Emotional Badass with Nikki Eisenhauer

Episode: 9 Quick and Powerful Strategies to Stop Catastrophic Thinking & Uplift Your Mind!

Date: February 16, 2025

Episode Overview

In this episode, Nikki Eisenhauer, psychotherapist and life coach, explores the concept of catastrophizing—a common cognitive distortion that leads us to imagine the worst possible outcomes. Drawing from her experience working with highly sensitive people, Nikki breaks down nine actionable strategies to stop catastrophic thinking and foster emotional resilience. Throughout the episode, she empowers listeners to reclaim control, elevate self-care, and create a more grounded, present, and peaceful inner world.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Understanding Catastrophizing

Definition:
Catastrophizing is “a cognitive distortion where a person expects or imagines the worst possible outcome in any given situation, even when it’s highly unlikely.” (01:25)

Core Insight:

• Whatever we practice, gets stronger. Catastrophizing is learned, not automatic or inherited.
• The opposite—dismissal or minimizing—is equally unhelpful; balance lies in grounded realism.
• Highly sensitive people and recovering people-pleasers are particularly susceptible.
• “Catastrophizing is an overreaction as a practice ... creatures of habit. If we accidentally practice this a lot, we get stronger in catastrophizing." (01:50)

2. The Roots of People-Pleasing & Performance-Based Self-Worth

• For many, especially those with trauma backgrounds, people-pleasing is learned as a survival strategy.
• This leads to “performance-based self-worth”—the belief that our value lies in doing for others, rather than simply existing.
• This mindset paves the way for catastrophizing, as we try to control outcomes or avoid abandonment by being hyper-alert to risk and worst outcomes.

Notable Quote:

• “We turn ourselves as people pleasers into a human doing to try to secure that people will stick around and not abandon us.” (05:43)

3. Catastrophizing, Energy Drains, and Highly Sensitive Exhaustion

• Regular catastrophizing increases anxiety, stress, helplessness, and hopelessness, often crafting a victim mentality.
• The habit becomes addictive, impacting inner children and perpetuating cycles of fear.

Vivid Example:

• Nikki imagines standing with a 7-10 year old facing disaster, saying “everything’s going to be gone”—an analogy for how we traumatize our inner selves with catastrophic thinking. (10:50)

The 9 Quick and Powerful Strategies to Stop Catastrophic Thinking

1. Check What’s in Your Control—and What’s Not

Practice:

• Pause and assess: What can I control? What is beyond my control?
• Slow internal (and external) spinning to regain perspective.

Notable Quote:

• “Healing and self-care is accepting that it’s our own job to manage our precious energy.” (14:26)

2. Recognize Catastrophizing as a Part of You, Not All of You

• Understand it’s just one part—a learned survival voice—not your whole self.
• Choose which ‘part’ you let ‘drive the bus.’

Notable Quote:

• “My wise woman is the only part of me allowed at this point in my life to drive the bus of my life.” (19:51)

3. Focus on the Present

• Being present is powerful and antidotes anxiety.
• Use your energy for empowered action, not worst-case mental scenarios.

Memorable Insight:

• “It is a superpower to know this wisdom, and it is next level to practice it.” (20:58)

4. Set a Worry Time Limit

• Allocate a set—even tiny—amount of time to worry (e.g., two minutes), then move on.
• Act where you can (e.g., make a small donation if global suffering troubles you) but don’t dwell.

Questions to Consider:

• “Do you have permission to live a good life when others are suffering around the world? Should you live less of a life because others suffer?” (26:29)

5. Beware the Trap of ‘What Ifs’

• ‘What if’ thinking feeds catastrophic spirals.
• Instead, focus on ‘what is’, as it grounds and calms you.

Notable Quote:

• “What ifs can pave a road to hell. What is is better to play with than what ifs.” (28:26)
• “Is your imagination allowed to torture you?” (31:06)

6. Use Realistic Language—Let Go of Extremes

• Avoid words like always, never, or dramatic extremes.
• Reframe internal dialogue with more accurate, less intense statements.

Reframe Example:

• Catastrophizing: “I’ll fail and never be able to show my face again.”
• Reframe: “Yeah, I might fail, but I’ll give myself some points for trying…” (33:40)

7. Break It Down and Embrace the Lessons

• Decompose big worries into manageable pieces.
• Recognize that misfortune often brings valuable growth.

Notable Quote:

• “It’s not the end of the world. It’s just the end of a path.” (34:18)
• “I wasted so much time in my younger life fighting the lessons because I was pissed off that they were at my feet, inviting me to learn.” (35:49)

8. Gratitude as a Practice

• Gratitude lightens the mental burden and shifts focus from lack to abundance.
• Even financial struggles can be reframed from catastrophe to gratitude.

Memorable Story:

• Nikki recounts reframing a high electricity bill from “this is a catastrophe” to “I’m grateful I have the funds to pay this.” (39:16)

9. Set Boundaries with Catastrophizers

• Limit exposure to people and media who dwell in or promote catastrophic thinking.
• Observe, don’t absorb—“I observe. I don’t absorb that. That is not mine. That is yours. I do not choose it.” (41:50)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “What do you want to practice? What do you want to get stronger in your life…as a human being?” (02:42)
• “Catastrophizing can even develop like an addiction.” (06:40)
• “It isn’t enough to just understand. Understanding and knowledge is not enough—it’s in what we practice, y’all.” (07:53)
• “Empathy without boundaries, without limits, is death. I think we take years off of our highly sensitive lives with fruitless worry.” (26:29)
• “Be in deep respect of your imagination, y’all. It’s powerful and it can frighten us or it can hold us.” (31:05)
• “Practice emotional boundaries by observing and not absorbing this from other people, from media, from technology.” (41:50)
• “Self care is self respect and grounding in action. Self care doesn’t work if it’s just an idea—it must be actionable.” (43:01)
• “Your inner child is begging you for reassurance.” (44:35)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Definition & Introduction to Catastrophizing (01:25)
• People-Pleasing and Performance-Based Self-Worth (04:57)
• Impact of Catastrophizing (Inner Child analogy) (10:50)
• Strategy 1: What’s In Your Control (13:55)
• Strategy 2: Recognize the Catastrophizing Part (16:45)
• Strategy 3: Focus on the Present (20:14)
• Strategy 4: Set a Worry Time Limit (24:45)
• Strategy 5: Avoid ‘What If’ Thinking (28:26)
• Strategy 6: Use Realistic Language (31:40)
• Strategy 7: Break It Down & Embrace Lessons (34:17)
• Strategy 8: Practice Gratitude (36:59)
• Gratitude and Money Mindset Story (39:16)
• Strategy 9: Boundaries with Catastrophizers (41:50)
• Self-Care as Self-Respect & Closing Motivation (43:01)
• Inner Child & Reassurance (44:35)

Summary & Takeaways

Nikki offers a rich blend of personal story, practical strategies, and compassionate insight into the habit of catastrophic thinking. By identifying catastrophizing as a learned coping strategy rooted in earlier survival needs, she guides listeners in reclaiming agency through conscious habit change, realistic thinking, and energetic boundaries. Every tactic is delivered with warmth, authenticity, and encouragement, reminding listeners that practice—far more than insight alone—builds new, healthier patterns of mind and spirit.

Final Takeaway:
Refuse life’s constant invitations to catastrophize. Your peace, ease, and emotional security are worth the effort to practice these new ways.

For those seeking more support: Nikki invites listeners to explore her resources, including upcoming courses on boundaries, her Patreon, and opportunities for deeper work via emotionalbadass.com.

Light and love, y’all.