This week, to attain, maintain or regain your sense of wellbeing...
...practice extending the image when you notice yourself having distressing or worrying thoughts about the future. There are two ways to do this - experiment with both and see which one you prefer.
1. Pay attention to the image or story you see unfolding, and then extend that image or story in your mind until you come to its conclusion. Most often we stop right in the middle of the worst bit and worry about that. With this strategy we extend the story far past the thing we are worrying about, we tell ourselves about the next chapter too, the part where we cope with it, we can even fast-forward ten years into the future and it might look quite different from there. In this way, you will be able to introduce the possibility that things could turn out okay in the end, that you will eventually find a way to handle it and move on. Be mindful of how caught up you are in catastrophising though - sometimes it has such a strong grip on us we simply tell a very long, even more upsetting story, and that's probably not hugely helpful. If that's something you struggle with then practice this strategy on milder concerns first.
2. Bring to mind an image of what you are worrying about or think of an image that symbolises it, then imagine zooming out and notice what you'd see around it, then zoom out again, and again. In this way, you will be able to create distance from distressing thoughts and feelings and reduce their power over you.
For example, if I have a distressing thought, I might imagine it as a dark cloud and then extend the image to see the sky around it, making the cloud appear smaller and less threatening.
Once you are comfortable with this practice, add Extend the Image to your Personal Coping Kete for times of stress and distress.
