Through the years that I've been going to therapy there was a phrase that I heard a lot.."Challenge your thoughts".
Now its not partaking in the occasional brainteaser if thats what you were thinking but it does involve work and quite some "thought" as the phrase implies. I didnt quite grasp the importance of such a simple exercise until I started consciously working at it.
What it involves is consciously questioning your thoughts and analysing them to see whether a) they are rational , b) they are positive , c) they are helpful to your current situation and d) they are only unhelpful assumptions. Now when you have a tendency to make unhelpful assumotions that spur on your anxiety and make it a whole lot harder to deal with it is important to ask yourself (or challenge the unhelpful thoughts once identified) what about your thoughts are unhelpful so that you can change/challenge it by getting yourself to see that it is just your mind catastrophising.
It takes a lot of practice and mindfulness to make the way you challenge your thoughts to be completely effective, but as time goes by you will be creating a habit which will become a reaction to the negative/unhelpful thought! You are in effect changing the way you react to the world and situations around you.
I have been doing this for a while now and have reaped many benefits which includes a peace of mind that surpasses what I could reach in the past.
It truly is an effctive way of challenging your mental-illness and making the best of your mind and the way it works.
Another helpful tip is that you can write down the thought and analyse it on paper as this will make the answers easier to find and the solution even easier to find !
It is important to challenge your way of thinking as this helps you think more positively and it also helps you not give into the negativity that mental-illness brings.
Thanks for reading!
Till my next post! Ciao !:)