The Negative Spiral

This is a quick one. More for my own benefit, but as usual, perhaps it may help someone else too. I wanted to write a quick little blurb on that negative thoughts spiral. Maybe even mood spiral. When I get anxious, there are two types of negative spirals that usually occur.

The first is in my mind. Someone my therapist calls "The Critic" shows up and basically just talks a lot of S$*T at me. Thoughts about myself that make me feel wrong, silly, judged, annoying, stupid, frustrating etc. It starts with something simple and the thoughts just keep swirling and swirling until I'm curled up on my bed shaking until I can't stay awake any longer listening to the pointed words I'm spitting at myself. 

The other form is in a loss of confidence in myself and situations around me.  One thing might trigger my anxiety and suddenly I'm convincing myself not to go out, not to buy a dress, not to send a message or write the blog post. I let one thing scare me off, then another, then another and another. I let that one event spiral and pull in more unrelated events and let them all be effected. 

I don't really have much of a solution to this except to breath and acknowledge how you are feeling. What emotion is it? Fear? Embarrassment? Guilt? And then being okay with feeling it - I am afraid and that's okay.  We convince ourselves that we can't have these emotions. Why not? They are there to protect us. Take it easy and try not to start jumping to conclusions. That's not easy - it sometimes feels second nature to me. You assume the feeling of shame because you assume that you should feel ashamed. But if you stop to think about it....why am I feeling that shame? Can you pin point it? We often start thinking other people are the ones shaming us, but most of the time it's our own inner critic pushing us into those corners where we feel alone and bad about ourselves, not someone else. 

I am still working on all those things. They get mixed up and jumbled and it's hard to differentiate. I guess there isn't really one clear solution. However, I think one of the most important things we can do for ourselves is try not to make any big decisions when we feel like this. Wait until we've had some time to recover, calm down and re-think. If we make decisions in that negative spiral, that's when we miss out on things we are completely capable of and maybe things we actually really wanted. Our mindset in that negative spiral is convincing us that we don't deserve it, we don't want it, we're scared etc. Which is not always the case for me. 

I know all that was a little bit mixed up, but sometimes you have to mix things all up before you can get clarity. Here's hoping one of us will get some of that! 

Take good care!