When Worry Hijacks Your Mind

Tyona Vallejo: Hey, welcome back to the podcast. Thanks for listening this week. This week I wanted to talk about our relationship with worry. And worry isn't always a sign that something's wrong. Sometimes worry can be an invitation to look beneath the story that our mind is creating. The other night I found myself awake in bed at 3 a.m. and worrying at a situation happening. in my family that I felt guilt around. Now, the funny thing is that none of what I was worrying about had happened yet. But my mind was predicting the worst. I think this is something that we've all noticed our brains doing from time to time. We find ourselves rehearsing a conversation, predicting a response, worrying about a situation at work before it even occurs, or anticipating conflict and becoming upset about it even before it happens. And then the next thing you know, your body is reacting to a future that hasn't even happened. Now this is such a human experience and there is absolutely no shame in this experience. And the reality is we are unconsciously creating stress and dregulation in our nervous system because we are unconscious to what is really happening. The fact is, there was what is happening in the present moment, and there's this mind image, this movie that's being played out in our brain that we're predicting will happen. And that night that I was laying in bed, the reality was that I was safe. Nothing bad was happening. I was awake at 3 a.m. That's it. Those were the facts. My mind had a whole nother story that was creating a lot of fear and anxiety. Now, learning to observe the difference between what is reality and what is a story in my mind has truly, truly helped me beyond measure. When you gain this understanding, you create so much space for calm, clarity, and choice. Now let's take a deeper look at what is really happening in our body and our mind. When these mind predictions are happening. Perhaps someone hasn't answered your message, or a client you're hoping to work with hasn't booked yet. Or another person might seem a little off. Within minutes, the mind creates an explanation. And your body reacts as if that explanation is true. Leaving you feeling cascades of negative emotion, such as frustration, disappointment, fear, maybe sadness. Notice that rarely does our mind predict something amazing that leaves us feeling great. No. The mind predictions are usually pretty scary and some kind of threat. Now, The purpose of these mind predictions is for survival and efficiency. Your brain is literally trying to protect you by predicting, and it naturally uses previous experiences to anticipate what could happen next. So it's really important to realize that this isn't a personal flaw that only your mind does. It's an attempt To protect you from disappointment, rejection, embarrassment, or uncertainty. However, as you can tell, these predictions often lead to errors of judgment and lots of unnecessary suffering. I recently worked with a client that was experiencing a lot of these mental prediction errors. And he was feeling really unhappy at his job. And he would have these mental predictions before even starting his workday. And by the time he got to work, he had gotten his nervous system so worked up he was already dysregulated and frustrated. Now, if this is happening to you, I've got you. Here are a few things to remember. When we confuse predictions with facts, we can experience undue fear, resentment, stress about something that hasn't even occurred. So it's important to decipher between facts and predictions, these made-up stories in our minds. When we believe these negative predictions, we may withdraw, become overreactive, maybe procrastinate, overwork, or initiate conflict based on our imagined future. And what has helped me is to recognize that worry isn't a fact, it is a prediction. That my mind is offering. It's a story. And worry is not helpful for solving any problems. However, worry can be a sign that there is a deeper fear that requires your attention. Therefore, I don't necessarily need to push worry away. Often, when we try to resist worry, it just persists more. So that's not going to be very effective. Now, instead, if you use worry as an invitation to get curious. Often when I get curious about worry, I'll find there's a thought error, something that I was believing about a particular subject that wasn't true, which is exactly what I did in regards to the family issue that I had been worrying about. When I awakened the next morning, I sat down and journaled the facts versus the story in my mind. And sure enough, there was a little lie that was hidden underneath the worry. This is why I love, love, love coaching so much. It requires you to look deeper. To question your own thoughts and beliefs instead of reacting and being at the mercy of your own mind, you are able to have more authority over these stories and thoughts. And when you work with a coach, they're able to help you see the blocks and misbeliefs that are sabotaging you and keeping you stuck in cycles of worry. I find that when you uncover a misbelief, you're usually instantly freed from the worry because the story behind it was based on a lie. Again, when worry appears, the invitation isn't to push it away, stop worrying. It is to become curious. Curious is the key word here. Curious enough to uncover the belief beneath the worry without getting swept away by the story so that you can respond intentionally. Therefore, when you change how you deal with worry, you will feel calmer in your relationships. You will make clearer business decisions and you'll recover more quickly when your mind begins to spiral. You can't prevent your mind from producing thoughts, worries, but you can learn to witness them without automatically obeying them. This is a practice. A practice of being an observer. It is developing a new relationship with your mind. And this week I invite you to act as the observer of your own mind. And notice when your mind worries, label it worrying. And then take it a step further, getting curious about what is underneath the worry. Asking yourself, what am I predicting? And what am I afraid this will mean about me? And further, what would support my body in this moment? Now, I do want to add that when worry hijacks your mind, the best thing to do is to come back to your body. This will allow you to regulate your nervous system so that your logical thinking mind can be accessed Lastly, I hope this is a reminder for you to return to what is present instead of where the mind has hijacked your attention. For me that night, I was awake. I knew I couldn't solve the worry in that moment. So the best thing for me to do was to go back to sleep. Now that can be challenging, right? When your mind is got your attention. So if I remained focused there, I would stay awake and worry. I had to redirect my attention, my focus into my body. I will share more about some of the techniques. that you can use in order to do this on a future podcast. Again, I hope this has given you some great tools to use when worry comes up instead of staying unconscious and in that same reactivity state. Thank you for spending this time with me and please share this with a friend that may need to hear this message as well. Finally, always remember that you are enough and you are evolving. See you next week. If you're listening to this and you're recognizing yourself in these patterns, this is exactly the work I do inside my coaching. This isn't something you have to figure out alone. If you're ready to feel more confident, grounded, and self-trusting, I'd love to support you. Check out the show notes to book a consultation coaching call today.