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My senior year of high school, I sat in my statistics class waiting to take a test. Looking down I noticed someone had written some answers to the test lightly in pencil. I grabbed my pencil, flipped it over and began furiously erasing for fear my teacher would see what was written and think I planned to cheat.
My friend in the desk in front of me asked what I was doing. When I explained the situation, she laughed at my fervor and responded with, “Yeah, you better hurry up and erase that before the teacher sees it and he kicks you out out of class, fails you, the school suspends you, your boyfriend dumps you, no college will admit you and you end up lonely and jobless for the rest of your life.”
I couldn’t help but laugh….
My friend knew I had the tendency to worry and her ridiculous projection lightened the mood. Yet so many times we go down the same road of ridiculousness. We have an off day and all of a sudden we’re catastrophizing it: imagining the problem is much bigger than reality dictates and fearing the worst for the future.
Yesterday was an off day for me and I struggled not to think the worst. This morning I’m still struggling. But I know I have a choice. A choice to let the struggles of yesterday (and the promise of struggles today) just be. To work through them without making them bigger or stronger than the One who cares for me.
This is a good reminder. Although, easier said than done. Any practical tips for those of us who are terrible at not catastrophizing situations?
Oh how I can relate to this! Phil. 4:8 is so helpful. Sometimes I have to stop myself and remind myself to only think on what is true today. Not think about what I think might be true tomorrow. I hope today has been a better day, Steph! I'll pray for you.
Yes, it is easier said than done. Some things that have helped me: picking a passage of Scripture that is especially meaningful to me on the topic and writing it somewhere I can see it all day, choosing to pray even if I don't feel like it, making a list of all the ways God's carried me through in the past, just recognizing I'm catastrophizing and realizing the uselessness of it, and distracting myself with something that is useful or just fun (read, watch a movie, call a friend).
All that said, I still do it far more often than I'd like.
Phil 4:8 is a great verse to meditate on when wanting to catastrophize. And thanks for the prayers, Johanna; that really means a lot.
I am a worry wart although I have much improved. What I found to help me from imagining the worst is literally doing just that: I wrote down the worry, when it happened, and imagined the worst that I'm thinking could happen. Once it was resolved, I went back to my journal and wrote down what actually happened instead. Seeing it written down—what I imagined vs. what really happened—helped me begin to see how silly I was to make a bigger deal out of a small thing.
That's a good idea…to see on paper how our imagination inflates reality. I like it.