Obsessive thoughts are the real cause of almost all your anxiety. Every single time you’ve had severe anxiety it started with an obsessive thought, and it spiralled out of control and eventually became the severe anxiety you felt or the panic attack you had.
Just in case you’re thinking that you’re the exception to this theory, let me encourage you to give this theory a chance by beginning to pay close attention to exactly what’s on your mind in the time before your anxiety gets out of control.
I think you’ll be staggered to learn that obsessive thoughts are at the centre of your panic and anxiety. The reason I’m so confident about this is because I’ve interacted with literally hundreds of people who are in exactly your position, plus I also experienced these same problems for myself for almost 2 decades.
The really terrible thing about having an anxiety disorder is that you can’t just shut off your horrible thoughts like a lot of non-anxious people can. So you need a different option. And that option is to find ways to bring an instant halt to a potentially harmful thought before it ever has a chance to become an obsession.
I’m about to give you a fast, three-step plan of attack which you can start using right now to stop the thoughts you have turning into the obsessive thoughts that cause all your problems. Okay, here we go:
Step #1: You need to train yourself to be able to spot a damaging thought as soon as it starts inside you. So don’t ignore harmful thoughts, even when they seem small and harmless. Realise that these little thoughts can turn into big ones, and treat them like something you MUST stop.
Step #2: People with no anxiety problems drop a harmful or negative thought after a few seconds, and that’s why it doesn’t cause them anxiety. You need to become like them. And since the only way to stop one thought is by having ANOTHER thought, you need to think something else as soon as you detect any of these harmful thoughts. What should you think of? Anything – whatever it takes to stop that original and harmless thought.
Third Step: Your damaging thoughts usually begin when your mind is left to wander, or to daydream. This is how thinking these bad thoughts becomes a habit. By thinking these thoughts too often they start to happen on their own, and they creep up on you and do their damage. To end this problem, there’s only 1 answer: creating a new default frame of mind, one that’s calm, positive, and pleasant. You do this by thinking good, positive thoughts as often as you can, so that this becomes the type of thinking your brain does automatically when you aren’t paying attention.
I honestly believe that if you can use and stick to these 3 steps that your anxiety and panic and obsessive thoughts will be in better shape than they’ve been for many years.