Have you ever been watching your child at play, feeling love and joy and all of a sudden find your thoughts spinning off into all sorts of worry? Has one worrisome thought ever brought on a terrible cycle of more fearful thoughts? If this has happened you are not alone.
Sometimes worry is a fleeting feeling of concern which is just a part of being a parent, trying to protect a child. But, for parents of children who have special needs it is understandable that worry can take on a whole new meaning. The reality is, that your child has to overcome additional hardships and you are now dealing with the additional stress that comes with loving and caring about your child. Wanting to protect your child and at times feeling helpless not knowing what the future will hold. When we create thoughts about possible negative future concerns, ones that are outside of anyone’s control these types of worry serve no positive purpose. And these are the ones we will talk about changing because they can create great pain that mixes in with the joy and love of your child.
Before I talk about techniques to stop worry in its tracks, let’s look at the positive purpose of worry. It can alert you to things that need to be taken care of, or of consequences of certain actions. Worry can keep you watchful for symptoms that indicate a possible life-threatening problem, or it can motivate you to take care of something that needs to be done. But when worry starts to cycle into all sorts of negative, scary future possibilities over which you have no control it stops serving a positive purpose.
So, why are some people more prone to worry than others? The reason people react differently is rooted in what they experience in childhood. Children learn patterns to deal with stress that serve a positive purpose at the time, but many times these patterns are no longer useful for the adult. Children also form beliefs in childhood continue to run in adulthood. I had a client who believed that worrying about someone meant that she cared. You can see how difficult it would be for her to stop worrying about those she cared about, until she was able to change that old belief. I had another client who felt that if she didn’t worry something bad would happen. She had an number of experiences in her very traumatic childhood where she learned that just it wasn’t safe to just be, she had to run every possible consequence through her mind to keep her safe from her alcoholic parent. She learned that worry protected her, so that even as an adult, she found it difficult to let go of the old belief that if you don’t worry something bad will happen. There are techniques to change these types of patterns and beliefs, which are best done with someone trained in Transformation System techniques. There are also techniques to use your own thoughts to change patterns, and that is what I will share with you today.
It may surprise you to learn that you can get relief from even the most painful feelings. These techniques are easy to learn and with practice they can become part of a new way of reacting to worry
If you feel anxiety, worry, sadness or even anger, you already have the secret of changing these feeling. It does require knowing how your mind works which gives us information that can be used to change old patterns. More on this in my next post tomorrow.
Tags: Add new tag, anxiety, anxiety control center, audrey sussman, behaviorial therapy, cognitive therapy, fear, hypnosis, hypnotherapy, Manhattan, manhattan therapists, migraine, new york therapists, phobia, procrastination, sadness, stress, Stress Relief Solutions, TeleSeminars, tension, trauma, worry
Recent Comments