Welcome to the Anxiety Slayer series. Our mission is to assist you with creating more peace and tranquility in your life

through anxiety release exercises and supportive tools created to slay your

anxiety.

Anxiety can cloud your thinking and make everything seem dark and dreadful your thinking and make everything seem dark and dreadful.

When your mind is overrun with worries,

it's easy to fall into the trap of anticipating negative outcomes.

You might dread any event, journey or social occasion because you're scared of what might go wrong.

The official tag for this kind of thinking is cognitive distortions. Simply put, it's the wonky thinking of a mind on red alert for stress or danger.

Why does your mind do this?

Usually it's trying to protect you by avoiding anything that it thinks might cause you extreme discomfort.

And it's there that we find the clue to handling anxious thoughts.

If your mind is perceiving danger, one way to address that is to ask yourself some quick questions.

Ask yourself, what exactly is it about this that's scaring me?

Is it really likely to happen, or am I allowing myself to think the worst? Is there

a more practical or positive way I could look at this? Is there something I could change that would make it easier?

And if a friend was having these worrying thoughts, what advice would you give them? Write your answers down in a notepad or journal and then sit back with a warm drink and take some deep breaths while you reflect on your words.

If the situation really is too much for you, then you've allowed yourself the time and self-respect to get clear on it.

Sometimes anxiety speaks to us for a good reason.

Asking questions gives you the chance to honor your intuition and step back from areas that will cause you more stress.

It also gives you the clarity to pinpoint what's really worrying you and the space to see what

you can change to make things more comfortable if your anxiety is due to a negative thought

pattern.

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