Neg thoughts and anxiety opinion please.

[johnnypict]

I have a lady coming to me who has negative thoughts and anxiety. She is also on the anti depressant 'Lofepramine'.

She is 6 months pregnant and has had a couple of scares, also some bad relationships in the past.

I have an idea on how to approach this but would like some opinions or experienced feedback on what you may suggest as the way forward.

Any little helps.

Thanks,

John

[Jay Budzynski]

Hi John


Who says they are negative thoughts?  Can they be classed just has thoughts with out the emotional presupposition attached to the thoughts- Lets see if I can demonstrate you have a glass with some water in it which just so happens to fill half of the glass- so is the glass half full or half empty- well its both and neither- in fact its just a glass with water in it. thoughts are just the same- thoughts are just like the glass- and you can class them good or bad or just has thoughts- which are neither good nor bad-

Yet has you have to work with her model of the world, one ask her what would be the difference between a series of bad thoughts and a series of good thoughts- only spend 1-3 minute engaging with the so-called bad thoughts- yet spend as much time as you can engaging with good thoughts.

Heres a pattern I created years ago- to help people and my self replace negative thought patterns- what you do it you create a list of positive roll models, so you can use friends and family or people like Michael Neill, Paul McKenna, Deepak Chopra or famous movie stars- etc. and what you do is you make a list of positive statements- now you assign 1 or 2 statements to each roll model- now you create a little journey in the imagination, it could be from ones house to ones place of work, or it could be along a a path in an enchanted garden- or any place were there you can turn in to a mental journey- I myself use a tunnel- the type you get in fairground rides- and what I have along my tunnel is little windows with my roll models whispering the positive statements to me has I walk through the tunnel- Use has much imagination has you can and make the whole idea as light hearted and as much fun as you can-

Anxiety tends to come from being overwhelmed and trying to a tend too, to many things at the same time, so it engages the autonomic and limbic systems in ways that are less than supportive- you can create way that will help slow that anxiety way down or even to a point so it does not happen- first thing to consider is to practice run ones memories backwards- so you find a group of memories were anxiety was the theme and you run them backwards-just like watching a DVD when you press rewind- this changes the neuro-circuits so it helps in turning of the automatic triggering response- normally when anyone starts to have feeling of anxiety what we all tend to do is take a deep breathe in- this is a key trigger to the limbic system flight-flight response- so if we was to train our selves to breathe out first- it would stop that auto-response that tends to happen- again you can use past real life experiences to train this in- This nest bit I wrote on NLP Connections - a while ago- So first thing to ask yourself What would I like to feel instead? Just for this I am going to choose calm-confident, yet you can choose any number of state based resources you care to- So get into feeling (calm-confident) notice how that feels, and play with it for awhile so that you can step in and out of calm-confident into how ever your feeling in the moment- now add this while feeling (calm-confident) and practice that feeling calm-confident and press your index finger and thumb together, and repeat that a few times- so when ever you press the finger and thumb together you feel that calm-confident feeling- practice that for a little-

Now heres where the magic lay- you need a pen and pad- do this as fast as you can only taking 3 minutes- and has many times that you have had this anxiety/panic just use key words or phrases- if you can get in the very first one you can remember- and any others you can, the order does not matter, so its ok that there out of sequence, now go back to your list, and start at the top, think about number 1- while you do that breath out ever bit of air you can and while doing that press your finger and thumb together at the same time, and repeat that 3 times per key word/phrase you have on your list, leaving a 3-5 minute gap between each run, once you have done your list, think of some possible time where panic may come up, and breath out fully 3 times, so now you have assciated breathing out to anxity and you have now swtiched off that inbuilt responce you used to have, and you have added a sence of calm-confidence init place.

Take your time doing this, and repeat it a few times, and take the time to get good qulity resources states, and this very simple re-sequncing will change your old pattrens in a very short time, and from time to time just reenfoce your finger and thumb anchor-

hope some of these ideas have been helpful.

Jay             

[JamesTheFox]

Hey Johnny.

A good idea is to invite her to do more of what she enjoys doing.  Have her brainstorm a few ideas.  Then, suggest to her opportunities of doing them during the day.  It's always a good idea to just give this a go because a few things will happen: she may have less batches of negativity; she may not need anti depressants as much; she may feel safer during the day.  But make sure you invite her to do so and not force her.  Give her plenty of information (hard evidence, preferably, and not anecdotes) that doing more of what makes you happy during the day is both rewarding and healthy, and her intuition will most likely agree.

For the thoughts and fear problems, I suggest a skeptical attitude.  Now I don't mean skeptical as in cynical - I mean skeptical as in only ready to believe the thoughts and fears are true if there's some real proof.  My personal admiration for being skeptical is that I am ready to be wrong about things.  And I can be wrong about being afraid as well.  So what I suggest is that she does everything she possibly can to disprove the fear and eventually, unless fear is really needed, she will find a hard and solid reason not to be afraid of what she thinks.  And that this point she will be very unlikely to continue believing that the thoughts/fears are still real once she 'wakes up' and sees that in reality she has no true reason to be afraid.

Also, try offering not to try so hard to 'figure everything out' all the time.  Chances are very likely that she already has the answers.  Best way to stop this is just to disengage from the thoughts and put the problem to one side for a couple of minutes.  What will happen is that when she comes back to it, she may have an answer because she's calmed down a bit and given space for the inner wisdom to come up.  If she feels like she has to figure it out, try reminding her that the problem will still be there after the two minute break.

[johnnypict]

Thanks for your feedback.

I was thinking along these lines and I'll wait to see her face to face before deciding which route to go.

Thanks again.

John

[Anja]

Good morning,

thank you Jay for you inspiring post. There is a lot fo me in it these days!!!

I am glad you're are posting again. I really like the way you help to create insight and support to overcome obstacles!! THANK YOU!

Love
Anja

[Jay Budzynski]

Hi Anja


Thanks for you nice words its always a pleasure to be able to contribute.


Hugs and manly handshakes

Jay

[Michelle Young]

I love reading your posts Jay.. Thank you

[Terri Carey]

Ask her what she does to overcome the anxiety - have her remind herself of times she has successfully done so and have her acknowledge herself for that and she will see she already has the skills but forgets them from time to time.

Jay you are amazingly helpful - what a gift to have you in the forum!

Terri