Self-help principle #10:
Put things in true perspective -- don't "catastrophize."One of the archenemies that keeps anxiety sufferers mired in their problem is the false belief that if a certain thing were to happen, they couldn't stand it. Such a thing -- whatever it is -- would be unbearable and make life a hell. So goes the reasoning.
But of course, you've already made life a hell by adopting these beliefs.
Albert Ellis, the founder of Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy, calls this condition "I-can't-stand-it-itis." If such-and-such were to happen, I couldn't stand it. Therefore, it must not happen. It can't happen. If it does, it would be terrible.
I've found it helpful to challenge those beliefs on a regular basis -- not with phony "positive thinking," but with rational thought. The first thing is to admit that a certain outcome would, indeed, be unpleasant and contrary to my preferences. There's no denying that. Suppose you're worried about losing your job. It makes no sense to adopt a Pollyanna "positive thinking" approach. You know what I mean: "It will never happen. There's no sense worrying. After all, things are just getting better and better every day."
The reason such affirmations don't work is because your rational thought process is not so easily fooled. You know those things are not true. You know that there is always a chance that you might lose your job. And it would be unpleasant. Better to think along these lines:
"Yes, I could lose my job. I would prefer not to. It would be unpleasant. But it wouldn't be terrible or awful. Other people have lost their jobs and they haven't curled up into a fetal position and died. People lose jobs all the time without going mad, or starving or becoming street people. Sure it would be tough, but if it happened to me, I'd have to handle it. It would be a temporary period of discomfort in my life, a setback for sure, but it would pass."
Note here that this line of reasoning distinguishes between the preferences and the musts. It says, "I would prefer not to lose my job," not, "I must keep my job at all costs or it would be the end of me." The latter is an example of what Ellis calls "musty" thinking or "musterbation." And it's the kind of absolute thinking that causes us to upset ourselves.
And I am convinced that the greatest percentage of our worry and anxiety -- the greatest by far -- is exactly that: us upsetting ourselves. We create low tolerance for discomfort by "catastrophizing" discomfort. Then we tell ourselves that certain scenarios would bring an unbearable level of discomfort.
And so, it helps to spend some time every day challenging our false beliefs, those laden with "musts" and "shoulds," and replacing them with rational beliefs. Beliefs that are honest about the discomfort a given situation might bring, but also affirming that it would be tolerable.
But wait, you might reason. Aren't there some things that would be intolerable? Not as many things as we think would be. For example, it would be pretty close to intolerable if someone were imprisoned in a concentration camp and subjected to daily torture (although some people have lived through such experiences and gone on to live rich lives). Granted, that would be extremely miserable. But to lose a relationship or a job or the respect of a certain person would not be in this category. To endure a panic attack is not in this category. It's in the category of "unpleasant" but not "intolerable."
What about the loss of health? Wouldn't that be intolerable? While it may be extremely unpleasant and sorrowful, it need not be intolerable. Many people with painful, chronic and even terminal illnesses manage to find a degree of happiness in their lives that make them worth living.
Most of what we worry about would not be awful, terrible or intolerable if it were to happen -- only unpleasant. And usually only temporarily. The more often we remind ourselves, the freer we will be of the dread with which we upset ourselves.
