It’s time to stop catastrophizing and winding down the rabbit hole of your mind.
To catastrophize is to imagine the worst possible scenario or outcome for a situation or to view a situation as worse than it is.
You’ve heard the terms ‘rabbit hole’ and ‘echo chamber’ as they pertain to internet culture and conspiracy theories. Today, I am talking about the rabbit hole of your mind and the echo chamber of your own thoughts.
When an idea takes root in the mind, it will continue to grow so long as you feed it with more thoughts. If it’s an idea about something you fear will happen, as you continue to ruminate, it will grow bigger and scarier and start to present itself as of more consequence than it actually is.
Even if you don’t see yourself as a creative person, you should know that your mind, all minds, are very creative. If you start down the rabbit hole of a worst-case scenario, your mind starts to paint and generate colorful scenarios of how things can go wrong and even of how they already went wrong.
“Feelings are just visitors. Let them come and go.” —Mooji
Then these fearful thoughts start to overload and overheat your mind, and your chest starts to tighten with anxiety, and then you are sad and worried, and you might even start to make decisions based on these pictures you’ve painted in your head, and then your life starts to resemble your fears.
“Oh, I’m just going to remove myself from this friend group, after yesterday, they definitely don’t want to see me anymore.”
“I’m definitely getting fired tomorrow, so I might as well spend the night feeling like a failure.”
“Our first date went great, but the more I think of it, I can see it went terribly, and I acted weird, and he probably thinks I’m the worst and will not text me tomorrow, and I will die alone”.
I remember as a kid when I would have certain fears and share them with my mum, she would say, “That is an idea from the pit of hell, so you must squash it now”. And then I would close my eyes tightly and think “squash squash”.
Last year, I was seconds and inches away from something I wanted so badly, and for a while, I walked around with the weight of that anticipation and the fear that it could all go wrong. My chest felt physically heavy from worry.
I was catastrophizing so badly that I was walking around like a zombie, lost in thought and scurrying deeper into my rabbit hole. Do you know that stress of the mind takes a physical toll on your body? I couldn’t take it anymore and decided to start assuming the best-case scenario. I closed my eyes and said “squash squash”.
Since I had no control over the outcome, I might as well expect the best. I tell you, after this switch in perspective, it was bliss. I ended up missing out on the opportunity, but that experience taught me a valuable lesson: worrying has no impact on the outcome of things that are out of your control. You just suffer for nothing.
“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” – Theologian Reinhold Niebuhr
I think sometimes we believe getting our hopes up is a moral failing or expecting the best for ourselves is a sign of our pride. So we pay penance in private to no one in particular, we perform humility even when no one is watching. We keep ourselves small, we don’t say what we want, we pretend to be at the mercy of fate even though deep down we want to scream I WANT TO BE FAMOUS, I DESERVE TO WIN THAT GRANT MONEY, I WANT CHRIS PINE TO LOVE ME (ok, maybe not this one).
Don’t think about what might go wrong, think about what could be right.”- unknown
You are just as much at the mercy of the unknown terrible as you are of the unknown wonderful.
Both are lands of fantasy, dwell in the one that keeps you sane.
Here are my steps to help you stop catastrophizing and climb your way out of the rabbit hole of your mind
Do all you can and leave it be: Read this quote again – God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
Think best-case scenario: remember that after you’ve done all you can, best-case scenarios are just as likely as worst-case scenarios. One thought process makes your life better; the other is pointless self-punishment.
Are you letting people in your head? Take back the wheel: Sometimes, the negative self-talk and catastrophizing are ignited or encouraged by people’s comments and opinions. Only you know what you are truly capable of. Don’t let people steer you off course with their advice of caution, even if they are well-meaning. This is where not oversharing your big plans comes in handy.
Maybe you are catastrophizing and don’t know it: This is for my logical buddies who believe that expecting the worst-case scenario is just being realistic, pragmatic, strategic, etc. Learn to prepare for the worst but hope for the best.
Even the most devastating rejection or failures are not final, simply a redirection. In life, especially if you make a habit of putting yourself out there and going after your heart’s desire, you will get some disappointments and lose some battles, but you will win even more battles.
Let your mind continue to dwell in the objective truth that most things will work out for you.
With Love, Jiji
