We often don’t notice how life changes in just a couple of hours. Just now everything was fine - and the future seemed like a bright path to happiness. Then something happened - and now it seems to us that everything is gloomy and hopeless, but after a while the world around us becomes kind and bright again. And this cycle continues all the time. And the confidence in every new sensation and perception is almost 100%, as if our life, like a weather vane, abruptly moves into a new phase every minute, seriously and for a long time. It’s as if we become slaves to our mood: if we feel good, we love the world around us, make plans on how to achieve success, etc. The mood has deteriorated a little - and it seems that there will be nothing good ahead. An “advanced” person will consider this situation funny, because every time we sincerely believe that such dreams of the mind are real and, on the basis of transitory illusions, which are nothing more than our personal beliefs, we plan our lives for years to come. At the same time, our own inconsistency remains behind the scenes. Reality cannot transform as quickly and dramatically as we think. Everything depends on our perception, and all troubles and joys begin with the head.

A little about the problems

All people want to improve their quality of life in one way or another. We can spend a lot of time and effort chasing material or spiritual benefits, but the real problem is the illusions that appear to us to be real. Realism of thoughts is one of their most dangerous features. When a person is in a bad mood, he sees no point in changing his perception, because his mind depicts a gloomy apocalyptic reality with vivid, rich impressions. That is, when everything is bad, it doesn’t even occur to us to work with our own mental projections, because they themselves project information about supposedly existing problems into our brain.

Beliefs- these are special thought bubbles. Their beautiful rainbow radiance convinces us of the veracity of the picture that appears before our eyes. A certain belief emerges in our mind, and we plunge into the depths of the virtual world, firmly believing that it is true.

Of course, some physical events also occur. For example, we accidentally tripped and fell into a puddle. To return to a comfortable state again, you need to wash and change clothes. This or a similar event becomes a problem if we begin to mentally get stuck on what happened, which blocks the will to action and prevents us from taking the actions necessary to get out of this situation. An example is a joke from the Internet about a person who wants to go to the toilet, but does not do it, justifying it with depression, busyness, fatigue, disappointment or other matters.

However, there are also events that, given the given prerequisites, cannot be changed at once. A liar cannot become pathologically honest or a terminally ill person cannot recover. In the same way, in the absence of the necessary motivation, getting rich, building correct, spiritually rich relationships, and restoring health will turn out to be something out of the realm of fantasy. This is completely normal.

But we have all been taught since childhood that society values ​​hard work, mental abilities, optimism, harmony with oneself, and therefore we need to be just like that. Anyone who cannot be like this turns out to be an outcast and should be ashamed of his position. Therefore, in our society there are often cases of distorted lives: both those who constantly break themselves in order to please the standards set by someone unknown, and those who cannot meet them and blame themselves for everything.

The Dalai Lama made one famous saying, which says that if a problem can be solved, it must be solved, if it is not solved, worrying is a waste of time. Therefore, in our life there is not a single cause for concern. If you can or want to change something in your life, do it. There is no desire or opportunity - forget about it and move on with your life.

What are beliefs?

From the above it follows that real problems do not exist in real events, but in experiences about them. But no matter how much it is said about the uselessness of worries and worries, a person is not inclined to plunge into a meditative state, since his own beliefs wage war against him and continue to convince him that everything is bad. Physically, we begin to chase ghostly illusions in attempts to change and arrange our lives.

Beliefs- these are essentially the same mental projections. In the general flow of thinking, it is these thoughts that seem especially realistic to us, and we accept them unconditionally, considering them the basis of life itself.

If a person strives for wealth, seeing in it the meaning of his existence, he will never be happy for more than a few minutes. After all, no matter how much money he saves, this standard of living very soon becomes boring, turning into a routine and depriving him of the expected pleasure, which should last forever. It is especially important that the original conviction, which became the engine of the desire for material wealth, does not disappear anywhere, but secretly whispers to a person that there is no happiness in ordinary everyday life, because it is in something special, surpassing this simple reality.

As a result, with every seemingly improvement in life, a person has the same thing, but several times more expensive. Persuasion continues its work, forcing a person to strive for even greater luxury, but the race for money does not stop anyway. Setting such goals means turning into someone who chases the eternal “tomorrow”, neglecting the moment here and now.

If we are convinced that no one needs us on this earth, two attitudes begin to operate at once. One - a person is happy only if at least someone needs him. The second is that if you are not needed, you are a mistake of nature and should be ashamed of your birth. Taken together, they lead to periods of what society calls “happiness” alternating with neuroses and depression. Closeness to significant people brings pleasure, and distance from them brings suffering.

If a person considers himself unworthy of love, he will consider life to be something hostile, harsh and full of problems. No matter what success he achieves and no matter how much he is valued by those around him, praise is subconsciously perceived as something false and absurd, and criticism as a well-deserved punishment.

When a member of society is convinced that any work must be done flawlessly under any conditions, he becomes a slave to perfectionism - the desire for perfection. On the one hand, such a person sometimes reaches real peaks in life, on the other hand, he is subject to neurotic “digging” in his own soul, engaging in self-flagellation over any, even the most insignificant, mistake. Sometimes this prevents him from taking on new risky endeavors because it is difficult for him to recognize his own imperfections.

Each of us can be convinced of his worthlessness for society, ugliness, inadequacy, the inevitability of punishment for life’s miscalculations, that thoughts and feelings must be hidden, of some mythical external threat, of the selfishness of loved ones, of the fact that he someone owes something. There are as many such mental bubbles as there are people on earth. In some cases, in the human mind they form complex combinations, as a result of which life seems like a gloomy labyrinth, filled with darkness and horror, from which there is no way out.

Images of the mind are like pictures on a screen

All our personal problems are understandings. If we understand that everything is bad, everything immediately begins to go awry. The negative energy of mental projection, which replaces reality, is instantly reflected in our mood, which is an integral part of the space of consciousness.

Projections- this is a kind of magical force that can inspire even the most adequate person with anything, even if everyone around it seems nonsense. The stronger the belief in projections, the greater their influence on our lives.

We all potentially contain within ourselves great amount projections. Any event becomes an impetus that encourages our psyche to work in a certain direction. We must make a choice: do we accept the result of her work at face value or do we reconsider those beliefs that prevent us from living a normal life.

Sometimes, in order for a problem to stop tormenting you, it is enough to say it to yourself and examine it more carefully. In this case, vaguely negative consequences become obvious and cease to frighten, or an understanding comes that there is no problem as such. At the same time, accurately delineating the problem for yourself makes it possible to get out of a negative emotional state and look at what is happening from the outside. This is actually happening. If before this consciousness was dominated by projection and was completely identified with the dream that this projection creates, now this veil falls and everything frightening disappears, or the person clearly realizes that the problem is insignificant and can be solved using a certain algorithm of actions.

Positive thinking and a cheerful attitude are also, of course, very important, but practice proves that they often lose the battle in the fight against projections. Various affirmations and visualizations rarely give a lasting effect, because they are much weaker than the beliefs absorbed into our flesh and blood.

No matter how a person convinces himself, deep projections will have a greater impact on his life than those brought from the outside. All positive attitudes gradually disappear, and the person remains confident that everything good in life is a lie, and everything bad is the truth. This view is essentially another negative belief. Reality destroys everything false, so from the very beginning it is necessary to put the truth first. Both negative and positive distortions are counterproductive.

Fortunately, all bad beliefs about life are an illusion. The most terrible insights about ourselves and our existence, the most unbearable heaviness of samsara - all this is rooted in our thoughts. All problems have their origin in the mind, they are our fantasies that get out of control. After all, even physical pain without thoughts would not be suffering, because in this case there would be no one to suffer.

One of the most effective practices of the great Castaneda is stopping internal dialogue. Almost all Eastern teachings are based on meditation, thanks to which we can come out of the deepest sleep, where we see various melodramatic dreams that have no relation to reality. Here they even intersect with modern cognitive psychotherapy, which also works with beliefs.

About the dreams of the mind

A bad mood is a kind of self-hypnosis with a minus sign, which in especially difficult cases leads to depression. The experience of depression is a psychological immunity that allows you to learn to independently pay attention to your almost unconscious reactions. Therefore, people often fall into depression out of ignorance, when a person does not yet have the ability to track and block negative projections.

At first, the thought of such projections occurs already at an advanced stage - when a person has already plunged into the abyss of depression. At the next level, projections still have time to wreak havoc in consciousness, but a psychological alarm is already triggered, warning about the insidiousness of projections. If a person is already “advanced,” thoughts do not overwhelm him, but calmly flow by, without becoming the cause of illusory dramas. Of course, this view is overly simplistic, and in practice you will encounter many nuances.

We convince ourselves that the path to happiness is complex and depends on many conditions. We create all the limits and obstacles for ourselves, believing that we cannot be happy just like that, without possessing anything. It is the instinct of possession that causes us to plunge headlong into painful addictions.

Life is an exciting game. But if material wealth is at stake, problems arise. The stronger the desire to be close to a certain person, to accumulate a certain wealth, the more the fear of losing it all is mixed with the happiness of possession.

The opinion that happiness must be deserved is extremely erroneous and plunges us into a karmic cycle of cause and effect. No matter how heavy karma may seem, it is just a certain set of beliefs on which our emotions and moods depend.

Thus, the basis of samsara, into which we so selflessly plunge, is an illusion, which is only an elusive, fleeting thought that has no real basis. However, we believe in the reality of this thought, and it replaces reality.

It is very useful to master the ability to doubt your beliefs and be able to revise them. Nobody knows exactly what life is. Therefore, instead of portraying a guru who has learned everything in just a couple of decades, or even less, you should simply accept and understand this fact. Fatigue from life with its versatility is impossible; it is caused only by banal illusions. Psychological counseling is also largely based on catching such illusions that interfere with the pure perception of reality and combating them.

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Pavel Fedorenko, Anastasia Bubnova
Settings for the mind. How to get rid of suffering and find peace of mind

© Fedorenko P., 2018

© Bubnova A., 2018

© AST Publishing House LLC, 2018

* * *

From the authors

Dear readers, we really hope that this book will help you change your life for the better, as many people around the world have already done. Flexible thinking skills will not only help you get rid of resentment, anger, shame, guilt and anxiety. They will teach you to look at the world more broadly, achieve your goals, while remaining in harmony with yourself.

On the pages of the book you will find theoretical material based on the works of the best foreign and domestic psychologists of cognitive behavioral therapy and rational emotional behavioral therapy.

Also in each chapter there are tasks that make the book practical guide on working with thinking. By doing the exercises, you will learn to be your own psychologist.

In addition to theoretical and practical information, you will be able to get acquainted with the true stories of people who successfully changed their lives thanks to the information presented in the book.

By working on oneself, a person is capable of much. The first step can be the most difficult, so the book answers questions about how to work with resistance.

For a long time now, the task of psychologists all over the world has been to teach clients skills for further independent life outside of personal therapy, and this book will become your assistant not only on the path to self-development and finding guidelines in life, but also in the first steps in working with character, will give you those knowledge and skills that a person needs for further self-reliance.

Introduction

If you want to build a ship, you don’t need to call people, plan, divide the work, get tools. We need to infect people with the desire for the endless sea. Then they will build the ship themselves.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Each of us knows that in life people face different difficult situations. We feel tension from conflicts at work, quarrel with loved ones, or worry about little things. And since you have this book in your hands, it means that you have already thought about how to stop the series of experiences and anxieties accumulating like a snowball.

In some cases, fate is still favorable to us - events and problems are solved by themselves. For example, a boss who makes you nervous and constantly scolds you is transferred to another department, and a kind-hearted person takes his place. Or the exciting meeting you were so afraid of did not take place. As a result, you didn’t have to worry and blush when speaking in front of your colleagues.

However, everyone has at least once encountered events that are either impossible or difficult to change at a certain point in time. For example, no matter how much you want, you will never be able to make the daily morning traffic jam “dissolve” at the right moment, or you will not be able to change the people who complain or grumble, you will not be able to change your friend or relative so that this person behaved the way you would like. This is where difficulties arise. In those moments when we cannot change the event itself, we begin to experience negative emotions of a different nature: anger, shame, envy, resentment, anxiety...

Sometimes it seems that it is simply impossible to stop a series of negative experiences, and if the event itself cannot be changed, then what to do? You will find the answer to this question in this book. You will learn how to stop feeling strong resentment or painful guilt, receive valuable information that will help you change your thinking and, as a result, change your life for the better. After all, it is our thoughts, and not the situation itself, that create all experiences.

Let us give an example to prove this.

Imagine that you are in an airport lounge in an unfamiliar city and suddenly information appears on the board that your flight has been postponed indefinitely. What emotions will this evoke in you? There are about a hundred more passengers in the terminal with you. Do you think all these people will react the same way to the news about the flight delay?

Of course not. One will start arguing with an airline employee (sometimes, by the way, it even comes to assault). Another will calmly read a book, a third will go for a walk, and a fourth will start looking around anxiously.

We are accustomed to believing that the event itself causes emotion in us. But if this were so, then all passengers would react the same way.

It is our thoughts that make us react in one way or another to a certain event.

Correct work with thinking helps to find solutions to many life problems, teaches you to react to situations in a new way and direct your energy not to empty experiences, but to real actions.

The difference between healthy thinking and neurotic thinking

To begin with, it is worth noting the fact that a person is not his thinking. Working with thinking, we do not completely remake ourselves, but rather learn to better understand the nature of our actions and thoughts, change them, thereby creating harmony within. But it is still a mistake to believe that a person with healthy thinking always thinks only positively.

Healthy thinking is not positive thinking, but rather thinking without distortions that we are accustomed to not noticing.

Working on yourself will also not make you a completely unemotional person. The difference between healthy and neurotic thinking lies in the degree of manifestation of emotions, their strength and duration.

Healthy thinking helps you analyze mistakes, notice your distortions and beliefs. Neurotic thinking, on the contrary, keeps a person in these distortions. People tend to identify with their thinking and act based on the beliefs and beliefs they have acquired throughout their lives. A person is born with basic natural attitudes of happiness, health and life here and now. In the process of upbringing and gaining life experience, he acquires other new attitudes. Parents, teachers, and loved ones form in us certain views about ourselves and the world. Life teaches us lessons. We begin to feel the need for approval, sometimes our goals become distorted. We strive for superiority, trying by hook or by crook to prove our point of view. Obligations are gradually formed. Requirements for yourself, for the people around you, for the world as a whole. Based on these oughts and beliefs, we evaluate the situations we find ourselves in and draw distorted conclusions.

For example, let's take the situation of a quarrel. You feel resentment towards your friend, believing that, in your opinion, he behaved unworthily. You pass this situation through the prism of your consciousness, based on past experience, and evaluate it in some way. Having the attitude “A friend should never argue with me, a friend should never act badly. I must not be betrayed!” - you will begin to feel resentment, perhaps very strong. If you are able to question your belief and reflect on whether your demand for a friend is appropriate, whether your expectations in relation to this or that person are realistic, then, most likely, the resentment will gradually begin to fade away in a natural way. A person who is accustomed to thinking within the framework of his demands and beliefs will continue to be offended, not realizing that the cause of the offense lies in his thinking, and not in the situation itself or other people.

This is why it is so important to be able to recognize your thoughts, which are often distorted, and to question these distortions. Without forcing yourself, without persuading, but realizing that a new, healthy attitude works more effectively. Imagine how much easier and better life becomes in harmony with yourself. These steps have helped many people around the world change themselves and their lifestyle for the better!

Chapter 1. Where to start working on yourself

The most difficult step is a step beyond the usual.

F. Roosevelt

Looking at the problem from the right angle

As you know, people turn to psychologists or psychotherapists for a reason. Exist different ways psychological assistance: this includes personal consultations, work in groups, and self-help through books and videos. Everyone prefers their own path, but it is important to remember: you are doing this because you have a specific problem, and this problem, as a rule, significantly reduces your quality of life. It is rare that people begin to engage in self-development without experiencing particular discomfort. Usually we are pushed to change by difficulties in life, tension or close discomfort.

A mandatory step for successfully solving your problem is a clear understanding of it. Understanding its essence means taking a big step in the right direction. Let's look at the picture below.

A blackhead is what you think is the problem now. Initially, it may seem like you know exactly what the problem is, but this may not always be the case.

The square is the state you want to get into, the result you want to get. For example, one person may have problems in his family, and as a result of solving them he wants to become happy. Or you are experiencing unpleasant symptoms, panic and want to get rid of it, become free from the unpleasant symptom.

In order to solve the problem and get into the “square”, you must initially move from the “black point” to the “triangle”.

Only if you clearly understand what the problem is can you solve it successfully. After all, if you do not have this understanding, then you will not work with the problem itself correctly.

Therefore, its precise definition is the first and very important stage when working on yourself. This is where the first session with a psychologist usually begins. Since with the help of our book you learn to support yourself, the following information will allow you to cope with the first task yourself and avoid mistakes.

Five elements of the problem

Any problem is a synthesis of five elements: life situation, physical reactions, mood, behavior, thoughts.

The first element is the life situation - this is the environment in which you are, external circumstances, changes in the situation.

The second - physical reactions - represents bodily manifestations (coldness, trembling, palpitations).

Our mood, the third component, is expressed through emotional manifestations (anger, resentment, anxiety...).

The fourth element is behavior and actions in a certain situation.

Fifth – thoughts in the same situation.

All these elements are interconnected and interdependent. Impact on one of the elements can lead to changes in the others. It is very important to understand that in the process of working on yourself you will learn to influence all elements of the problem. If your house requires repairs, then it is advisable to carry out work on all floors, repair wiring, leaky windows, and not just glue wallpaper. So in our case: complex work will lead you to the best result as soon as possible.

Starting from the first point, defining the situation, you can take as a basis a significant event with which the experiences are associated, but sometimes it can be a series of situations. As a rule, this includes emotionally charged events from a period of time close to the present, but sometimes it can even be events from childhood that have left a deep mark. A strong life trauma from the past can also be attributed to life situations, especially if it is important in the present. When you start writing out your situations, there may be several of them.

Try to see in which areas of your life tension is created. For example, at work, difficulties in communicating with colleagues, difficulties at home with children, conflicts with her husband, a sick elderly grandmother who demands to be forgotten. Maybe something unpleasant happened to you: you were robbed or you lost your job.

Next, you should write down what physical reactions you experience: various symptoms and discomfort in the body, for example, insomnia or muscle tension, reactions from the gastrointestinal tract. This includes the symptoms that bother the person.

The next stage is to describe your mood and emotional state. Write down the emotions that bother you the most or that have been holding on for a long time. For example, anxiety or resentment, or maybe severe irritability or apathy. Try to describe the emotional component of your problem as accurately as possible.

It is worth noting that at this stage many people have difficulty accurately determining their emotional state. Some emotions are close and differ in their degree of manifestation and strength. To more accurately formulate emotions, you can use the table on p. 24.

In the next step, describe your behavior. What might be the difficulties, what are you doing, are you trying to solve the problem, are you avoiding it. If you find it difficult to do this, ask yourself questions: “When I find myself in this situation, when faced with this problem, how do I behave? How does this situation make me behave? For example: “Because I encounter conflicts at work, I avoid meeting with colleagues after hours and avoid them in the cafeteria.”

And you can immediately determine roughly what thoughts arise in your mind about this. For example: “I don’t want my colleagues to evaluate my appearance, if they laugh at me, I will be ashamed and unpleasant. This means that I’m a loser and no one likes me.”

Let's look at the principle of determining all five components in a specific situation.

Changes in environment/Life situations: father's death; promotion.

Physical reactions: cold sweat; heartbeat; labored breathing.

Mood: fear; panic.

Behavior: avoiding airplane travel; possibility of refusal of promotion.

Thoughts:“I’m having a heart attack,” “If I fly on a plane, something bad will happen.”

Example

Our hero Sergei has been very worried lately. He developed a fear of flying on an airplane, but circumstances dictate their own rules, he needs to go on a business trip. He really wants to solve this problem as quickly as possible, to get rid of the unpleasant misfortune.

Over the past few months, Sergei has faced a number of unpleasant life situations. First he lost his father, then there was a series of minor troubles, and recently he received an offer to move to a higher and very responsible position. Sergei is very worried, and then there is this flight to Samara, as luck would have it, at the wrong time.

The heart is pounding, the breath stops, it throws you either hot or cold. An unpleasant scenario unfolds in Sergei’s imagination. “My heart is pounding, I’m having a heart attack!” What if I get sick on the plane?!” As a result, Sergei had an obvious problem - the fear of going on a business trip. Of course, in this case, to solve it, it is important to take into account all five components.

By analyzing your problem situations in this way, you will learn over time to better see their nature, the connection between all five elements. You will begin to understand yourself more, you will be able to identify what really bothers you and what is manifesting itself.

Like Sergei, who sees the problem only in the fact that an unpleasant symptom prevents him from flying on an airplane, scares him, many of us look at our problems narrowly. We may think that the problem lies in fears or symptoms, and that’s it. And other areas, such as the living environment, behavior, thoughts - they fall out of sight, and the picture turns out to be incomplete.

This way of assessing the situation will help you quickly find ways to solve your problems.

Often, when trying to understand difficulties, we see only the tip of the iceberg and therefore do not get the desired result. Another striking example is the following situation.

: The child has entered the 5th grade. Parents are going through a family crisis and often quarrel.

Physical reactions: insomnia, irritability.

Mood: frequent changes of emotions, outbursts of anger.

Behavior: the mother screams at the child, blaming herself for incontinence.

Thoughts:“My child doesn’t do his homework on time,” “Why does he behave this way?”, “Why am I losing it again?”

Often parents turn to a child or family psychologist for help in order to somehow influence the child and make him “comfortable,” correct and obedient. The mother or father may become irritated, angry, or have difficulty getting their needs met, and the adults try to either suppress the negative emotions or change the child they are lashing out at so that they no longer experience anger and irritability. Obviously, in such situations, it is best to pay attention to all the components of the problem and causes that cause overwork, conflicts and, as a result, an unhealthy situation in the family.

Another example of a misinterpretation of the problem is the following situation.

Changes in environment/Life situations: a long streak of failures in his personal life, difficulties with friends, difficulties at work.

Physical reactions: weight gain.

Mood: suppressed anger.

Behavior: bout of overeating.

Thoughts:"I'm fat and ugly."

Often, when solving problems with excess weight, people resort to diets or sports, but this does not always help. Why? The fact is that in many cases, emotional eating is just the tip of the iceberg, and the reason lies deeper. Unresolved psychological problems associated with the inability to satisfy one’s needs or the desire to be convenient for everyone often lead to overeating and bodily tension. That is why it is important to learn to see the problem more broadly.

Homework 1

Write down the situations that you would like to work through in a table, taking into account all the elements of the problem.

Chapter 2. Connection between situation, thoughts, emotions and behavior

Our life does not consist of events, but of our attitude towards events.

Skilef

Formula of life

Let's think about what conclusions we often draw about the causes of our problems and failures: “I’m upset that my girlfriend broke up with me,” “I’m angry because I received a fine at work,” “I’m worried that my son is leaving.” to another country for a long time”, “I’m ashamed that I look so terrible”...

The next stage of working on yourself is very important; it will be aimed at directly solving problems, working with thinking. It is very important to remember that it is our thoughts, and not the situation itself, that create all experiences. At the very beginning of the book, we looked at an example of a specific situation. Remember how differently people reacted to flight delays? Some cursed, others were worried, others waited calmly. All passengers were in approximately the same conditions, but reacted differently to the unpleasant news. You can object and say that for some it was more important to fly away, some were late, and some were not. But even if we take as an example the sisters Anna and Svetlana, who are in a hurry to go to their grandmother’s birthday, each of them can react to the flight delay in their own way. Suppose Anna starts arguing with an airline representative, proves something and shouts at airport employees, while Svetlana goes to look for a cafe, resigning herself to the fate of being stuck at the airport for a long time. The thing is that Anna and Svetlana had completely different trains of thought in this situation. Anna thought that she definitely had to fly away, that the airport staff had messed something up, “broke” the plane and were doing everything possible to deceive passengers and ruin their lives. She could also have thought that planes must certainly take off on schedule, and no other way, especially since today is such a significant day for Anna!

Svetlana was also upset, but she didn’t feel angry and didn’t go to swear, because she thought that she couldn’t change anything anyway. She roughly imagines that this happens from time to time, and, having figured out what to do while waiting, she goes to a cafe to drink coffee.

Like these people, we all react differently to our difficulties and challenges, resolve them differently, and experience different emotions. The thing is that in the same situation, each of us has different thoughts, and often they turn out to be negative and distorted. It is these thoughts that create our main “headache”. Just think how much you can improve your quality of life by working with your thinking and making it healthier by removing distortions. How positively this will affect the other “floors” of the house - for example, on the emotional level and on the physical level. It is unlikely that Anna, having negative thoughts associated with demands on everyone around her, experiences pleasant emotions, and this is unlikely to help her fly away faster. However when it is impossible to change a situation, you can always work on the right attitude towards it.

In fact, there is a very big plus in the fact that the main problem is focused on the level of thoughts. After all, if the events themselves caused emotions and determined our lives, psychology and work on oneself would be powerless in this context. Finding ourselves in different situations, we would only count on the fact that we can change the situation or the situation will change itself. But this does not happen as often as we would like.

It is not for nothing that wise people well understand the meaning of Stanislav Jerzy Lec’s phrase: “ If you can’t change the situation, change your attitude towards it».

In fact, you may have two options. Either you get out of an unpleasant situation, leave the event and calm down. For example, parting with an unloved husband. Or look at the event from a different angle. Isn’t the problem that I have too many demands on my husband? Maybe I’m behaving “wrong” somehow? Or, if this is not the problem and I really don’t love my husband, we don’t find a common language, then maybe fears are keeping me in this relationship? It is always important to remember that it is our thoughts that create our emotional state. This is the basis of cognitive behavioral therapy. We can influence thoughts and change emotional states. By changing our emotional state, we react physically and behaviorally differently, and get different results in life.

For example, you are absolutely convinced that you are unworthy of a good job. Accordingly, you prefer a place and position for which you think they can hire you, even if you don’t like this job at all. You don't choose the job you want just because you're "not worthy of it." If you are sure that trying and making mistakes is not scary and there is always a chance to try your luck, you just have to try, and sooner or later you will definitely find suitable job. Pay attention to the very important point: often a person, who in fact possesses all the necessary qualities to achieve a goal, does not go towards it only because he believes that he is unworthy of it and will not cope with the task. This self-image does not in any way reflect a person’s real capabilities.

To avoid such thinking errors, you need to get acquainted with a very interesting and useful diagram. Try to read this chapter carefully, because it is in it that you will find the main tool for self-help - the SERM scheme. Here we will call it “Life Formula”.

This simple formula determines our entire existence. The most interesting thing is that by understanding this formula, we can change our lives without resorting to self-hypnosis or reading mantras. And by consciously changing irrational thoughts to rational ones.

"C" is the situation you find yourself in. Let's take the first day at a new job as an example. Each of us will experience certain emotions, designated “E” in the diagram. Let's say, before going to new job you feel anxious and at the same time embarrassed. It is very important to note that between “S” and “E” are our thoughts “M”. The situation itself “I’m starting a new job” does not evoke the same emotion in a hundred out of a hundred people. In this case, at point “M”, experiencing anxiety, you will find the following thoughts: “What if I am not accepted in the team? Maybe I won’t cope with the task or make a mistake.” They are the ones who create your anxiety. Next, the emotions are followed by a reaction - “R”: bodily “T” and behavioral “P”. When you experience anxiety, you may feel an unpleasant tension in your body. At the behavioral level, having such anxious thoughts, when you come to work, you will not begin to actively communicate with the team and will try to avoid increased attention to yourself.

On at this stage work, it is important to learn to notice the connection S – M – E. It may seem that in a particular situation, before you even had time to think about something, you already felt the emotion. But this is not true, in fact there are fleeting automatic thoughts that flash through your head in a split second. Albert Ellis, the founder of REBT (Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy), often mentions them in his works, giving clear examples.

We are not always able to be aware of our thoughts and the emotions they cause, which is why it is important to learn to notice them if you want to change the way you react. For example, don’t be nervous or shy at work.

Try to find the connection between thoughts and emotions yourself using the following example.

Practical task “Establishing a connection between thoughts and emotions”

Here is a brief sketch of the situation and the task. You will find the answers at the end of the chapter. Try the exercise and write down what happens. Then check the answer options.

Let's say you are at a party and you are introduced to a certain Oleg. During the conversation, Oleg does not look at you, but wanders his gaze around the room. The following are three thoughts that may arise in this situation and the feelings associated with them. Circle one feeling that you think will arise following each of the listed interpretations of Oleg's absent-minded gaze.

Thought: Oleg is an ill-mannered person. He insults me with his inattention.

Possible feelings:

Thought: Oleg is not interested in me. I bore everyone.

Possible feelings: irritation, sadness, nervousness, sympathy, (choose one).

Thought: Oleg seems to be shy. It's probably awkward for him to look at me.

Possible feelings: irritation, sadness, nervousness, sympathy, (choose one).

Now that the task is completed, you can move on. When checking the answers, you probably noticed that different thoughts about the current situation caused different emotions in you. On this simple example You have proven to yourself that there is a connection between thoughts and emotions.

“A HAPPY LIFE WITHOUT PANIC ATTACKS AND AGORAPHOBIA Preface Absolutely anyone can overcome anxiety with the help of the “Life without Panic” program. You can talk about this with...”

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Playing sports will undoubtedly have the most positive effect on your body and lifestyle. Physical exercise will promote the production of the joy hormone, which is so necessary. You will notice a decrease in overall anxiety, your self-confidence will increase, and you will be able to look at the world with completely different eyes. And most importantly: be kind to yourself, love yourself and don’t scold yourself if one day you feel like you don’t have the strength to do a full workout.

Do light exercises that day, and the next time you are alert and energetic, catch up on what you missed. After all, the world will not collapse because of this.

4. Motivation (purpose and meaning)

Before you continue, ask yourself this question: How do you feel about your anxiety?

Perhaps you are offended by her? Do you wish you never encountered her? Most people would react this way. Most likely, from a carefree, free person you have turned into a preoccupied one, constantly worrying, thinking about what could happen in a given situation. Anxiety has taken away your freedom.

Do you think you can change the way you think about anxiety? What if changing the perception of anxiety speeds up getting rid of it?

The famous psychotherapist Dr. Frankl, while in a concentration camp during World War II, developed a revolutionary approach to psychotherapy called logotherapy. It is based on healing through meaning. It says that most neuroses can be cured by finding individual meaning in life.

According to this theory, no matter how difficult the situation, a person can turn tragedy into triumph.

In our case, this means that you can find meaning in the sensation and rise above it. Finding meaning will turn your anxiety into something positive.

You are free to choose the perception of any event or phenomenon and you can decide for yourself whether you want to feel like a victim of anxiety or feel above it and determine your reaction to it. You are free to choose your position.

The easiest way to do this is to write down what you feel and then write down the reason why you want to overcome it.

For example:

– What is the point of my panic attacks?

They help me know myself better and make my character stronger.

– What is the reason for overcoming PA?

I want to develop and succeed in life.

– What is the meaning of general anxiety?

She shows me that I am not living correctly, I am holding back myself and my emotions.

– Reason for overcoming?

I want to live a full life.

Once the meaning is found, you will be able to accomplish what previously seemed impossible to you. To better understand what we are talking about, let's give a simple example. Waking up in the morning, the man felt severe muscle pain. His every movement reverberated with pain throughout his body. He was very upset about this, because he had big plans for the day and wanted to do a lot. But he soon realized that this pain was the result of the training he had done yesterday. He trained in order to achieve his goal - to run a marathon. From that moment on, the pain did not give him negative emotions, because it took on meaning.

Only you can find meaning in your problem.

When you find this meaning, you will find both the reason and the motivation to overcome it.

Dr. Frankl says, “A person with the attitude he chooses is able to find meaning and realize it even in a hopeless situation.” When you find meaning in your anxiety and are able to transcend it, a whole new world will open up before you.

There are probably few books written about psychology in general or about panic in particular that will tell you that such an unpleasant phenomenon as anxiety can give you a great gift. It is important to note that the meaning you find in anxiety does not have to be global, it is most likely something very simple and banal, but satisfying a deep sense of meaning.

In conclusion, I would like to give one more thought from Dr. Frankl, who believes that the most important goal and incentive for a person is to find the meaning of life. If it is destroyed, it leads to many troubles that can be observed in modern society.

A person cannot find happiness if he only puts it ultimate goal. Find the meaning of life for yourself and, as a result, happiness will appear by itself.

After you decide on the meaning of panic attacks in your life, you need to solve the most important task, without which getting rid of them and agoraphobia is practically impossible. And this task is the goal of deliverance. What is your personal goal for getting rid of panic? Why do you need to get rid of it?

These questions may seem strange at first. But this is only at first glance. When working with big amount people trying to get rid of panic, I have identified one pattern: a person who wants to get rid of panic just to get rid of it ends up not getting rid of it.

Let me explain. I ask the client: “What is your goal of getting rid of panic attacks,” the answer: “I want to be healthy and live again the same way as before.” I heard this answer a huge number of times and immediately understood that such an attitude towards the problem would not help get rid of it.

Just being healthy is a good goal, of course, but it won’t motivate you at all. The path to getting rid of PA is quite thorny, there are setbacks, small defeats and disappointments. In the first stages, you need to do every day certain actions and perform techniques. Most people break down at this stage. The reason is simple - LAZINESS.

It is laziness that prevents a person from getting rid of his problem.

And laziness, as you know, appears where there is no motivation. Therefore, you need to create this motivation.

I will give a number of examples demonstrating a very strong desire to get rid of panic.

CCM in boxing with agoraphobia set himself the goal of returning to the sport and being able to travel around the country and participate in competitions. Due to agoraphobia, the opera singer with an amazing voice was forced to constantly refuse invitations to perform, and invitations poured in from different countries and cities around the world. The goal is simple - to go on tour! A girl with a strong desire to have a child eventually gave birth to a beautiful baby.

There are many such examples that can be given. You must understand that your goal should motivate and give strength. Without a goal, it is very difficult to force yourself to work on yourself.

Let me give you an example of a person who is very comfortable “being sick.” A woman from Holland, experience of PA and agoraphobia for 5 years. For all 5 years she received an allowance in the amount of more than 1000 euros per month, and the reason for this allowance was her “illness”, which in Holland they do not know how to work with.

Now think, what is the point of a woman getting rid of her problem if she will be paid benefits for life? Of course there's no point. She is very comfortable “being sick”, she doesn’t have to get up every morning for work, do things that don’t bring her pleasure – it’s a thrill, isn’t it?

Now imagine if in the CIS countries the same huge benefits were paid to people suffering from panic. Firstly, you most likely would not be reading my book now, since there would simply be no point in it. Secondly, the number of “panic patients”

it would be huge!

It is also worth paying attention to the statement of many people: “I want to live like before!” I can assure you that it will not be possible to live as before. The reason for this is simple. It was your past lifestyle, your attitude towards yourself, people and the world in general that ultimately led to panic attacks and anxiety disorder. Albert Einstein once said very correctly: “A problem cannot be solved at the same level of thinking at which it was created.”

Therefore, to completely get rid of an anxiety disorder, you will need to pay more attention to working with your character, working on your thinking, beliefs, attitudes and programs that have created and continue to create problems for you.

The process of working on character is not very fast, but pleasant, because... the result will bring you more joy, harmony and satisfaction from life.

It is very important to understand that a panic attack is just a symptom of neurosis. True, I would add that it is an isolated symptom.

Throughout his life, a patient with neurosis develops a system of values ​​that does not correspond to reality and his needs. As a result, long before the emergence of an external conflict that led to neurosis, the neurotic lives in a state of internal conflict, which is the source of his constant internal emotional and vegetative tension.

After a person learns not to be afraid of a panic attack and removes agoraphobia, the next stage will be working with character. After all, it is character, i.e. a person’s attitude towards himself, other people and the world as a whole, and led him to the fact that at a certain point in time a person fell into a closed trap of the panic mechanism.

I am deeply convinced that at the first stage it is necessary to teach a person not to be afraid of panic and show that actions taken to get rid of fear actually increase this fear. This will ultimately break the vicious circle, and the person will be able to feel free and come out from under the yoke of a panic attack.

In the future, you need to pay close attention to working on your character, because it is this character that ultimately led to panic.

It is not possible to provide an exhaustive guide to working with character in the book, because...

This is a very broad topic that is best started under the guidance of a specialist. To do this, I created a very powerful program “Mind Settings or the End of Illusions.” After getting rid of panic attacks, I advise you to go through it too.

Behaviors without which a panic attack is not possible

An attempt to avoid unpleasant experiences. Trying to avoid unpleasant experiences has the opposite effect. The experience is intensified by the energy of avoidance and becomes obsessive. The harder a person tries to distract himself from the experience, to resist it with willpower, the stronger it becomes, leading the person to an extreme degree of fear - panic.

Avoiding unpleasant situations. A person who avoids unpleasant situations deprives himself of the experience of their safety and, when faced with them in life, finds himself in a state of uncertainty, tries to avoid them, and experiences anxiety, fear, and panic. The reason for this is a natural process in which, in a state of uncertainty, anxiety always arises.

Transferring resolution of unpleasant experiences from the present to the future. An attempt to transfer the resolution of a situation from the present to the future leaves the problem unresolved. For example, a person faced with an unpleasant experience (fear) in the subway first tries to get out of it immediately. When he goes outside, he either feels relief or continues to solve the problem in the future. Trying to get home quickly

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For a fruitful and high-quality study of agoraphobia, I recommend performing the following exercise. You need to make a list of avoidances present in your life that are caused by the fear of panic. To begin, write down in free form everything you avoid, write everything that comes to mind. After this, you need to rank the list in order of increasing fear. Those. Less frightening avoidances will be in first place, with highly frightening situations closing the list.

For example, you may go to the store in your neighborhood, but you feel anxious, so you avoid this activity by shifting the responsibility to someone close to you. Let's say you need to buy bread, but the thought of going to the store makes you feel anxious. Frightening thoughts and images flash through your head that things will get worse in line, panic will arise, and you won’t be able to leave the room quickly, and then you become afraid of what the people around you will think of you. Then you don’t go anywhere, but call, say, your husband and ask him to go to the store after work and buy bread. Your spouse agrees, and your anxiety subsides. But at the same time, you avoid a situation that you could get into with a little effort.

Consequently, cases of a similar nature can be placed at the beginning of the list, and very frightening ones at the end.

For example, you cannot be forced at gunpoint to sit in a subway car.

I think everything is clear with the list. The number of avoidances may vary; for some it is a couple of avoidances, for others it is almost a hundred. After the list has been compiled, you need to gradually immerse yourself in situations, starting with the less frightening ones, while being sure to perform the 25/6 technique and leave the store, theater, subway, etc. only in a moment of complete calm, remembering that fear does not last forever.

Do not forget that you can get out of a frightening situation only when the fear has completely subsided. If you nevertheless went into a store that you had been afraid to enter for a long time, but at the same time stayed there for a few minutes and then quickly ran away from there, this is not considered a successful completion of the task. On the contrary, you ran away and perpetuated your fear. Or you started riding the tram, went one stop, then three, four and everything seemed to be going well, but then, when you try to go 8 stops, severe panic sets in again, after which you cannot get on the tram at all. What is the mistake? And the fact is that you drove with the thought that panic would not happen, you hoped for chance. And I was really lucky for a few stops, but not for long. Remember this, because this is exactly the mistake many people make.

I consider it appropriate to highlight the most popular and often unconscious avoidances. With places and situations everything is more or less clear. Many people avoid any food, clothing, or substances that are associated with panic. You feel bad wearing jeans and now you don’t wear them and avoid them in every possible way, because... you think that it is in them that panic is guaranteed. You can avoid coffee, chocolate, alcohol, cigarettes, and physical activity. Avoidance also includes carrying medications in your purse or pocket (tranquilizers, sedatives, etc.). Remember, to completely surrender agoraphobia and panic, you must completely remove avoidances associated with the fear that you will feel ill. For example, a guy has completely freed himself from panic within his city, travels alone in public transport, goes anywhere, does not restrict himself in anything, but at the same time constantly carries a phenazepam tablet in his pocket. Until the pill is thrown away for a long time, it is impossible to talk about complete freedom from panic attacks.

Obsessive states

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based on your own awareness, and not on what you once read or heard.

Don't be afraid, nothing bad will happen.

On the contrary, you will most likely enjoy the experience of naturally, mindfully observing what is now. But more on that later.

So we're talking about intrusive thoughts, compulsions, self-talk, or obsessive-compulsive behavior. All this is one and the same, although it manifests itself in different forms.

You will be surprised, but it does not matter which form of OCD you suffer from, because the main and main reason one is habit and attachment to certain beliefs and automatic thinking.

It could be thoughts about bacteria and the fear of getting infected, which is why you wash your hands 200 times a day, are afraid to touch various objects, check a thousand times to see if the door is open and if the gas stove is on, although you know that it was turned off a long time ago her.

You may be constantly thinking about how you might hurt or even kill someone you love, or you may be plagued by any other kind of obsessive thinking.

A thought itself is information, an image, a sound, a word, a description or an idea of ​​something. There is no power in thought itself. You give it power by unconsciously immersing yourself in the process of thinking, then for you there is no longer anything around except your thoughts and the desire to get rid of them.

Every observable phenomenon has its beginning and end.

If we are talking about internal dialogue, then it can be described as a certain beginning and the main backbone of obsessive states or obsessions.

The habit of conducting a constant internal dialogue, or to be precise, a monologue with oneself, arises in childhood. This does not manifest itself in all people, although in one form or another, every person constantly evaluates, thinks about, and judges something.

Remember a situation when, for example, you received a deuce in primary school. You knew that your parents would be unhappy and would most likely scold you, and you didn’t want to upset them either. What came into your mind when you walked home? We thought that we needed to come up with something so that they wouldn’t find out and get angry for getting a bad mark.

This is especially noticeable in those children for whom it is important to be “someone” in the person of their parents and other people.

If such a belief has developed due to upbringing, then internal dialogue is inevitable. It just appears as a fact. You go and think about it, evaluate everything in favor

and “against”, you may feel guilty, fear of losing trust, or are looking for some other bonus for yourself.

The process of thinking about a situation is not conscious to you, but is perceived as reality. You become more and more immersed in thought until you find a thought for yourself that will help you solve an imagined problem or get out of the current situation.

For example, you go on a date and are already thinking: “Am I dressed correctly? What if he doesn't like me? How to impress her? and so on. »

With age, beliefs become even greater. We become identified with these beliefs and don't even realize that they are automatic thoughts. Life turns into a conditioned program where we become real robots.

OCD (obsessive-compulsive behavior, intrusive thoughts)

When thoughts become unbearable, when fatigue sets in from constant empty thinking, insomnia and fears appear, you begin to think about how to get rid of this endless internal dialogue and how to stop it.

Since nothing helps, the thought comes that we should come up with some kind of ritual or way of protecting ourselves from thoughts. And, as a rule, it is found.

Everyone has their own, the options are endless.

This could be obsessive counting of house windows, bending fingers, pronunciation of certain sounds or words, inadequate movement of the body or its individual parts, etc.

There is a belief in compulsive behavior, that is, in rituals that seem to play the role of some kind of protection from thoughts. However, these are just the same thoughts. Therefore, the game becomes more and more addictive.

Obsessive thoughts and control - what do they have in common?

Obsessive-compulsive disorder or OCD is most often based on an unrealized desire to control. This is especially true for those thoughts and actions that you forbid yourself to do or think, or put a serious restriction on them.

For example, if there is a belief: “I should always be cooler than others, more successful or smarter,” then perception and behavior will change due to such a ridiculous attitude.

For you, reality is divided into successful and unsuccessful.

Constantly assessing a situation can take up a huge amount of mental energy.

Surely you have already noticed this, haven't you?

The desire to control thoughts creates a lot of tension that can simply exhaust you without giving anything in return.

And the more control, the greater the tension, right?

Another option is when an obsessive thought appears in the form of harming or killing another person (usually a loved one).

In this case, the basis remains the same - a constant desire for control, but with a completely different coloring, where emotions and feelings are also connected. And if you also suppress them, then OCD can occur in parallel with panic attacks, phobias and increased anxiety.

One way or another, when you forbid yourself to think about something, you yourself create obsessive thoughts and states. After all, trying not to think about the “white ostrich”, that’s exactly what you think about. This is the whole paradox.

Just realize a simple fact: if you now want not to think about something, you are already thinking about it. Try this experiment, just try not to think about what's bothering you.

It turns out?

And I mean the same thing... Therefore, the first thing that should be discovered is not even your obsessive thoughts, but the desire and desire not to think about them or to get rid of them.

This is the cause of real suffering, and not those thoughts that tell you an “obsessive” story.

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2. Emotions caused by the satisfaction of desires. These are those that we evaluate as pleasant: causal joy, happiness, pleasure from owning something, etc.

As are the desires, so are the thoughts, emotions and actions. It's all one mechanism. By realizing the nature of the appearance of emotions, observing their movement, you can quickly discover that what recently caused a feeling of severe discomfort now does not bother you so much. On the other hand, the same applies to pleasant emotions.

And behind emotions there are always the same beliefs that I have already written about several times.

What to do with these beliefs?

All you need to do is explore them through actual awareness practice. Any suppression of beliefs or struggle with them creates greater tension.

There is also another mental law at work here – the “Law of Reverse Effort”.

When you try to stay on the surface of the water, you go to the bottom. When you try to drown or at least dive deeper, you float up, the water pushes you out with some terrible force. When you try to hold your breath, snore like a steam locomotive. When you try not to think about something, you already think about it...

The more you try to protect yourself, the more danger you are exposed to, since danger is felt precisely in the mind, in thoughts. Therefore, it is worth paying attention to exactly what your mind is filled with at the moment, and how thoughts affect your current state.

Here it is very important to look at the situation holistically, and not based on some idea, since holistic perception is perception without identification with the thought process.

You're probably asking, "But how to do this?"

It can be very difficult to look at a situation holistically: without prejudices, beliefs, assessments and judgments. We either must know everything about the situation, or look at it without any attitudes or judgments. But since any thought or concept is only a description of something, and not something itself, we will look at another option.

Most of the thoughts that we believe in and that we consider ours were heard somewhere, read, interpreted by someone, but not verified in any way from our own experience:

Another scientist wrote about this...

They write about this everywhere...

I just read...

That's for sure, I trust these sources... We believe what we are told or read ourselves. This can be observed in all areas, from religion to science. And this is where bias, prejudice, belief in one’s own rightness, hatred of other people comes from, and this is how conflicts and wars begin.

Therefore, in order to look at reality holistically, sometimes it is worth abandoning all assessments, judgments, ideas and checking from your own experience what worries or interests you.

This will give you real certainty in life.

Much will become clear without words, how it happens.

For example, we know from experience how to walk, although we do not know the mechanism of all organs.

You will notice that you have begun to better understand yourself and your nature, and will also begin to accept yourself in all states without empty struggle and constant tension.

And all because without evaluations and judgments, without believing in someone’s words, you will begin to perceive reality as it is at the moment, and not as others imagine it.

Worries will turn into peace, and the problem will turn into a task that can be solved by you with great interest.

Here a new question arises: “How to get rid of assessments and judgments?”

Chances are you've already noticed this, right? Just become aware of them. The knowledge that these are just thoughts and judgments will weaken the attachment to them and gradually its significance will simply subside. You will be able to look at the situation openly and freely...

But first, I suggest you do one very powerful and effective exercise in conscious observation of thoughts.

It is often used in cognitive therapy as one of the most effective for realizing the thoughts that are occurring at the moment. Frank Kinslow writes very well about this exercise in his book “The Kinslow System”.

Although, of course, he did not invent this exercise, however, it is precisely this that will allow you to remove

–  –  –

yourself beyond the boundaries of thinking. The thought came and went, but you remained. You are the one who observes and is aware of thoughts, but you are not the thought itself. This is very important to realize.

By doing this simple and natural exercise every day, for at least 5 minutes every hour, you will notice how your entire perception of life will completely change.

There will be more joy, awareness and peace.

Repeat this exercise again now, I'll wait.

The main thing is that you understand that it should not be perceived as a way to get rid of obsessive thoughts, NO. No more struggle and resistance.

Don't try to get rid of it because it's stupid to fight "cell division". You are simply aware of yourself outside of thinking, although, of course, you can continue to fight, there is nothing wrong with that either.

This is freedom. This is you.

Dealing with morning anxiety

Most people with anxiety disorders experience the most anxiety in the morning. This is due to the fact that when we wake up, we need time for the body to start working. Until we get moving, we will feel lethargic and lazy. So, anxious people find a reason to worry about this feeling, and therefore they feel vulnerable, they think that this feeling will last for the whole day, and they will not be able to accomplish everything they planned.

Remember, feeling anxious in the morning is not unusual. Don’t be scared and think that it will always be like this and ruin your mood at the beginning of the day. Below are 7 points that will help you get rid of morning anxiety.

1. Acceptance Try not to focus too much on how you feel after waking up, but if you do feel anxious, accept it and don’t let yourself get upset about it. It is your perception of anxiety that will determine how long it will persist.

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3. Stretching After getting out of bed, open the window or vent to enter fresh air. Then do stretching and other gymnastic exercises for morning exercises, which can be found in large quantities on the Internet. These actions will help relieve tension that you may have accumulated during sleep, make you feel toned for the whole day, and significantly reduce anxiety.

4. Shower Train yourself to take a contrast shower. This may not seem like the most enjoyable experience, but only the first few times. You will quickly get used to this indescribable feeling. Water treatments are great for reducing anxiety and calming the nervous system.

It is important to start taking a shower gradually, slowly, lowering the water temperature each time.

5. Breakfast Try not to consume sugar, coffee, or tea in the morning.

Better drink a glass of hot water with lemon. This will be great for your body, especially your liver.

And never skip breakfast, no matter how much you are in a hurry.

It is important to eat healthy food in the morning as this will help fight anxiety. For breakfast you should eat:

Whole grain

Lean proteins

Low-fat dairy products

Fruits and vegetables

6. Don't be idle If you don't have any specific plans for the morning, be sure to figure out something to do, otherwise your mind will be occupied with nothing and there will be nothing left for it but to return to anxiety and obsessive thoughts.

7. Take your time Try not to rush around the house looking for things. Rushing adds stress to your body and sends a signal to your brain that you are under pressure. This excessive nervousness will still not allow you to get everything done. It is much more effective to do everything calmly. Think over a clear action plan for the morning, get up in time to complete it, and do everything in accordance with it.

Combating Insomnia and Night Panics Sleep can be a particularly difficult issue for people with anxiety disorders. When a person cannot get a good night's sleep, how can one talk about good health? It is important to understand that the main role is played not by the number of hours spent in sleep, but by the quality of the sleep itself.

There can be many reasons why a person cannot fall asleep. Even people who do not suffer from anxiety disorders sometimes cannot fall asleep, for example, before a difficult exam. What can we say about an anxious person? Even the fact that it is midnight outside and there is no sleep in either eye causes concern for many, as this will affect performance the next day. It turns out to be a vicious circle. If you're afraid at bedtime that you'll be taking a long time to fall asleep, you probably will. Therefore, we need to change our attitude towards this.

The first tip may seem rather unusual, but you should have gotten used to it as you read the book. Dealing with an anxiety disorder in itself is an unusual and, sometimes, illogical matter. So, first of all, do not force yourself to sleep, by doing this you will only create unnecessary pressure that is not conducive to falling asleep.

Lie down and whatever will happen. Sleeping for just a couple of hours is not bad. If you can't fall asleep at all, accept it and move on. It is through this acceptance that you will find the path to getting rid of insomnia. Accept all the sensations you feel at night, thereby relieving yourself of unnecessary pressure.

Some tips to help you fall asleep:

Before going to bed, you can take a warm bath, it will help you relax and calm down. You can add a few drops of lavender oil to the water: it will add a calming effect.

While lying in bed, before turning off the light, read some fiction book. Fiction, because such literature stimulates the right hemisphere of the brain, which is responsible for imagination. At this moment, the left hemisphere of the brain (analytical), which is responsible for worrying about the coming day, is less active. The book should be light, without a twisted plot, otherwise it will absorb you and you will not be able to tear yourself away from it.

If you wake up in the middle of the night, it is advisable to stay in bed. If you get up, it will bring you out of the dream state. Alternatively, you can read that book a little longer, and when you feel sleepy, turn off the light and continue to sleep.

If you feel like you can't move on from worrying about the next day, take a piece of paper, a pen and just write down all your worries.

List your plans for tomorrow, write what you are afraid of in case you can’t fall asleep. Write until the activity tires you. Write everything, the content is not so important. With this action you will release psychic energy that prevents you from falling asleep. One of the reasons why a person cannot sleep is that the brain thinks that your worries are truly important and tries to analyze them over and over again. It gets to work and prevents the body from relaxing and going to sleep. By writing down all these experiences, you give a signal to your brain that you will not forget about them tomorrow, and today you need to sleep.

Another effective approach was proposed by Dr. Denis Gersten. When you are lying in bed and feel that sleep is not coming, remember those moments when you really wanted to sleep, but had to stay awake. Every person has had such cases. For example, when you studied a difficult exam until the morning or wrote a term paper on the last night before your defense. Remember these sensations in your body, this heaviness of your eyelids. It was impossible to close your eyes even for a minute, and you fought against sleep. Try to feel all this as clearly as possible.

Now think how good it is that you are now in your bed: you don’t have to force yourself to be on your feet, fight sleep, right now you can cover yourself with a blanket and fall asleep. How much would you have given last time to have had this opportunity? Feel this state. You have no reason not to sleep, so stay in that wonderful feeling of gratitude until you fall asleep.

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A phobia is an unreasonable and strong fear of some situation or object. It is most often considered separately from anxiety and PA. For example, when a person is afraid of spiders, he is gradually directed towards fear. Getting closer and closer to the object until the fear disappears.

It is important that the impact should not be on the situation, but on sensations. A person who is afraid of driving on the highway, after regular trips, can get rid of this, but acquire a fear of driving on a bridge. Therefore, it is necessary to most effectively focus on relieving anxiety from the perspective of fear, rather than a specific situation.

Phobias such as agoraphobia and claustrophobia are directly related to anxiety disorders. These are fears not of a certain thing, but of the very feelings that it causes. For example, a person suffering from agoraphobia is often afraid to even leave the house, but at the same time, he is not worried about specific things in the outside world, but about the sensations he experiences. The same is true with claustrophobia: a person is not afraid of the enclosed space itself, but of the thought that he will not be able to leave it.

Social phobias

Social interaction can cause bodily manifestations in some people that make them feel uncomfortable interacting with people. The most common problems: shyness in public, hand tremors and increased sweating.

None of this is hazardous to health.

However, if such manifestations become regular, they can lead to avoidance of communication with people and even leaving work. This problem can be resolved using the 25-second countdown you already know. Let us describe this procedure using the example of hand tremors, which is no different from the procedure for getting rid of other similar problems.

The essence of getting rid of this problem is to use the opposite approach to the method that such people use to avoid trouble. The dentist's hands begin to tremble as soon as the patient sits down in the chair in front of her. The doctor only needs to think about previous situations where this happened and it happens again. Of course, this is very frustrating, she tries with all her might to tense up and stop her hands from shaking and this, of course, only makes the situation worse.

To get rid of this problem, you need to radically change your perception. Instead of trying to calm your hands, you should just let them shake. At the same time, you need to want your hands to shake as much as possible. If the doctor can accept this tremor and want it to increase, the problem will go away over time. This works on both sweating and shyness.

It's important to note this: if people didn't care what others thought about their problem, there wouldn't be a problem. Fear of what others will think is the source of the problem itself.

To make your deliverance more effective, it would be a good idea to work on worrying less about the opinions of others about you.

Before you go to bed, try to imagine a situation that would cause your unwanted reaction. But this time, think about it differently:

“My hands are shaking, but I'm not worried about it.

My face is flushed and there is sweat on my forehead, but I don’t care at all.” Now you accept any manifestations of the body, but they no longer frighten you. This requires practice to remove thoughts of social embarrassment.

Usually, those around you don’t even understand what your problem is, they simply don’t see it. The problem exists only in your head, for this reason you misperceive and distort the real state of affairs.

A deeper study of social phobia and raising self-esteem takes place in the program “Tuning the Mind or Ending Illusions.”

–  –  –

How to determine the moment when you can say that you have gotten rid of your anxiety disorder? Most likely, when your confidence and sense of success become clearly stronger than your feelings of despair. This will not mean that you will never be afraid or worried again.

You will simply experience unpleasant feelings much easier and spend much less time on them. After a couple of months, you will completely stop remembering that you once had a similar problem as anxiety disorder.

Waiting for a relapse

It is important to remember that relapses are inevitable! After a few days good mood and the absence of anxiety, you can wake up with the feeling that everything has come back. The main thing is not to get upset and remember that this is normal. Then, your condition will continue to improve. Perhaps in the future there will be several more relapses, which will certainly be replaced by new progress. Remember, the trend is not improving.

–  –  –

Treating Anxiety with Medication If you take anti-anxiety medications when you're panicking, there's nothing wrong with that. Many people are generally afraid to go to the doctor, in case they say that the situation is even worse than it seems. Taking sedatives can be helpful if you have not abused them and used them as additional tool in the fight against anxiety.

Many simply would not be able to cope with this problem without the help of medications. The danger of taking drugs is that a person becomes dependent on them, and when he does not take his usual pill in the morning, he experiences anxiety throughout the day. Many qualified professionals design a treatment plan in such a way that the dosage is reduced as the patient gains better control of his condition.

It is important that you do not think that you can get rid of anxiety with medication alone. After all, you are not sick with anything, so there is nothing to be treated for.

The main problem is in the head. Medicines will only help reduce anxiety and sensitivity, but you will need to get rid of incorrect attitudes within yourself.

Review of your misdiagnoses

–  –  –

Schizophrenia is characterized by scattered thoughts, incoherent speech, strange beliefs, and hallucinations. It has a pronounced genetic component, so most often it affects people who have already had this disease in their family. It does not begin suddenly; its manifestations become noticeable over time.

Losing control of yourself.

Another fairly common fear is losing control of oneself during a panic. Most often it affects those who are afraid of embarrassing themselves in public. Fear can range from falling into hysterics in public, to going into a state of passion and killing loved ones.

Calm down, these are just scary thoughts that have nothing to do with reality. You won't do this and you won't lose control of yourself. I am sure that no one ever notices a panic attack when it overtakes you by surprise in public places.

There are times when you want to get up and run away from some serious event, but you don’t. Most likely, just politely apologize and leave. Even if you act somewhat strangely for those around you, there is nothing wrong with that. In an hour, no one will remember about this, because each of those present has their own bag of problems and fears that worry them in the first place. Life is not endless to waste it worrying about every awkward moment.

Derealization and depersonalization

Some people with anxiety disorders feel like they are looking at the world from the outside during panic attacks. They seem to switch off, and everything around them seems like a filmstrip. These sensations often lead to the idea that something bad has happened in the brain.

A common example of depersonalization is feeling isolated while talking to someone. This feeling can be so vivid that it will bother a person for a long time and all thoughts will be only about it.

Meanwhile, there is nothing dangerous in depersonalization.

It is the result of constant tension and anxiety. Accumulates in your body a large number of stressful chemical substances, which inhibit the transmission of information to the brain.

This phenomenon is rarely described in books about anxiety. But rest assured that depersonalization will definitely go away as soon as your anxiety level decreases. Often, this symptom is reinforced by the fact that tension in the body contributes to deep immersion in one’s own thoughts. Obsessive thoughts about severe mental and neurological illnesses appear. But rest assured, depersonalization will not cause any harm to your health.

The best way to get rid of depersonalization is to accept it and believe that it will go away soon.

The moment you feel it, relax and watch it, there is no need to be afraid of it. This calm perception of depersonalization will quickly relieve you of it, because... it is a product of your anxiety and tension. Live and enjoy life, do not be afraid of these unpleasant sensations, and they will stop bothering you.

Depression

A prolonged feeling of anxiety is not the most pleasant thing that can happen in a person’s life. It can lead to a state of despondency and depression, which is supported by thoughts about the future, about restrictions due to anxiety. The person feels depressed and tied down.

Once you begin to conquer your anxiety, worry and tension, it will immediately show that you are free from depression and you will have hope for a normal life.

Difficulty breathing.

One of the most common sensations that anxious people experience during panic is shortness of breath. It seems to them that their chest is compressed, there is not enough oxygen, and they could suffocate at any moment.

In fact, this is caused by tension in the muscles of the chest and throat, which causes a false feeling of constriction, and a rich imagination completes the picture of suffocation. Not infrequently, the telltale sign is a slight dizziness caused by anxiety, which finally convinces the person that he does not have enough oxygen.

But this fear is unfounded. Even if you're all next years spent in fear of suffocation, it would not help you suffocate. In fact, you would receive exactly as much oxygen as you need, but at the same time you would spend your life in an extremely mediocre way.

Therefore, stop taking your stress so emotionally, remember, it cannot harm you.

Let these sensations be and after a while they will disappear.

Weakness, dizziness

During panic, many feel dizzy and weak in the legs. These feelings cause fear, the person thinks that he may lose consciousness. Especially if he is alone on the street.

These unpleasant sensations are caused by hyperventilation, i.e. rapid breathing. Remember that during times of fear and panic, you begin to breathe more often than usual, resulting in an excess of oxygen, which causes dizziness. Then, just the unpleasant memories alone will be enough to make you feel dizzy. For example, it happened to you in some place, or under some circumstances.

Therefore, next time, under similar circumstances, you will again feel dizzy.

But fainting is very unlikely, because a person loses consciousness at low blood pressure. When the body is vertical, it is easier for blood to flow to the head; everything in the body is thought out. However, when you panic, your blood pressure increases, so that fainting is practically ruled out.

At the moment of panic, when adrenaline is released into the blood, the whole body is mobilized and alert, because it thinks that you are in danger. Being in such a situation, he will not allow himself to lose consciousness.

If you have fainted before and are now afraid of repeating it, try to remember all the circumstances.

This could happen for a myriad of reasons that have nothing to do with anxiety. Perhaps you didn’t eat that day, didn’t feel well, or were overtired.

These are just the most common causes of fainting; in fact, there are many more.

If this information still does not help you get rid of the problem, you should follow the path you know: find a place where you can sit down, remember the above information, tell yourself that if fainting decides to come, let it do it right now, accept it and let it go willing your body to faint.

Remember that no one can faint at will, so fear will quickly evaporate, because you no longer feed it with your anxiety, it has nothing more to do here.

Feeling of suffocation

During times of panic and anxiety, some people feel a tightness in their throat. This is the result of muscle tension in the throat area. The feeling is, of course, unpleasant, but absolutely not dangerous. It happens due to overflowing with feelings and emotions. For example, at a wedding or funeral, many people have a lump in their throat. However, when a person expresses his emotions (laughs, cries, speaks out), the feeling goes away. This may be one of the methods to combat this feeling. Every day, at least for a few minutes, turn on your favorite song or radio and sing. If you have time, you can, of course, take longer.

It is important to focus on singing, and not to monitor whether the lump is gone or not. The less you pay attention to him, the faster he will go away.

If you still have thoughts about some kind of disease, go to the doctor and get checked. This is the most quick way get rid of bad thoughts from your head.

–  –  –

A typical situation that led to concern about the heart was when a person was at home alone. Suddenly he felt as if someone had slashed him with a knife from the inside in the area of ​​his heart. Then there was a feeling of pricking with small needles in the left hand. A thought flashed through my head: heart attack. The fact that the man was alone in the apartment and no one was there to help only added to the fear. He called an ambulance and was taken to the hospital. Numerous tests showed that the heart was fine, the doctors said that it was a normal concern, but in my head there was the thought that they missed something, didn’t notice, hid it.

In fact, the symptoms of heart disease are markedly different from those of panic. In the first case, shortness of breath and chest pain appear, most often on the right side and under the shoulder blade. At the same time, they are proportional to physical activity: the stronger it is, the greater the symptoms. You stopped, rested, and the symptoms went away, but with panic everything is completely different.

With anxiety, there are short periods when the heart, seemingly without reason, begins to beat faster. In a sensitive state, this can cause anxiety due to fear of a heart attack. The more you worry, the harder your heart beats.

There is absolutely no need to be afraid of heartbeat.

The cause may be exhaustion or drinking coffee. In any case, if you have undergone a medical examination that did not reveal anything, calm down, there is no danger. The heart is an extremely strong muscle and is absolutely not afraid of your increased heart rate. Throw out of your head the pictures produced by your developed imagination. The heart cannot burst from an increased pulse, just as it cannot stop. The pulse may be rapid throughout the day, but this will not harm the heart.

Missed heartbeats

In medicine, an extraordinary contraction of the heart is called an extrasystole. This is usually an extra kick between regular contractions.

The extraordinary contraction is followed by a pause, so it seems that one impulse was missed. Such blows are harmless. To calm down, you can sit down temporarily, but continuing to move will not be dangerous either.

It is important that at this moment you do not rush home with fear, because the fact of avoidance will only intensify your problem.

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Life is a very interesting phenomenon. Each of us lives different experiences in different countries and cities. Life goes on day after day, filling us with a series of different events. In this cycle of time we forget that we live. The human mind tries to automate everything, so we lose all sensitivity to life, all the pleasure from living a moment in time.

Let's dwell on what is happening inside us?

When a person is born, he is absolutely innocent, the child lives totally, that is, he fully experiences what is in him and what life brings. If he cries, then he cries with all his being, if he rejoices, then this joy penetrates every cell of his body. After several years of life, children know how to hide their real emotions and feelings, they know how to behave in certain situations. In other words, children begin to suppress what is, and with this suppression comes automation, in which you can feel good and stop feeling all the pain and negative emotions that come over and over again.

In automation, a person lives his entire life, he is somewhere at every moment of time, but not here and not with what he has. Hence our constant desire to find ourselves in the past (in kindergarten, school), when everything was so simple and good, when I could rejoice and enjoy life. And so all the time, the mind runs away from the present, dreaming of a bright future or the past (even if the past was not so sweet, it’s still better there, I know what happened there, and I can be happy there). Because of automation, we live like a robot that has a task (go to work/study, do this, do that) by completing these tasks, we will supposedly be confident in the future and happy there (all dreams will come true, there I can please, you can be happy there, but now you need to have time and do a lot) and so on every day.

In this automation we have lost all sensitivity to life. Hence many dramas, great grief for everyone. When something bad happens in life, or what happened haunts us every day and prevents us from living. Let's feel at least for a moment what we have right now! And right now you are reading these lines (there is nothing wrong with this, there is only you in this, as in any other moment). In this moment you breathe, you live and it doesn’t matter what happened and what will happen (both are gone, the past is gone, the future is not yet). In this moment there is only you! And no one but you.

What prevents us from simply living and enjoying life?

• First of all, this is what has already been said, namely, we wear different masks all the time (father, mother, director, etc.), from childhood we were taught to live in society, as society pleases (cry , when possible, rejoice only when it is logical and explainable). Imagine for a second that your deepest dream has come true, but at this time you are at an important meeting, what are we going to do? Even if the meeting itself is a dream, we will sit with a smart look (after all, something very important is being discussed, now there is no time for jokes! Even smiling will be a problem): in the end, the joy was choked, this energy was gone, of course, we can rejoice later, but it won’t be the same, it will be meager, not total. A person hides behind these masks all his life: if he is angry, then he has to smile, if he is happy, then he has to put on a serious face, and so on.
• Secondly, many events, sometimes painful, happen in life. Due to the fact that it came to suppress emotions and feelings, a lot of them have accumulated, and all this right here and now! As a result, as soon as a person begins to feel life and rejoice, pain comes, of which there is so much that one can go crazy. We accumulate a huge number of ways to protect ourselves from what is essentially blocked energy, our energy.
• Thirdly, from childhood we are raised, focusing on our future, who we will become, who we will grow up to be. And this burden of responsibility is very large, we were taught that only by becoming someone can we be happy, only by becoming the head of a large corporation can we find happiness, can we calm down and retire, can we start doing what we really like. Everyone wants to be someone, but not who they already are. But it’s so simple: be who you are, and life itself will direct you to where you belong, where you are free and full of pleasure and abundance.
• Fourth, we are always running from who we are. Have you ever wondered who I am? This is the only one for real important question. If you take away everything, all the masks, all the past and future, what remains? If you throw away everything you have (house, family, savings), if you just look into the depths of yourself, what will be there? The greatest minds have wrestled with this question, and many masters, such as Jesus, Lao Tzu, Muhammad, Buddha, Krishna, have answered it. To do this, you need to be very brave, because this means stopping being someone and being who you are, being the beginning of beginnings, being what is not and what is at the same time. This is where great fear lies, we cling to the illusion of the mind and run away from ourselves.
• Fifthly, these are our attachments. In the depths of our mind, we want to control everything that is and even those we love (to know where, with whom and what), we do not loosen control for a second, control over our life, work, on which a huge amount of energy is spent . Hence the impossibility of being here and now, as soon as something goes wrong, not the way we like, the need to control immediately appears, automation appears and old masks are worn. Indeed, letting go of everything that is and starting to live is very difficult. And so on…

Behind all this there is a great manipulator - our mind.

For life to become a series of joyful events, to be healthy and live in happiness, it is enough to discard the prejudices of the mind. Life is a beautiful phenomenon that exists here and now, when we exist, when we live in the moment, happiness comes on its own. With huge gratitude to each and everyone.

Under the loud title “...how to get rid of suffering” lies a far from new idea in psychology hChanges to distorted thoughts(that is, not entirely correct or true, not proven) more truthful and rational, which will make life more harmonious and calm.

The authors provide an extensive list of 11 cognitive errors(thinking errors) (and this is not an exhaustive list, these are the most common ones, by the way, it was interesting to check for certain errors, this is a kind of checklist):
1) Filtration (focus on the negative)
2) Polarized thinking (there is only black and white)
3) Overgeneralization (from 1 case a conclusion is drawn about everything)
4) Devaluation of oneself (similar to point 4, for 1 event)
5) "Mind reading"
6) Catastrophization (expecting something bad all the time)
7) Exaggerating the depth of the problem
8) Personalization (the entire reaction of others is only to you personally)
9) Comparing yourself with others
10) Ought
11) Intolerance to discomfort.

It is these mental distortions, coupled with our deep attitudes (not always positive) that bring suffering and problems into our lives. To correct the situation, the authors propose a special sequential An 8-step algorithm for working through our beliefs, which includes identifying the situation, emotions, behavior, thoughts, intermediate beliefs, searching for and refuting evidence of our automatic thoughts, forming new rational beliefs).

For this, the authors offer special tools: emotion diary and cognitive map(there will be a lot of work, without this change there is no point in waiting, at the end of each chapter there are specific homework assignments)

In addition, I found it interesting 12 Beliefs of a Neurotic(and healthy thinking differs from neurotic thinking in that it has no cognitive distortions) and common Strategies for getting rid of negative internal beliefs, which in practice lead to even greater problems (the desire to be the best, the desire to appear stronger, avoidant behavior).

I was pleased with the large number of visual examples and written exercises for self-reflection, as well as the good systematization of the material presented.
I was disappointed by some of the lengthiness of the book (everything could, in my opinion, be said more briefly; very obvious things are explained).

An interesting and useful book on practical psychology, of course, the authors will not discover America in this topic, but, it seems to me, the value of information is not always in its novelty, but often in the degree of its applicability in practice, and repetition is the mother of learning :)

Well, the most important idea of ​​the book: It is not situations and events that influence our state, but our thoughts. They are the ones that cause emotions, and emotions in turn cause certain reactions (bodily and behavioral). The authors even propose a special formula SERM: Situation-Thought-Emotion-Reaction (Result) This seems to be a very simple idea, I always read about it in similar self-development books, but somehow it still doesn’t stick... So it’s very useful to read and re-read)

home » Earn money online » Settings for the mind. How to get rid of suffering and find peace of mind. Pavel Fedorenko, Anastasia Bubnova Settings for the mind. How to get rid of suffering and find peace of mind Mindsets or the end of illusions