Did You Know Your Spiraling Thoughts Have Names?
Did you know your most stressful thoughts have actual names?
Researchers catalog them (and have for decades). Catastrophizing. All-or-nothing thinking. Mind-reading. Fortune-telling. Comparing.
And here’s the part that matters for you:
Just naming the pattern, saying “oh, that’s catastrophizing,” quiets the alarm part of your brain. Putting words to what’s happening actually turns down the volume.
(This is what I mean when I say name it to tame it. It’s not a cute phrase. It’s neuroscience.)
You already know these patterns. You live them:
You send an email, get no reply, and decide they’re mad, you blew it, you’re probably getting fired. (Catastrophizing.)
One thing goes sideways at 9 am and the whole day is “ruined.” (All-or-nothing.)
You scroll through LinkedIn for ninety seconds and somehow everyone is miles ahead of you. (Compare and despair.)
Here’s what your racing mind doesn’t want you to know:
· A thought is not a fact.
· A pattern is not the truth.
· That inner voice? It’s not wisdom. It’s a habit.
So the next time your jaw tightens and your shoulders creep up toward your ears, try this:
1. Name it. “That’s my catastrophizing again.”
2. Hand on your heart.
3. Three slow breaths, longer on the exhale.
You don’t have to argue with the thought. You don’t have to fix it. You just have to see it for what it is. A passing pattern. Not an instruction.
That tiny pause, the space between the thought and your reaction, is where everything changes.
Come practice it with me.
Every Wednesday at 10 am PT / 1 pm ET, I host a free 10-minute reset on Zoom. No camera. No experience needed. Just ten minutes to catch your breath and come back to yourself.