CYEAT: Chapter 2

Chapter 2 focuses on cognition and how the way you think affects your mood, your anxiety, your outlook on life (similar to chapter 1’s belief systems affecting your perception). It also goes into visualization, which I always find interesting.

The author talks about Coué's Law of Reversed Effort, which says (I'm paraphrasing) that when you want one thing to happen, but you are imagining or worrying about a different outcome, what you imagine will have a stronger effect than what you want. You can make it more likely something will happen by imagining/visualizing it.

Of course, that’s not always going to be true. If you want to have a safe flight and are worrying the plane will crash, you won’t make it crash. If you are worrying you will vomit, it’s very unlikely you will make yourself vomit. But you can make yourself feel “nauseous” and convinced you’re going to vomit by worrying you’re going to vomit, or even by worrying you’re going to feel nauseous.

Another example the author gives is losing a sports game because you’re imagining how awful it would be to lose, which then makes you anxious and causes you to lose your focus. Basically, your thoughts, your belief systems, your imagination, all of it, can influence your feelings and anxiety level, and that can have an effect on your behavior too.

To counteract this, it’s best to 1) tell yourself positive things and 2) visualize what you want to happen instead of what you fear might happen. Seems pretty common sense, right? Putting happy thoughts/images in your head can only have good results.

It’s difficult to do though. I spent months after my breakdown drilling affirmations into my head. I’ve gotten to the point where I can pull them out during an anxiety attack (and they are really helpful), but in general, I’m still usually thinking negative thoughts and putting myself down. It’s such a strong habit. And I hardly even know how to form a picture of what I want to happen when I’m so used to visualizing the worst outcome for every situation. The book recommends practicing these positive visualizations on a regular basis, sitting down for 5-10 minutes at a time and really fleshing out the visuals. I’m definitely going to start doing that.