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

Summary

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.

Transcript

[A]

Hello.

[B]

Well, welcome to the show. This is Emotional Badass, where moxie meets mindful. I'm your host, Nicki Eisenhower, life coach and psychotherapist. And on today's episode, we're exploring catastrophizing. All right, y', all, we're going to talk about catastrophizing today, but before we get into that, I want to make a special announcement. March makes seven years of doing Emotional Badass, and we have something really exciting and it potentially includes you. We're starting a call in show. You may be on Emotional Badass in the near future. If you're interested in submitting a question to see if you were right for the call in show, come to emotionalbadass.com call. You can read more about it, you can submit a question, and if you're chosen, my team will get in contact with you. As of right now, our Patreon people have first priority. So it might be a good time to join the Patreon. Or you can come to emotionalbadass.com call to submit your question and find out more. All right, let's discuss catastrophizing, y'.

[A]

All.

[B]

All right, I have nine ways that you can stop catastrophizing now, but let's start with first defining it. 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. Whatever we practice gets stronger, y'.

[A]

All.

[B]

If you're a new listener to my work, I talk a about emotional muscles. Whatever we practice gets stronger. So if we work out physical muscles and psychological muscles and pathways, that's what gets stronger. So we have to choose what we're strengthening with a lot of wisdom and intention. Catastrophizing is an overreaction as a practice. And we're creatures that are habitual. We are creatures of pattern. So if we're accidentally practicing this a lot, we accidentally get stronger in catastrophizing. Now, the polar opposite is just as dysfunctional. Dismissal, ignoring, discounting, minimizing as a practice. Today we're going to talk about one pole of this dynamic, the catastrophizing pole. Now, what we're going for is between the polls. We don't want to minimize and dismiss, and we don't want to catastrophize and look at worst case scenario. What we're going for. What's healthier is understanding that there's a middle ground, there's grounded realism that centers us. And we can practice this as a response that over time can become our default. Instead of catastrophizing, instead of practicing reaction, we want to grow into response. So what do you want to practice? Do you know that you get to decide what do you want to get stronger psychologically for you? Now, this is a very important question that I'm asking. What do you want to practice? What do you want to get stronger in your life within your constitution as a human being? It's a very important question, particularly for highly sensitive people. We seem to be living through a time when media, politics, just sort of the way things work in modern life seems to pull on the heartstrings of society, particularly highly sensitive people that have the biggest hearts. I think these forces are really leaning into people who are codependent and people pleasing. And if you're a people pleaser, I'm definitely a recovering people pleaser. It means we've had a lifetime of dysfunctionally practicing taking care of other people, which means we've also dysfunctionally practiced not taking care of ourselves while we over function for other people. Now why would we do this? Well, if we come from trauma, if we come from neglect, if we come from family systems when we were younger where we didn't get our needs met, where we weren't very understood, where we felt a lot of anxiety, a lot of desperation, not a lot of safety or soothing, then in a very smart way, we use our smarts, figuring out that, oh, if I over function for others, that's a really good bet to secure their attachment to me. And this is really sad, y'.

[A]

All.

[B]

I can look back at my life and see how younger me did this, desperately younger me did this. Just trying to be loved and feel safe with people. And if I could make them need me, if I could be useful to them, that secured me to them deep down. This means if we're doing this, that we're a human being that doesn't really believe in our own worth. We don't really know or believe that we're likable or lovable or even valuable for who we are. It's so sad. And we figure out that we substitute doing for others deep down, what this means. If we're people pleasing in such a way, it means that we're a human being that doesn't really believe in our own worth. We might not believe that we're likable or lovable. We might not believe that we're valuable for who we are just simply because we exist, because we were born, because we're alive, because we're a life we figure out very young that we can substitute doing for others instead of doing for ourselves. We develop a great discomfort in what I consider our natural birthright, just being. Just being, just existing is enough. And the result of this is that we have a belief system that says that our value is in doing for others, that we must perform and be useful to others or we have little to no worth, no inherent value as a being. We turn ourselves as people pleasers into a human doing to try to secure that people will stick around and not abandon us. Understanding, it isn't enough. If understanding was enough, then you wouldn't need anything else other than this explanation. Then you could put people pleasing down and go forward with your life. Understanding and knowledge is not enough. It's in what we practice, y' all the muscles we develop. Now if you're resonating with what I'm saying right now, the term I have created for it is performance based self worth. And it really is the root of our people pleasing. It's the root of our codependency. And from this place it's a short walk to catastrophizing as a mindset. Catastrophizing as a strategy for life. It is a flawed and failed strategy. Some young part of us thinks if I look at the worst case scenario, then I'm protecting myself because I won't be blindsided. But that's not how it works in practice. It's depressing, it's anxiety inducing. It makes us more hyper vigilant instead of more peaceful. It makes us feel more out of control instead of more in control. Catastrophizing, believe it or not, can even develop like an addiction. We can become addicted to processing the worst case scenario, and the truth is the worst case scenario rarely comes to fruition. It's rarely the absolute worst. Now, it may be somewhat reasonable over the course of our human life, our existence, that we have moments where we catastrophize from time to time. Sure. But I want you to know this, I want you to understand it so that you can be intentional and not accidental about what develops in your body, in your mind, in your heart and in your life. I want you to know that catastrophizing, it's not cute. Even though the world might be encouraging it in a lot of ways, it can become addictive. And just like an alcoholic might have a pattern of getting off of work and pouring himself or herself a drink every day, more drinks and more drinks and more drinks as time goes on. Someone who does a lot of catastrophizing unchecked may get into a pattern of meeting new information, change, dilemma or conflict, which is an absolute, normal and necessary part of life, with a catastrophic thought process and a catastrophic wave of emotion for your mind and body and heart to feel, to carry, to endure. And highly sensitive people will look at me and say, nikki, I don't understand why I'm so exhausted all the time. This is a big player in our highly sensitive exhaustion. People who catastrophize often feel increased levels of anxiety, stress, helplessness, hopelessness, and they're crafting a victim mentality, a story of being the victim of life. If the worst case scenario is possible in all things, all the time, they'll create a victim mentality story for themselves and for anyone else that may be affected by any set of circumstances. They entertain catastrophe as inevitable when so many outcomes are reasonably possible other than the worst one. Of course, there is an increase of desperation, powerlessness, anxiety, depression, when one sits and entertains the worst case scenario as a pattern. Those of you who have been long term listeners and heard multiple episodes from me over the years, particularly about the inner child, consider that your inner child hears you entertaining the worst case scenario, the catastrophe, again and again and again and again. And it is as cruel to me as if I were standing with a 7 to 10 year old and we're facing, let's say, evacuating for a hurricane or evacuating because of a fire danger. Imagine if I said to that child, say goodbye to the house, it'll probably be gone. Say goodbye to the trees, they'll probably be dead and burnt. Every home in the city will be gone, ruined, unlivable, uninhabitable. Everything will most likely be gone or completely ruined. That's not right. We seem to know that that would be wrong to do to a child in front of a child. I would terrify that child. That's the opposite of giving that child some hope to hold on to so that he or she can stand their two feet on a solid ground instead of me painting a picture like the ground is going to be removed from you too. You're not even going to be able to stand there. Even if this scenario shakes out as truth, the absolute worst case scenario. I was 25 years old and a New Orleans native when Hurricane Katrina hit. Pretty much a worst case scenario. Even when the worst case shakes out as the truth, can you see how this is a waste of our energy to practice an overwhelmingly terrifying message? What is the wisdom in this? To send to ourselves, to send to Any child for our psychology, our minds, our bodies, our energy reserves. I don't believe that any true highly sensitive person would terrify a child. So. So let's agree and let's commit to no longer terrifying ourselves with worst case scenario. Let's break down how to stop catastrophizing now. Not tomorrow, not next week, not after political parties change in any way now, so that you can ground yourself in response instead of electrified reaction. So that you can find reasonable paths forward to when in dilemma versus wasting energy in the expectation of total tsunami level destruction multiple times a day, maybe hundreds of times a week. Think about that over the course of a month, over a year, over a decade. Here are nine ways to stop catastrophizing now. And remember, knowledge is not enough. You must put this into actual practice. Force your mind to practice a new way. I'd be lying to you if I didn't tell you that at times in my healing I have had to sit and force myself towards healthiness. Number one, look at and accept what is in your control and what is outside of your control. Now this requires checking yourself instead of flying into automatic reaction. It takes stopping. It's not easy to do, but it is doable. And it's easier than decades of catastrophizing in the end to be able to do this, to check yourself, to check in with what can I control and what don't I have control over? It takes stopping and slowing down, not just on the outside and the things that you're doing. It takes a permission and an invitation and a requirement of self to stop the spinning on the inside, to slow down internally, to be able to consider other options than the worst case scenario. If you give your energy to overwhelm and terror, how will you have any energy to make healthy choices for you and your family? We don't have unlimited energy, y'.

[A]

All.

[B]

We really don't. Healing and self care is accepting that it's our own job to manage our precious energy. The reaction into worst case scenario may feel automatic. Lots of people over the years have told me, but Nikki, this just feels automatic. That's just a feeling, y'.

[A]

All.

[B]

And sometimes our feelings are liars. And this is a place and a time when your feelings are lying to you. This is not automatic in the human condition. You will never convince me that any baby comes into the world automatically doing this, automatically primed for this. This is learned over time. It's something we pick up frankly from the dysfunctions and our own exposure to people who lack true resiliency. Skills, who lack real maturity, who don't know how to bounce in the face of struggle, how to bounce in the face of turmoil, how to enact resiliency skills and strategies and instead they know how to wallow. They know how to terrify instead of empower themselves. So deal with what you can actually control now and today and let go of trying to control what you don't have the power to control today. I love my Factor meals. Their convenience, their ease, their tastiness. And I think you're gonna love them too. As my husband travels back and forth to another state to help his mom, I'm ordering boxes of Factor to help me stay on task and not be stressed out with having to come up with meals for one while I handle everything else in our house. So not only is Factor tasty and nutritious and helpful and offer chef prepped meals that are dietitian approved and delivered right to my door, now it's actually really helping me stay grounded and give myself proper nutrition and ease while we're managing the real life things that happen when we are grieving and we've lost someone. So eat [e-mail] Emotional 50 off and use code EMOTIONAL50OFF to get 50% off your first box plus free breakfast for a year. Y'.

[A]

All.

[B]

Do you hear that? That's code [e-mail] for 50% off your first box plus free breakfast for one year. Get delicious ready to eat meals delivered with Factor. This offer is only valid for new Factor customers with the code and qualifying auto renewing subscription purchase. Thank you for supporting the sponsors that support us. Number two, Accept and work with the part of you who catastrophizes the part of you, y'. All. It's a part. Don't fall for it. It's not your entire being. It's not all of who you are. It is a part of you who learned to do this. Recognize it is a part. There are other available ways to process, even if you don't know how, right now, in this moment, even if you don't know what else to process right now or in whatever dilemma you're having. The hard truth if we had a lot of trauma and dysfunction in our family of origin, I may always hear a worst case scenario storyline as a whisper in a part of me that was connected to me trying to survive my life. It's kind of like babies in diapers. Totally reasonable for babies to be in diapers. It's not reasonable for me to be 10 years old, 15 years old, 20, 30, 44. And go, oh, it was hard to potty train. I'm just going to wear a diaper forever. We have to deal with time, appropriateness. What I figured out how to do. Surviving doesn't work for me to thrive. If I'm taking care of myself in this one precious life, I am moving myself more and more away from what I have to survive and and more towards how I can thrive. I may always hear that worst case scenario storyline. It might shoot through me in a flash. I might feel it in my body as a flash. But I don't have to choose it. I don't have to choose that story. I don't have to commiserate with it. I don't have to entertain it. I don't have to let it take over my life, my hour, my day, my. My mind, my heart, my body, my emotionality. That story can just be a blip on the radar. It's not a bomb for our nervous systems to have to feel. It's not a bomb that makes us feel desperate to have a desperate outlook on life and then have to live through all of that funk that we just invited in. By letting that story take over and take hold. This is how we have a self made hell. I don't want my most reactive, ungrounded parts allowed to drive the bus of my life. My wise woman is the only part of me allowed at this point in my life to drive the bus of my life. You can tap in your wise woman. You can tap in your wise man. We have control over what parts of us. We allow power moment to moment. That might be the most control we actually have in this life, y'.

[A]

All.

[B]

Politics. It's okay to groan. I groan a little bit when I think about politics. But politics, for example, what is your actual power in politics right now? Today? We have the power to cast a vote, y'.

[A]

All.

[B]

What else do we have the power to really pull off politically? Some of us may run for office. And if that's your answer, when I say, hey, what power do you have in politics? And you come back with, I really genuinely want to run and think I can make a difference. Cool. Then you're doing what I'm talking about. You're not catastrophizing. You're doing what you can do. You're controlling what you can control. But most of us are not going to run for political office. Most of us. The most power we have is to cast that vote. Sure, you can protest anything you want to protest. I'm very open to being wrong about what I'm about to say. But I gotta be honest with you, it's not the 1960s. I just don't see protesting doing much where the rubber actually meets the road. I think it likely feels energizing and exciting to be with a big group of people that believes what you believe in. It's validating, it's energizing. It can feel like something is getting done together in community. And maybe you're getting an emotional boost by being in that community for that moment, that day, those hours. But increasingly, it seems to me that society just sort of sits back now, witnesses protests, kind of like toddler tantrums, and just kind of waits till the protest's done and then back to business. I don't see the protests changing much, do you? Not in the end. But it makes people feel powerful getting together. This type of gathering does nothing for me. If it does something positive for you, go forth, rock out a protest. Just be really honest and real with yourself about what you actually have power to affect and let yourself give your energy to what you can affect. And no more, no less. Number three, focus on the present, y'. All. This will never, ever, ever be bad advice. We need so much permission to focus on the present in this modern life that seems orchestrated to take us out of the present moment almost constantly. It is a superpower to know this wisdom, and it is next level to practice it. Focus on the present and what has actually happened. If you want to give energy to preparation in the present moment for something in the present moment, like, let's say I come from hurricane town, right? Gathering hurricane supplies, that means, like having gas in the car. Maybe where you live. Maybe you don't live in our hurricane zone. Maybe you live in fire zone. Maybe having 30 days of provisions is something that you want for you or your family. Understand that you are in charge of the energy that you bring to your activities. If you want to use the present moment to plan and to prep for something, you totally can. But do that healthily and not dysfunctionally. You have just as much power to choose and practice the vibe. So you could plan with a vibe of cool. I feel empowered. I'm doing what I can do. I like being prepared. That's valuable to me. It gives me a sense of control, and I like controlling what I can. That's a great vibe. It's positive, it's encouraging. It's doing what you can do and letting go of the rest. It's not catastrophizing. It's grounding yourself and what can be done today in the present. But a lot of people will prep for something or plan for something in their lives with a storyline that's more this vibe. It's going to be awful. And I'm frantically running around town losing my precious energy like a bag of marbles got turned over and is going in every direction. Once we become aware of this, do you see how silly it would be to continue practicing frantic energy? You are in charge of you. So take charge of you and know that it is enough to deal with the present moment. And planning does not need any kind of amped up or upset energy because it's positive to be able to plan in the present moment for whatever you deem important to give your precious energy to Number four All right, you want to worry about something. I get it. I don't think any of us are going to get to the end without some good old fashioned worry from time to time. So how do we actually do worry in a way that isn't dysfunctional? Set a worry time limit. Alright, let's say you're worried about people in a war torn country. Let's say you're worried about kids and people that are starving all over the world. Real how much of your day are you willing to give to that? Are you going to give all of it? Is it right for you to stress all day long about this? What does your stress do for them? You can stress out about it as long as you want. It's certainly a choice. If it's not an addiction, why would someone choose this type of energy? How much time do you think is right to worry about anything that you can't do much to affect right now? I'm going to give a suggestion. It's neither right nor wrong. It's just a place to start. My suggestion is two minutes tops and to for real set a timer and worry hard for those two minutes. Every worrisome thought you could possibly throw on the fire, let that worry burn up like a big old bonfire and then tell yourself that is enough. You are in charge of deciding enoughness for you. If there is something you can do, do it. If I get a wave of oh my goodness, the children who are not being fed today, I might jump on a charity site and just throw five or ten bucks that way. Not because I think that solves world hunger, but because this is me doing what I can do and I'm showing my inner child. Honey, I can't solve that big world problem right now, but I can sure Give a little bit and that'll help a little bit. And that's the most we can do. And that's enough worry for today. We have big hearts, y'.

[A]

All.

[B]

Big compassion, big empathy. I've heard it said that empathy without boundaries, without limits, is death. I think we take years off of our highly sensitive lives with fruitless worry. You might want to explore if you're sort of nursing some kind of survivor's guilt here. Survivor's guilt is part of the human condition. I felt it when my home didn't flood because I was living in the French Quarter during Katrina and nearly everyone else I knew had waterlogged homes. There is a human reason that we have this. It's so that if I have a pile of clothes next to me and you're naked, I feel compelled to give you some clothing. We all hear it every time we fly that to help other people, we must put our oxygen mask on first. If you don't and you try to help other people before yourself, you pass out. You become somebody else's problem, and you may or may not survive it. These are the real life things that we face as sensitive people. We can't be all feelings all the time. We will literally burn years off of our lifespan. Consider this question. You may want to take it and ponder it, journal with it. 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? What do you do to yourself if you say, yes, I do get to live a good life despite the suffering of others. What do you do to yourself if you say, no, no, I'm not allowed to live a good life because others suffer. You're in charge of what you decide. Number five. Watch out for the traps of what ifs. And if you are a very intelligent person, this might be a real doozy for you. The smarter the person, the more expansive the what ifs, y'.

[A]

All.

[B]

What ifs can pave a road to hell. What is is better to play with than what ifs? If you get worked up on what ifs, what if this happens? What if that happens? What about this? What about that? You are sending yourself on an unnecessary ride. You are sending your nervous system, your mind, your body, your heart on an unnecessary crappy ride. Explore if you are dancing with drama or a sort of upset. Drama and upset addiction. Because if it's not addictive, why would any of us choose in the light of day to take ourselves on such rides when they're awful? What is, I will Deal with what is. What is is grounding. What ifs are anxious. Interestingly, I rarely hear someone what if ing positively right. We don't do that so much. We don't sit around and ponder what if I win the lottery? What if? It's all easier than I can imagine. What ifs as a construct seems to love worst case scenario. It is like peanut butter and jelly. That's why we don't what if the positives so much, but we sure what ifs the worst case scenarios, the catastrophizing. We actually use our creativity to come up with the worst stuff to possibly think and feel, y'. All, I gotta tell you, that is such a disrespect of our own individualistic creativity, our imaginations. That is a wrong use. That is like me picking up a screwdriver and shove it in an electric socket. Just no, no to that. I have to say that to myself. And you have to decide if you're gonna say no to yourself. Is your imagination allowed to torture you? So the fact that we use our smarts and our creativity as highly sensitive people to play movies and scenes in our heads that are awful instead of lovely, you know, it's really easy to witness someone in full blown psychosis and understand how that fits the layman's definition of crazy. But to use our smarts, our imaginations, our expansive minds to overwhelm, to terrify ourselves and somehow this is normalized instead of seen as absolutely crazed is wild to me. Be in deep respect of your imagination, y'.

[A]

All.

[B]

It's powerful and it can frighten us or it can hold us. I choose to radically rebel against this type of normalization. I refuse, I mean stop in my frame foot putting my foot down for myself. I refuse to hurt myself with what ifs, with my expansive imagination and creativity. What are you going to decide for you, Number six? We are very grateful to have Air Doctor sponsor this episode, y'.

[A]

All.

[B]

I love my Air Doctor Air purifiers. We have one in the bedroom that we run every single night. I cannot express to you how much you can actually walk into the room and feel that the air is clean. Air Doctor is the award winning air purifier that eliminates 99.99% of dangerous contaminants like allergens, viruses, smoke, gases, mold spores and more. Head to airdoctorpro.com and use code better badass to get up to $300 off today. Air do comes with a 30 day money back guarantee plus a 3 year warranty. That's an $84 value for free. So if you try it and you don't like it, you can send it back. Air doctor Makes it easy. Get this exclusive podcast only offer [e-mail] a I r D O C T O r p r o.com using promo code Badass Be cognizant of using realistic language. Let go of extremes. No, always. No nevers. Use less dramatic language internally and externally. Here's an example. I'll fail and embarrass myself and will never be able to show my face again. Do you hear the extreme drama in that? Here's a reframe with much less drama and more grounding, less catastrophizing. Yeah, I might fail, but I'm gonna give myself some points for trying for getting out of my comfort zone. All embarrassment fades eventually and it's good practice for me. Can you feel the difference? One is charged and dramatic, desperate end of the world. The other is grounded in the reality that if we are living a full life, we're probably going to get embarrassed a lot. And that's okay. Nobody got embarrassed in their limbs severed from their body immediately. Nobody got embarrassed and spontaneously combusted into flame. We can ground ourselves, we can calm ourselves, we can invite more peace even while we take calculated risk in this life, y'.

[A]

All.

[B]

What an offering to ourselves. I'm okay and I'll be okay even if I'm uncomfortable. Number seven so if you find yourself catastrophizing, you can sit with pen and paper. Might be too much to hold this just in the mind, but break it down into smaller, more workable parts. And here's the kicker y'.

[A]

All.

[B]

Embrace the lessons. More often than not, whatever is happening to us is not the end of the world. It's just the end of a path. There are times in life when life sort of shows up, sometimes seemingly out of nowhere, and offers us a changing course, a detour, a pause, a U turn, a pivot, a mindset shift might be offering us a new emotional muscle that we didn't realize could use some strengthening to life shows up and points that out more often than not. It's not the end of the world. It's an experience that offers rich lessons. It's just that life is a co creation and we are not always in complete control of what's happening or what lessons we are set to learn or when those lessons will find us or be taught to us or give us the opportunity to learn. Embrace the lessons and you embrace being more grounded and Calm. 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. I didn't want to do that learning. I didn't want to find the wisdom. Pain can be very seductive and it can suck us down. Anyone who has ever had a suicide attempt knows that, like they know their first name, if they made it out of that attempt. Just embrace the lessons. Don't fight them. I've had to learn that I can survive things I never wanted to experience. I've learned to be savvy in the face of manipulators that are abundant on the planet. Never wanted to learn that. I've learned that I can create my own chosen family. I've learned that I can survive leaving a toxic family system. I've learned that I can feel so desperate I thought it would kill me and then I could wake up again and again. Embrace those lessons instead of fighting them. This may be a sneaky way that we can actually make what's hard in life easier. Doesn't mean it will be easy. But damn it, don't we deserve to make it easier? You in all the ways we can make it easier. And if you've had a harder early life, I have to believe that you deserve that so much. I definitely believe that I deserve ease. As much ease as I can squeeze out at any moment, even when it's really, really hard. Y'.

[A]

All.

[B]

Number eight, gratitude as a practice. Now, if you're gonna tune in and listen week to week, you are gonna hear gratitude as a theme. And there are people out there that poo poo gratitude. And I don't like that. Gratitude is a powerful tool. It's always available to us. It's always right there. Finding gratitude for some of those lessons has not always been easy for me. But that gratitude starts to pave the road away from deepening my pain. Gratitude paves the road that helps me walk to more light and less dark. I grew up inside a lot of poverty, y'.

[A]

All.

[B]

A lot of never enough. So much sense of lack. And any unexpected charge or bill. For my family, growing up was an absolute catastrophe in my home. It was modeled for me catastrophizing again and again and again almost every day of my development by my very reactive and and very broke mother. The first time a healer told me to practice gratitude, when an unexpected bill came and I was young and I was broke, I thought they were out of their mind. I thought they were arrogant with the money they had, and they didn't understand what it really felt like to be so broke. It took me a long time to get below the layers of range, the layers of noise that my rage, my anger covered up and made it hard for me to hear the wisdom that was offered to me. I remember deciding to take the next financial ding. It was a time in my life where I felt like every time I coughed or turned around, there was another financial slap in the face, another financial ding. I felt like I was being buried by financial struggle. And I decided it was like a spiritual moment where I just thought, screw it. I'm just. I'm just going to do this. I'm just going to do it, even though I don't believe it. And I decided to take the next financial ding using gratitude the way it had been taught to me, even though I didn't think it would work. And this began my money mindset work because it really helped me, y'.

[A]

All.

[B]

To reframe my thinking freed me of the trap of catastrophizing financially. That little gratitude moment changed a lot for me, and it started paving a road. I practiced like my therapist told me to. So a bill came in right as they do, and I think it was a crazy high electricity bill from AC costs in August in Louisiana, when my bill back then would be 300, sometimes $600, and it felt like a million. But this one time, instead of catastrophizing and just sitting in my anger like it was an angry soup, I said aloud, I'm grateful I have the funds to pay this. That was so different than how I had ever handled it before, how I had ever allowed myself to think about it. My usual thinking was, oh, my God, that's not fair. That's too much. How does anybody handle this? How am I supposed to budget? How am I supposed to plan? Where am I going to get the money to eat? What happens if I don't pay my rent? Is this the time that I'm finally going to be made homeless and I'm going to have to live out of my car? And I just repeated it. I'm grateful I have the funds to pay this. I'm grateful I have the funds to pay this. Putting my foot down, not allowing my mind to do what it wanted to do because it had been a pattern and say, maybe this time you'll really be homeless. This time. Catastrophizing. I really lived as if every single bill that came in had the power to absolutely ruin me, to make me absolutely destitute. How sad that I didn't believe in my ability to change my circumstances. How sad that I didn't believe in my ability to work hard to earn money, to build a life, to have enough to get out of a sense of lack. How sad that I allowed each and every bill to torture me, to undermine my fragile and hard earned security in myself and in life. And it clicked for me. It didn't mean I didn't have to still work hard for it, but it clicked for me in that moment that even if one day a bill made me homeless, even that wasn't the end of the world that I could recover from that too. So I didn't need to torture myself. I didn't need to feel each financial struggle, each financial obligation, each financial thing as a hit, as a catastrophe. That was where my freedom was hidden. The freedom didn't come in the form of oh, I finally have enough dollars in my pocket or in the bank. The freedom came from me committing to no longer torturing and terrifying myself, to no longer making myself look at the possibility of worst outcomes without ever considering the best outcomes for me. How many bills had I paid and not become homeless? How many times had I thought I wasn't going to have money to eat and then I ate? The time, the energy, the heartache that I served up to myself as if it was right to do. This is what develops when we grow up with not enough safety and security. I'm grateful today, even when unfair expenses, hardships come up related to money and not I'm grateful that I know how to practice self respect, self trust in me, in my abilities to take care of me, in my ability to pivot, to change if I need to, if I decide to, if it's right for me. Instead of letting each speed bump in this life make me process the end of my world, the last one I have for you. Number nine. Consider limiting time with people and media who catastrophize like they are going for the Olympic gold. In worst case scenarioing, y', all, we really are living through a societal shift. I've said before on the show to getting a lot of feedback that worry is not the love language that some of you want it to be. Worry hurts us. It dings our energy. Practice emotional boundaries. By observing and not absorbing this from other people, from media, from technology. You get to keep this way of being, this catastrophizing practice outside of you, outside of your personal bubble. This is the practice we offer ourselves when we say to ourselves, I observe. I don't absorb that. That is not mine. That is yours. I do not choose it. Don't let people give you catastrophizing the way a drug dealer might offer you just a little bit of drugs, just a little bit of taste till you're hooked. You were invited to the boundaries course this fall. If emotional boundaries are confusing to you, you can't sign up yet. So don't run to the website. We don't have it open yet. If you want to come to my website and be on my mailing list so you can be alerted when we do open up the boundaries course for signing up, come do that. You get to learn boundaries. You get to be boundaried with your energy. You get to protect your mindset that you are working so hard to cultivate. To let go of what no longer serves you so we don't have to practice what no longer or never did serve. Sometimes people that love us and care about us very much, sometimes they think that catastrophizing has wisdom in it. You don't have to change their mind. You just have to not absorb their way of being. Let them be them. Let them figure it out or let them not figure it out. But you allow yourself some strategies that keep that crap out and keep more goodness in surrounding you and your one precious life. Self care is self respect. Self care is self respect and grounding in action. Self care doesn't work if it's just an idea. It must be actionable. Refuse life's constant invitations to catastrophize and you will feel safer and more secure no matter what is happening in your personal world and the larger world. How can I say this? Why am I saying this? How can I make that claim? Because I know the psychology of your inner child and I know that your inner child, just like mine, mine looks to me, yours looks to you for reassurance. Your inner child is begging you for reassurance. He or she needs your wisest part to hold the truth that this life is figureoutable. Your inner child is begging you to not look at life as a constant impending disaster. When it's hard to do for grown up, you do it for the child that you were. Do it for every hard thing you have ever been through. Do it because you're worth it. Because you have the power in this way to allow your life to be just a little bit easier. No more catastrophizing. No more let's do some Patreon shout outs. If you want to be a part of Patreon and have a shout out on the show, come to patreon.com emotionalbadass I think of it as the healthiest little corner on the Internet where y' all support me, I support you. It's a beautiful circle of us supporting each other. Anything that we put in the Patreon is a nugget. We don't want to waste your time, we don't want to waste your energy. We do not put things in the Patreon just to slap stuff up in there. It is little nuggets that will help you when you need, as you need. I want to thank Tracy, Jamie and Ro. Thank you all so much for being patrons of the show. Y' all help us get the show out all over the world. I want to thank Suanne, Sean, S H o n. I want to thank Chris, Paul, Anita, Elsa. Thank you, sue and Rebecca, Irene, Victoria, Maria, pj, Kaylin, K a E L I N Cheryl, Viva. Thank you so much. Light and love, y'.

[A]

All.

[B]

If you're interested in working with me, we have multiple ways. Come to emotionalbadass.com and see what way of working with me is right to you. You can choose options from a little to a lot. There's so much healing available. There is so much more peace in the world. Light and love. I am an emotional badass, you are an emotional badass and together we are where moxie meets mindful. Light and love. And I'll be right here next week for a brand new episode. Take care. Bye bye.

[C]

Bundle and safe. With Expedia you were made to follow your favorite band and from the front row we were made to quietly save you. More Expedia made to travel savings vary and subject to availability. Flight inclusive packages are atoll protected.