What We’re Getting Completely Wrong About Mental Health

Do you want to be happier, healthier, or less anxious?

If you turn to the internet for tips and tricks, you’ll find plenty of vague, incredibly obvious advice, such as…

Stop caring what other people think.
Be compassionate with yourself.
Stop worrying.

You’ll find quotes about how “worrying is like sitting in a rocking chair…it gets you nowhere.”

I’m sorry, but…DUH.

We all know that bad mental habits (like worrying or comparing ourselves to others) are not useful and feel terrible.

But HOW do we stop worrying when we have 30,000 thoughts per day and our thoughts appear in our brains so quickly and automatically that we don’t even feel like they’re a choice?

Here’s the cliff notes version.

1. Accept your current thoughts. When we resist our thoughts, it creates a stress response in our bodies – which your brain interprets as important because it perceives that there is a threat – and your brain will keep going back to those thoughts. This is how we can get stuck obsessing and ruminating.
2. Talk back to your brain. We can’t control every thought that comes into our brains (that would be exhausting), but we can intentionally redirect our brains to more useful thoughts on occasion.

Here are some examples.

Default thought: They don’t like me.
Intentional thought: I’m not for everyone, and that’s okay.

Default thought: What if [insert worst case scenario here] happens?
Intentional thought: Even if that happens, I’d be able to get through it with God’s help.

Default thought: I’m a failure.
Intentional thought: This was my first time trying this, so of course I had no idea what I was doing. I’m learning, and I’m proud of myself for trying something new.

Over time, as you practice intentional thoughts, you’ll be able to rewire the neural pathways in your brain. The old patterns (your default thoughts) will come up less and less often, and the new patterns (intentional thoughts) will become your default.

I used to be a very self-critical, anxious person who worried all the time. That will never go away completely. I’m still human!

But learning about HOW to change my thoughts has given me so much peace. I’m so much less anxious than I used to be and I’m much more compassionate with myself.

This stuff works.

Try it out.