Dealing with anxious thoughts about future events

Dealing with anxious thoughts about future events such as returning to work:

Activating the curiosity system about what could happen and the nature of the experiences I will go through and the good possibilities that could happen Activating curiosity instead of activating anxiety and anxious thoughts that start with what if negative thoughts about oneself increase while talking or discussing with another person. The solution is to imagine that the brain is a river and thoughts come with it like branches floating on the surface of the river. The more you focus on a branch and hold on to it, the more the idea increases and the more it controls. What we must do is allow the river current to pull these trees (thoughts) and take them and flow away with them. So the first solution in terms of the thoughts that revolve around ourselves is often (negative) that this person will understand me, how will he see me, what will he think about me? The solution is to completely ignore it until the river current takes it and goes. The alternative is to focus on the person I am talking to and focus on how he feels if he is telling me about a specific situation he went through, and focus on what he learned from this experience if, for example, he is telling me about a specific experience he went through if he asked me for something related to work. The important thing here is that Ask him about the steps if they are not clear and ask him for clarification and more details or ask him to bring my notebook to write down or ask him to send me the tasks written by email or WhatsApp.

When facing the unknown (the lion):

The lion is anything that causes us a degree of tension and fear and is accompanied by a negative expectation about the passing of events and the solution:

First: Understand that the brain will give a reward in both cases if I avoid the lion and if I face it and the more I train my mind on a certain behavior when facing the lion, the more that behavior becomes dominant.

Second: Focusing on the process itself (its steps) is more important than the result. It is not important when I approach the lion what the result will be as much as it is important to take a step closer gradually to what worries me and raises my fears instead of avoiding it and running away from it.

Third: Building a vision of myself and my beliefs about myself. If I have a vision that I am a clean person, I will not throw any kind of garbage in the street, not because I fear the laws or because I have a negative motive, but because I see myself as a clean person. If I see myself as a brave person, I will not allow a certain situation to make me avoid protecting a member of my family, not because I fear what people will say, but because I am a brave person. The rule here is “is to be good not to look good.”

When waking up from sleep and there is no motive to do anything:

First: I must differentiate between an uncomfortable feeling and an unbearable feeling. Most of the time, a painful and difficult feeling is just an uncomfortable feeling, not an unbearable feeling.

Second: I differentiate between the voice of the inner educator inside me that gives me negative motivation and negative qualities until I accomplish what is required of me and my own vision of myself and thus I stop motivating myself negatively. If I feel unable to go to the gym, I will tell myself that you have to go, you lazy person, and this is a type of negative motivation that is not useful.

Third: I understand that my feelings have their respect and appreciation and also have their space, but they do not fully express reality. If I feel bored, this does not mean that my life is boring. If I feel tired or exhausted, this does not mean that my entire day and tasks will be tiring or exhausting.

Fourth: Don’t plan just do (don’t plan just do) The brain consumes a lot of energy during the planning process, and therefore if the task is simple and repetitive, such as taking someone from the family to a certain place, if you do not plan and think about the simple details, I will get out of bed and choose my clothes, then look for the car key and so on, but do and take steps.

Fifth: Dopamine hunger Learn how to deal with dopamine hunger and dopamine for us needs stimulation, so it can be any type of stimulant on our senses, it can be something sweet and it can also be a cup of coffee, a piece of chocolate, and even music I like to listen to.

It is important to review the beliefs that I grew up with and it is important to review my ideas about myself and the world, and it is also important to look at the culture, society, and religion that I belong to as basic and primitive components, and today I have to build a personal perception of myself, others, and reality.

The equation of success:

1. Not everyone who works hard finds, and not everyone who sows reaps, because life is unfair and unpredictable.

2. The hidden factor in material success exists, and we can call it success from the Lord of the Worlds or a prayer from my mother’s prayer or luck, and we call it what we call it, but there is an unknown factor in material success and many factors play in its occurrence, for example: Not every professional football player will grow up to be Mohamed Salah. There are a group of factors beyond Mohamed Salah’s control in reaching the material success that he is.

3. Setting material goals only results in frustration, frustration along the way and during the process of reaching it, because as long as I do not reach the material goal I set, then I am a failure, the result here is frustration and frustration as well when reaching the goal itself, because building a false reality such as when I have a million dollars, I will be the happiest person, is one of the most naive and unrealistic ideas, because often when I have a thousand dollars, I will look at the one who has a hundred thousand dollars, and the one who has a hundred thousand looks at the one who has a million, and so on, and also your material and life needs will increase and your requirements will also increase, so you will feel frustrated and shocked when you reach the material goals.

4. Changing the material goal by focusing on the quality of life today and taking a direction for ambition that is not limited to specific material goals, for example, my ambition is to reach a degree of financial stability and not fear the availability of money, and this can be achieved regardless of my income level. Focusing on going through more experiences that will be beneficial to me in the long run is much more important than focusing on a specific material number that I see in my bank account.

5. It is smart to focus on the process of reaching it more than focusing on the result, as the result is not guaranteed, but the process of reaching it is what falls under the circle.