Your brain loves to play and one of its favorite games is that of answering questions. So, if you want to entertain your brain, ask it questions. But if you want to deal more effectively with your anxiety and create a new feeling of calm in your life, you need to ask yourself better questions. Better questions are specific, and designed to give you useful answers. Useful answers offer you new information about your fears that will go a long way in helping you create the peaceful life you’ve been longing for.
And here’s how:
Let’s say you’re nervous about riding in elevators and you’ve been asking yourself questions like -
“What might happen if the elevator got stuck between floors?”
“How long would it take for someone to rescue me?”
“What if I run out of air and can’t breathe?”
“What if I make a fool of myself or pass out?”
“What is wrong with me?”
(Can you feel your blood pressure going up?)
What kind of answers are you going to get from these questions? Right. But what if you asked yourself questions like:
“What am I really anxious about?”
“Is there some way I could think about this fear differently?”
“Is there some action I could take that would help me face this fear?”
“Is there something I could learn about how other people deal with this kind of fear?”
“Is there someone I could ask to help me through this?”
Can you feel the difference between these two sets of questions? Can you see how changing the questions you ask yourself can help you both help you find new ways to face your fears in the moment and to create a peaceful life in the years ahead?
What do you think might happen if you started asking yourself better questions?
Do you think you can come up with a question you could ask right now that might help you feel better?
Why not give it a try?