What's Wrong With Me?
In my clinical practice, I often hear self-critical and doubtful thoughts like, "I'm weak" or "What's wrong with me?". If you're struggling with debilitating anxiety, depression, or other emotional distress, self-judgment can often overcome your attention.
Understanding how your physiology relates to your emotional experience can create space for self-compassion, which is what you need most as you explore ways to overcome difficult emotions and situations. It's helpful to remember that our brain is a dynamic organ with mechanisms built for particular functions and that maybe what you're experiencing at the moment is a necessary survival response that your nervous system has evolved to carry out. It's not because you're weak, deficient, or flawed.
For example, you might be consumed with worry about an upcoming job interview or a date. You may feel nervous about this and become preoccupied by all the possible outcomes, including playing out the worst possible scenario in your head. Self-doubt creeps in. Your body starts to become agitated.
Take a pause, step back, and let's look at what's happening in your body. The feeling of arousal, in this case anxiety, comes from the rise of adrenaline in your body. A primary function of adrenaline is to alert you to something meaningful (necessary for survival, like a job so you can have the means to secure food and shelter or a partner to carry out your genes from reproduction). Feeling anxious at the moment doesn't justify getting lost in self-critical thoughts that steal your attention.
Your nervous system is simply doing what it's built for to increase your arousal, so you pay attention to what's important to you now so you can prepare to act. Rather than using this adrenaline rush to fuel more unhelpful negative thoughts or self-doubt and worry, you can channel it to thinking about preparing for your interview or date! Besides, your alertness is already heightened, so why not use this energy to do something more helpful? Something that builds more confidence and brings calm?
As adrenaline increases your alertness, it amplifies the thoughts you focus on at any particular moment. If you're focused on the possible negative outcomes, you will soon start obsessing about the worst-case scenario. Alternatively, optimism becomes amplified if you're focused on possible ideal results; this feels better. From the same adrenaline rush, you can hover between anxiety and excitement. Excitement feels better since we're now recruiting the dopamine system (more on this later)! In some situations, you can control how to shape your experience from the same adrenaline rush.
I'm not saying always turn negative emotions into positive ones. There is a place for all emotions as they're put in the context of each situation. For example, an accident or receiving bad news will have to trigger the appropriate emotional response that is not at all related to excitement or optimism (still for survival, like eventually problem-solving how to cope so you can continue to function and meet your needs like food, water, and sleep).
It's so empowering to know a bit about how your neurochemicals work because it shows a different perspective on your emotional experience. When you find yourself consumed with self-critical thoughts or the worst possible scenarios, remember to pause and check in with yourself. Catching the rise in adrenaline (i.e., fast heart rate, shallow breathing, feeling agitated) early if it's intensifying negative messages is a good start. Take a few deep inhales and long, extended exhales to tone your adrenaline down. As adrenaline tames, you can think more clearly and allow your frontal brain to do what it does best, such as planning and making decisions. Choose to pivot and redirect your thoughts. You got this!