick a negative prediction that you often find yourself making. It can be something you worry about happening to your kids; in your primary relationship; or in your finances, health, job, or school situation. Sum up the negative prediction in a few words and write it here:
In the last five years, how many times have you made this prediction? Estimate the number of times and write it here: ______
How many times in the last five years has this prediction come true? Count up the number of times and write it here: ______
Divide the second number by the first number and write the result here: Validity Quotient______
This calculation gives you the Validity Quotient, the exact odds of your negative prediction coming true. If you are like most anxious people, this number will be a very small fraction or decimal number—way less than 1. Here is an example of how Conrad determined the Validity Quotient of his worries about his teenage son’s driving:
Donny’s so reckless, I worry he’s going to crash the car and hurt himself.
In the last five years, how many times have you made this prediction? Estimate the number of times and write it here: 250
How many times in the last five years has this prediction come true? Count up the number of times and write it here: 1
Divide the second number by the first number and write the result here: Validity Quotient 0.004
In the past five years, Conrad’s son Donny had had one small fender bender that gave him a sore neck for a couple of days. Conrad realized that he had spent hours and hours worrying about Donny getting in an accident, when in fact the likelihood, the Validity Quotient of that negative prediction, was very small.
Keeping a Predictions Log
In the previous exercise, you worked on past predictions. In this exercise you will keep track of your negative predictions as they occur, jotting them down in the Predictions Log that follows. From time to time you will review what you have written and see which predictions have come true.
Over the next week or two, carry a copy of the log with you. Every time you catch yourself worrying about the future, write down a brief summary of the negative predictions you are making in your mind. (A downloadable version of this contract is available at http://www.newharbinger.com/34749.)
| Predictions
(What terrible thing will happen and when) |
What actually occurred |
|---|---|
When the predicted time of each terrible thing arrives, get out your Predictions Log and note what actually occurred. How many of your predictions came true? Of those that did come true, if any, how many were as terrible as you thought they would be?
When Jenny did this exercise, she was approaching finals week at the junior college where she was taking nursing classes. She wrote six different predictions about her school work: that she would flunk Anatomy, that she’d get a bad grade in Statistics, that her advisor would make her switch to a lab tech program, and so on. Of all six catastrophic predictions, only one actually occurred. She got a C-minus in Statistics, which didn’t look very good on her record, but she passed. Keeping her Predictions Log helped Jenny see that her negative predictions were just thoughts, not sure things. She felt a little less anxious about her classes, more confident about her career choice, and calmer when she went to see her advisor to plan the next semester.
Questioning the Purpose of Predictions
This exercise is simple. When you catch yourself making negative predictions about the future, ask yourself these two questions:
Every activity has a purpose, including the mental activity of thinking about the future and making predictions. You will find that the purpose of negative predictions is almost always the same: to reduce uncertainty, to prepare you for bad things that might happen, and to somehow keep you safe. And you will find that the answer to question number 2 is almost always the same: Your predictions make you feel more anxious and threatened, not less. Dwelling on catastrophic visions of the future does not make you feel more secure, does not make you feel more prepared, and does not make you feel safe.
When you notice that you are worrying and making negative predictions, ask yourself these two questions and let the answers serve as a reminder that your anxious thoughts are not accomplishing anything. This will help you notice your thoughts, take them less seriously, and let them go more easily.
Your anxiety lens focuses your awareness on the negative aspects of any situation, exaggerating dangers, ramping up your feelings of fear, and blinding you to the positive factors in the situation. The first two exercises in this section will help you expand your focus, and the third will analyze the purpose of negative focus.
Big Picture Awareness
Viewing your life constantly through the lens of anxiety can be like watching a horror or action movie shot entirely in close-up. Everything is huge, fast, and scary. It’s confusing and claustrophobic. You never see a wide shot in which you can relax, get your bearings, clearly identify everything that is going on, and understand a scene from a comfortable distance.
When you focus consistently on the negative it’s like listening to music and hearing only the dissonant, sour notes. Whether you are thinking about your job, an upcoming trip or move, your relationship, your health, or where you live, you zero in on the negative details that turn everything dark and frightening.
The way to modify this cognitive habit is to regularly step back and look at the big picture. After you have said or thought something negative about a situation, find at least two things that are positive about it. Make this a rule—that for each negative appraisal you make of a situation, experience, or person, you will come up with two positive aspects.
Here is a list of possible considerations that will help you find the positive in a situation that at first appears only negative. Keep a copy of these on an index card and carry it with you in your purse or pocket.
When you find that you are focusing on the negative, take a look at the ideas on your index card. Balance your perspective by identifying two positive aspects of what you are thinking about.
It’s not wrong or stupid to make negative evaluations, and they might even be true. But it’s one-sided. There are always some positive aspects to every situation, and ignoring them leads to chronic anxiety.
For example, Joyce was looking for a better job. She hated making calls on the phone to follow up on resumes she had emailed. All she could see when she contemplated calling a prospective employer was that she was very vulnerable, that she was opening herself up for rejection. She consulted her index card of possible positives and reminded herself that the calls were a chance to learn valuable information about each company, and that she would feel a sense of accomplishment by making the calls.
Remember that nearly all experiences are a blend of the pleasant and the unpleasant, the positive and the negative. Widening your focus to include the big picture will make your habitual thinking patterns more flexible and less likely to lead straight to anxiety.
Seeing Both Sides of the Coin
Most painful experiences have a flip side—some beneficial lesson learned, insight gained, friendship deepened, or ability improved. This tendency for a bad experience to include an opposite, compensatory good experience is the basis for clichés like “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” and “Every cloud has a silver lining.”
Your anxiety lens prevents you from easily seeing the other side of the coin, but it’s there. The dreaded airplane flight does eventually deliver you to some place you want or need to go. The terrifying speech or interview can lead to acclaim or a better job. The walk past the neighbor’s barking dogs gives you a shorter route home and the satisfaction of overcoming fear.
As with the previous Big Picture Awareness exercise, the positive aspects of painful situations tend to lie in certain categories:
Practice seeing both sides of the coin by filling out the worksheet below with three negative experiences you have had, and the possible positive sides of those experiences.
Both Sides Worksheet
| Negative experience | Positive side of the coin |
|---|---|
John used this exercise to explore his experiences as a bookkeeper for a large nonprofit foundation. He had been anxious about making mistakes, getting fired, and being unemployed. Going to work seemed like a purely stressful and tense experience, but he thought long and hard about the positive side of the coin. He realized that he did enjoy and value the two colleagues with whom he ate lunch once a week. A positive evaluation from his supervising accountant—something that usually would make him think, I fooled them for another year—this time gave him a feeling of job satisfaction. And finally, he realized that he really did value the philanthropic programs that his organization financed. He felt that he was contributing something positive and doing something worthwhile by going to work every day.
Understanding the Purpose of Negative Focus
Every human behavior has a purpose, even thought. Negative focus tends to have one or more of these purposes:
Think about the negative thoughts that you tend to dwell on. Which of these purposes could your thoughts be trying to achieve? You might even come up with a purpose we haven’t listed.
The key question is this: Are your negative thoughts achieving their purpose? Are they discharging anxiety, helping you avoid disappointment, or making you a better person? If they are, that’s good. But since you are reading this book, chances are that your negative focus goes too far, goes beyond any reasonable purpose, and is just causing you distress.
Fact is, most people overdo negative focus and get no benefit from it. They feel more pain, not less. They cannot avoid all future stressful situations. Their anxious thoughts make them feel less safe, not more.
When you find that you are focusing on the negative, ask yourself whether your thoughts are really serving any beneficial purpose. If they are not benefiting you, label those thoughts as unnecessary negative focus. Tell yourself, “There’s one of my negative, anxiety-provoking thoughts again.” Just labeling the thoughts will create distance and allow you to let them go. Of course, they will return, but when they do you will know how to question their purpose and let them go again. Eventually, these thoughts will become less potent and troubling.
When your anxiety lens magnifies problems, they become too huge to surmount. They dominate your mental landscape, fence you into a cage of anxiety, and prevent you from moving forward in your life. The exercises in this final section of the chapter will help you dial down the magnification factor, correct your anxiety lens, and view your problems as something closer to their actual size.
Problem Continuum
One way to judge size is by comparison to nearby objects. This exercise places your current problems on a continuum, or scale, of problems that range from huge to tiny. Read over the list of problems that follow and pick the largest, worst one. Rewrite it in the top blank space in the middle column. Then pick the next largest problem and rewrite that one in the second space in the middle column. Continue until you have ranked all the problems from biggest to smallest.
Then pick your own largest problem, the thing you worry about most. Write it down in one of the spaces on the right, picking a spot where it fits in the continuum of problems, across from a problem of about the same size, with a larger problem above it and a smaller problem below it. Do this with one or two other problems you worry about. (A downloadable version of this contract is available at http://www.newharbinger.com/34749.)
| Problems | Problem continuum | |
|---|---|---|
| (Rank big to small) | Your problems | |
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A terminal diagnosis |
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Death of a loved one |
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Loss of your job |
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House foreclosure |
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Divorce/breakup |
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Mild criticism from your boss |
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Mild disagreement with a friend |
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Loss of your wallet |
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A big auto repair bill |
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Car breakdown—need to be towed |
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Refrigerator needs replacing |
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Late for work |
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When Sherrie did this exercise, she found that visiting her sick mother-in-law, driving on the bridge, and going to the dentist, which all seemed enormous to her, barely made it halfway up the problem continuum. It put her problems in perspective and made her grateful that she still had her health and her husband and a job.
If you forget your glasses in a restaurant, you can have a friend read the blurry words on the menu for you. This exercise works kind of the same way. Since you sometimes see the world through a distorting anxiety lens, you are going to imagine that your problems are being viewed and described for you, by someone else.
Do you have a level-headed friend whom nothing ever seems to bother? One of those practical, resilient, down-to-earth folks who seldom worries? The kind who stays calm in frantic situations and says things like, “Relax and don’t sweat the small stuff”?
Imagine that kind of person describing your problems for you. Actually close your eyes, take a couple of deep breaths, and imagine that you can hear that person’s voice, speaking in the first person (as you), talking about your situation and your fears. Listen to the voice of your friend using neutral, accurate, factual words to lay out your life.
In the space below, sum up what you hear in this imaginary description.
When George did this exercise, he imagined his second cousin Marjorie describing his relationship and living situation. George had just moved into a very expensive apartment with his new girlfriend, Carol, who made a lot more money than he did, came from a wealthy family, and had Champagne and caviar tastes. George’s own mental summary of his situation went something like this:
I’m screwed. I’m way out of my league with Carol. I don’t dare tell her I can’t afford this place. I’m barely making it and she wants to have the place painted and buy a gazillion bucks’ worth of furniture. As soon as she sees what a cheapskate loser I am, she’s sure to dump me.
When George imagined Cousin Marjorie describing his situation, it sounded more factual, more confident, and a lot less dire:
I’m not sure Carol realizes I can’t swing a full half of these expenses. I need to make it clear that if she wants this kind of lifestyle, she’ll have to pay for more than half. If that bothers her, I’m better off knowing now, and so is she. Hopefully, our relationship is more important to her than furniture, but if not, I guess I’m also better off knowing that now.
This exercise is simplicity itself. It’s based on the truisms that things change, time marches on, and nothing lasts forever. When you are obsessing about one of your problems, ask yourself this simple question: How long will I remember this problem and be worried about it? (Choose one.)
Clarice was worried about her upcoming wedding—the venue, the dress, the flowers, the registry, the guest list, the million details that kept her up at night and made her so tense she would snap at anyone who had the temerity to tell her to calm down and relax. It helped to ask herself, “How long will I remember this problem? Will I be insanely worried forever?” She realized that the day after the wedding her worry would plummet. By the time she experienced her first anniversary, giving birth to a child, or buying a house, she would have forgotten almost all the worries of the wedding. Clarice still worried about her wedding, but taking the long view once in a while kept things a bit more in perspective, and allowed her to be less of what her maid of honor called “Monster Bride.”
There is one time when you should not use the new techniques you’ve learned in this chapter: while you are doing the exposure exercises in the earlier chapters in this book. The whole point of exposure treatment is to fully experience the anxiety associated with specific situations, thoughts, or events. During those highly structured exercises, using the techniques in this chapter can actually make results take longer to achieve. So save your anxiety lens correction skills for those times when you are not actively working on specific fears. Use them when you catch yourself in garden-variety worrying, in a free-floating state of anxiety.
Correcting your anxiety lens is a long-term project. Continuing to do the exercises in this chapter will help you develop new habits of thought over time. It’s like getting glasses for the first time. At first you forget to put them on in the morning, you leave them on your dining room table or in your car, or you reach for them and can’t immediately recall where you left them. But eventually you develop the habits that keep your glasses within arm’s reach. Likewise, repeated practice will keep your anxiety-reduction habits fresh. You’ll remember to analyze your negative predictions, sweeten your negative focus, and cut your problem magnification down to actual size.
Turn to the next chapter to learn the last of the auxiliary skills for handling anxiety: distress tolerance.