Danielle Jhiani explains the sinking feeling that comes with negative automatic thoughts, often tied to anxiety and past depression. She shares how thoughts create the feeling, not situations themselves, and offers reframes like remembering that past feelings don't predict your future.
Do you get a sinking feeling from time to time? Maybe you're talking to a friend and they say something and it just brings up this sinking feeling as if something's wrong. Maybe you're thinking back on a prior situation that happened in the past and you get that sinking feeling and you don't know why. I had this so much throughout my life, and until recently, I had no idea what it was. And it turns out it's connected to a negative thought and typically anxiety. Now, it didn't always feel like anxiety for me at the time, but now that I've recovered from anxiety and OCD and insecure attachment, I know what it is. It usually comes from a thought or a situation that unconsciously your brain latches onto and is afraid of, or a thought that's attached to that situation that says something bad is going to happen, or there's something wrong with you, or the brain determines something bad about you or a situation. The reality of this, none of this is true. It's just your brain taking a negative thought or situation and giving it meaning. And then our feelings develop from those thoughts. And so once you learn what's going on and you can determine what the fear or the discomfort is typically from that thought, then you can rewire your perception based on that thought. So for me, I remember being in college and being in a psychology class and learning about depression. And at this time, I had that really big sinking feeling because I could remember feeling depressed at times in high school. And looking back, the thought that came up at that time was, I'm depressed. I'm always going to be depressed, and I have a problem. So what happened for me is I became more depressed and scared of this feeling that I had and afraid of being sad, sad, or being lonely. And because I didn't know what to do with any of that, the sadness got worse, the loneliness got worse, the anxiety got worse, and I became afraid of my feelings. And then things spiraled from there. What I know today is when I get that sinking feeling, if I can determine the thoughts that are coming along with that and respond to them differently. Something like, yeah, I was depressed in high school, but that doesn't mean that I'm depressed today. If there's something that I need to work on, let's do it. My feelings in the past or my feelings now mean nothing about what my future is going to look like. I am strong and I can heal anything. So if that sinking feeling has plagued you before, I want you to remember that this is just a feeling coming from thoughts, and it doesn't even mean that those thoughts are true. When you learn what to do with uncomfortable thoughts and feelings differently than what you're doing now, you can turn it around so that they don't bother you. You feel confident, you feel in control and powerful, and you're not putting these negative labels on yourself. If you liked this video, if it was helpful, please subscribe, like or comment. And if you want help with anxiety, depression, ocd, or insecur your attachment, check out the link in the description below. We'll talk to you very soon.
