Podcast: E15 - What If?

Listen to the episode here: E15 What If? - https://apple.co/4cosD3p

Hey there, it's Dr. Tiffany. I wanna welcome you to episode 15 of the Integrative Mental Health Therapy with Dr. Tiffany podcast. And we are still in the middle of the anxiety series. I think we're gonna hang out here talking about anxiety for a while. I will eventually go back to exploring ADHD and memory and the places I love to hang out. But the anxiety series has been, as I explained in my last episode, something very personal to my own journey and shows up a lot, you know, in my family as well.

And this idea of the impact of overwhelm and traumatic stress on the system is just so important. And generalized anxiety has become such an epidemic of sorts. I don't want to just throw that word around. it has become a serious problem. And I just think we need more and more opportunities to kind of talk about this. And so today's episode is thought distortions.

Episode 15 is thought distortions. And it won't be very long. I'm going to talk about a thought distortion, close that out quickly, and then go into another thought distortion in the next episode, instead of trying to tackle a whole bunch of them at once. I want this episode to just kind of lay the foundation of cognitive behavioral therapy.

Now I am so proud of the fact that I am an internal family system certified therapist. I'm looking forward to level two training and certification coming up next. So I'm level one certified going into level two this year. So that feels kind of worlds of apart from cognitive restructuring and cognitive behavioral therapy, but I believe deeply in teaching and applying personally this idea of thinking about what you're thinking about. Make that note, okay? Think about what you're thinking about. think about what you are thinking about. That is metacognition.

And we have a brain, we have a mind. The psychology impacts the physiology. What you think about releases chemicals into the body. So I love IFS and I love energy therapy. And at the end of the day, I will always, always, always talk about, teach. cognitive restructuring and I love doing therapy because I find not only are there parts but parts are full of thought distortions that cause pain and suffering and so Anxiety is often connected to what-if thoughts.

So that's the first kind of exaggerated way of thinking irrational way of thinking that is very much connected to anxiety What if. So as your assignment, I want you to go away from today's episode and start noticing how often you say what if. What if thinking is directly connected to anxiety because you are worried about something off in the future, something that has not happened. You've projected into the future something that could happen and you are oftentimes reacting as if it has happened in your body, in your tissue right now.

So I want you to just think about what you are thinking about. How often are you what if, what ifing in your day to day? And then having that physical reaction to that type of thinking, right? And so what I ask my clients when they say, well, what if this happens is let's play it out. So I use a technique called downward arrow technique. So what if that does happen, then what happens? Okay, and then what happens? And then what happens? And then when we get to the worst case scenario, I say, okay, so then what would we do then? How would you handle that?

The worst thing you can do is leave that question unanswered in your mind. And the more that you leave it unanswered in your mind, and you don't just play it out and then decide if that is something that is even realistic to have happened, like that worst case scenario. And if it were to happen, what would go on then? Like if you don't do that, you just activate that stress response over and over again in your system. You're activating cortisol, you're activating adrenaline, and this is how we get so sick. This is the physiology.

And your mind doesn't know, let me say this, your brain doesn't know the difference. So your mind is saying what if, what if, what if? Your tissue is getting tighter and tighter in your body, your muscles are getting more and more activated if it is happening because your brain doesn't know the difference and it will do whatever you want it to Right it will do whatever you want it to So that is why it's brain body mind. That's why we're constantly looking at that three-leg stool And so I want you to ask The question and then answer it. What if?

Okay, and in a perfect world, what would happen is we would stop what if thing, but I wouldn't, I wouldn't pretend that it's that easy today. And I'm just asking you to answer the question and write it down. Use my downward arrow technique. And when you get to that situation, that worst case scenario, is that even realistic? Does that make any sense? Has that happened to you or anyone you know? What do you do when that happens? Come up with a plan.

And then see if that doesn't calm down that whole process. Okay, so people who struggle with anxiety typically have anxious types of thoughts. And what we're doing is we are acknowledging it and we're trying to work with it instead of allowing it to just play without interruption. And we'll see you in the next episode where we look at another type of thought distortion.

Okay, I hope this is helpful. Do your homework and until next time, be well.