Anxiety can be limiting.

I would start to think positively. I would start to rebuild my inner thoughts. I would go down the path of healing. Then something would trigger me and I would be at it again. I would then start to tell myself the same old limiting story of why I wasn’t good enough or why things wouldn’t work out. Then that would spiral into the worst possible case scenario.

Did the worst-case scenario ever happen? Nope. I just wasted my precious mental energy on prepping for dooms day and it never came. Sure maybe things didn’t go exactly as I planned, but doomsday never came.

What are some doomsday situations you are prepping for?

I blame nursing school. I blame circumstances. I blame death. That’s all fine and good. Yes. They are absolutely the reasons why my thought patterns ended up the way that they did. BUT I can’t focus on that. That’s in the past. I have no control over the past. Shifting focus to what I can control- now that’s how we get somewhere.

What is in your control today? What can we work on today that will make tomorrow better? How can we set ourselves up for a better tomorrow?

When we stay in that mental space of negative thoughts we limit ourselves. We limit our progress forward. We get stuck. Unable to move and unable to decide on a damn thing. AND depending on how severe our anxiety gets, it can be debilitating. It can affect our everyday life. Our everyday activities.

For a while, I found myself so guarded, so isolated. I found fault in every relationship I had. I stopped putting myself out there. I stopped reaching out to friends. It was because my negative thoughts told me that it wasn’t worth it. No one liked me anyways. I was better off sitting on the couch binge-watching whatever Netflix TV show I was into that week. I went to work. Came home. Watched TV. Ate. Slept. Repeat. This is anxiety. This is burnout. This is how limiting it can be.

How can you shake up your routine? How can you push yourself out of this very limiting box you’ve created for yourself? How can you stop using that box as an excuse to sit on the sidelines?

So how do we cope?

01. Become Aware of these negative thoughts

02. Figure out how these negative thoughts are limiting you. How are they stopping you from moving forward? How are they stopping you from living your life to the fullest?

03. You now have a CHOICE. Rewrite the narrative in your head or keep thinking those same negative thoughts.

Rewriting the narrative in your head is work. It’s not easy. Change never is. However, it’s do the work OR stay in your anxiety, your negative thought pattern. Stay miserable.

The choice is yours.

Stay Tuned. Next week I share Six Tips to Stop Negative thoughts.