When You've Gone To Worst Case Scenario

For the moments when you've jumped to the worst-case scenario. A gentle way to bring yourself back from catastrophizing. Anxiety often encourages us to think about all the things that could go wrong. Why? Because it's our danger scanner, trying to protect us from harm. The difficulty is visualizing all the things that could go wrong rarely actually help us. It just causes us to stay stuck in fear. This audio will allow you space to recognize the 'catastrophe' and then work your way back.

Transcript

So all I want you to do right now is I want you to see if you can take a nice slow breath in through your nose and then seeing if you can allow that breath to gently and slowly come out through your mouth and just doing this a few times even if it's hard to,

Even if anxiety is heightened just see if you can focus right in on your breath breathing slowly in through the nose out through the mouth.

So just recognize that whatever it is that you are worried about you have jumped to worst case scenario you've gone right there all the way over to the absolute worst case scenario and it's scary there I know it's horrible there your thoughts start to spiral you start to feel more and more anxious and it's just a worrying place to be in but I want to meet you there and I want to come in and just remind you that you are catastrophizing there's a name for it and in CBT we call this catastrophizing and it's actually a really common thing that we do what we do is we almost think if I can go to the worst case scenario then I can somehow protect myself because I'll know what's coming and I'll be able to foresee it but the reason why this doesn't work is because a lot of the time this thing doesn't actually happen and we are actually okay and even if the worst case scenario was to happen worrying about it and going there and going around and around in your mind does not help.

I want you to start to trust in yourself that you would be able to function you would be able to cope you would be able to figure it out even if you wasn't in a good situation but instead of doing that we're going to trust that we can solve it if we were there but we're going to work our way back away from the catastrophe.

So I wonder for you what would be a not so great situation but not the absolute worst situation that you've been thinking of?

So it's almost like a midway point what would be not great but not the worst.

What usually happens is we bypass this point and we go to the worst case scenario because we have an anxiety bias we're more concerned with what is a threat rather than what might be kind of okay.

So you're remembering now that that is a possibility the midway point remembering again that I don't need to solve that midway point now either I trust in my ability to resolve things and to work through things should they happen should they arise.

And then let's come a little further back now so I wonder what would be not too bad so something that might be more of an inconvenience but that is totally and utterly solvable.

Continuing to remember that I don't need to jump back to the worst case scenario because I've been there I've seen it I've done it I've looked at it it doesn't feel so nice but I'm journeying backwards now I'm journeying back to a place where things don't seem all bad.

And then let's take another nice breather ultimately all we need to do in these moments is we need to regulate our nervous system because our nervous system believes that the worst case scenario is happening in this very moment so all I want you to do is to keep bringing yourself back bringing yourself back bit by bit by bit away from that place and breathing as you do so regulating your system doing whatever you need to do to come back into your body.

Reviews

A most excellent meditation with very clear instructions. Thank you so much for creating this. It helped me a lot

Oh, Scarlett! You’re medicine for the soul ❤️‍🩹🪽🪄

Scarlett, you have a knack of understanding what the various anxiety states really feel like and clearly helping us see solutions. Thank you 🙏. I'm currently enjoying your intrusive thoughts course too.

Thank you for this most helpful and clear explanation of the mechanics of fear and anxiety. Namaste

THANK YOU literally in a financial panic from a phone call message and it sent me to worse case. The talk down and steps to lessen the panic and get to a place of more in my body was super helpful. 🙏🏽

The teachers voice is very kind - “I know it’s a scary place”
Thank you

Having catastrophized situations before, I found this meditation helpful. Thank you!

I like learned the therapy language during meditation

This is a great tool for moving away from the grip of obsessive thinking, thank you!

Super helpful guidance for in the moment catastrophising. I do feel a bit calmer and safer now. Thank you 🙏🏾

Really helpful tool you can take with you. It’s nice to have her walk you through it and feel you’re not alone

This is so very very helpful to me this morning. So now, I am excited to choose my very good outcome to my challenge ⭐️ This choice makes me feel so happy and I just keep sending the outcome LOVE ……..

Thank you very much !
Hope

Very helpful. I’ll be flying soon and I was anticipating a panic attack. After listening to your meditation I was grounded and much more relaxed. I’ll be listening to this again and again before my flight🙏

I really liked this but wish it had been a little bit longer. It was a surprise ending! The right things were said- I just needed a bit more of them!

Thank you for offering this helpful meditation. I wasn’t having an anxiety attack currently but I reflected on one from last night. Great reminders.