Heal with Grace

43. How to stop catastrophizing

• Grace Secker • Episode 43

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This episode of the Heal with Grace podcast delves into the concept of catastrophising and its impact on anxiety and chronic pain. I explain how negative thought patterns can exacerbate pain and offer strategies to break this cycle, such as checking the facts of negative thoughts, naming underlying emotions, and retraining the brain to view pain as safe. Through personal anecdotes and practical tools, listeners are encouraged to practice self-compassion and mindfulness to facilitate healing. The episode concludes with an invitation for listeners to seek support and guidance on their healing journey.

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Hey friends. And welcome back to the heal with grace podcast, where we uncover all the hidden gems of mind, body healing today. We're diving into something a lot of us do without even realizing it, which is catastrophizing. It's one of those sneaky things that plays a huge role in anxiety and chronic pain.

So let's break it down together. You know, when you stub your toe and your mind instantly goes, that's it. My toe is definitely broken. I'll never walk again. That's catastrophizing. It's when your mind takes a situation and spins it into the worst possible outcome. We all do it, but here's the deal. If you're struggling with chronic pain, these thoughts can trap you in a cycle that makes your pain worse.

So how does this happen? The brain has a huge role in chronic pain. So imagine you're cooking dinner and suddenly the smoke alarm goes off because, well, you're me and forgot to, I don't know, take something out of the oven. That alarm is loud and annoying, right? But once, you know, there's no real fire, you turn it off.

And everything's fine. Go back to cooking and chronic pain. Your brain's alarm system, AKA your nervous system is stuck on, even though the actual fire or injury is long gone. This is where the principles of retraining our mind and body comes in. It helps us retrain the brain to realize that pain is actually safe.

The sensations you're experiencing in your body are not harmful. They're real. They're there, but they're not harmful. And there's no fire to freak out about anymore. If we keep catastrophizing over the sensations and the pain in the body, it's like we're pouring gasoline on the fire. So every time you think the pain will never go away, you're reinforcing the brain's belief that it needs to keep the alarm system going.

So you end up staying stuck. And I have to say to you that I'm not saying, Oh, it's all your fault. Keep stop catastrophizing. You're making your pain worse. Your pain's all your fault. Please do not hear that. That's not what I'm saying. This is an automatic reaction and coming from the unconscious. What we're doing is helping you become more conscious of what's going on unconsciously underneath the surface.

So how does catastrophizing feed the pain anxiety loop? Let me share a story. I've had a client who had been dealing with back pain for years and every time she felt the slightest twinge, her mind immediately went to, Oh my gosh, what did I do to trigger it? I'm going to be stuck like this forever.

This is it. And I'm never going to get over it. It's just freaking hopeless. I'm so tired. So tired of feeling this. Her pain would spike and yeah, days and days of issues would follow bedrest, pain meds, whatever it is, but it's not because her back was getting worse. It was the fear and anxiety driving her nervous system into overdrive.

And also let me say this, that it's totally natural. If you've been dealing with pain or symptoms, anything for a long period of time, and you haven't felt much relief or really any hope. Yeah. You're going to feel hopeless and you're going to catastrophize. I mean, how could you not, I hope that this is more information and to help you come out of those catastrophizing loops.

That's the whole point of this is to keep helping yourself out of those loops of fear and negativity to that increases the anxiety, which increases the stuck place in your nervous system. So through these principles, through helping her pause. Retrain the brain to recognize actually I am safe. I'm okay.

What I'm experiencing is not harmful or dangerous. It really helped her slow down and recognize that her pain was real, but it wasn't a sign of damage. It was her brain just misfiring because she was catastrophizing. So once we worked on breaking that cycle, her pain started to ease and whenever even a little bit would come on, she was able to work with it and bring it back down to maybe, you know, on a pain scale, maybe a two, maybe a zero, and then she could move on.

That's the magic of retraining the brain. And this is why reducing catastrophizing is a game changer. When we can do this, think of it like rewiring a circuit. You know how when your Wi Fi router is acting up, you turn it off and back on to reset it? Yeah, that's, that's kind of what we're doing. It's the same thing with your brain.

When you stop the cycle of this pain will never go away, what's going on, it's hopeless. It's kind of like hitting the reset button, telling your nervous system, Hey, Hey, Hey, it's okay. I know that pain is there. I know it's this, this, this sensation is real, but we can soothe, we can calm down. We are okay.

We're safe. We don't need to go into total protection mode. So when you reduce ketosis, Catastrophic thinking, you stop pouring fuel in the fire and that alone helps your brain create new, healthier neural pathways, and this is neuroplasticity at work and it's why therapies and practices like, I mean, any, any kind of, any kind of therapy, any kind of practice, any kind of, any way that can help you pause in your negative catastrophizing loops, and then come back to yourself and soothe your nervous system.

Is huge. So it really doesn't I mean, in my opinion, it doesn't necessarily matter what it is. It doesn't have to be 1, certain kind of therapy doesn't have to be pain reprocessing therapy or expressing your emotions or somatic therapy doesn't have to be 1 or the other. It can be a combination. It can be breath work.

It could be meditation. It can be checking the facts, can be anything, and I'm going to go through a few of these. but whatever helps you learn how to pause and become aware that you're doing it. You're, you're aware that you're catastrophizing and learn how to soothe yourself in that moment. That's what's going to be the most effective.

So let's talk about real examples and tools to help you getting started. So here's a few things that you can do. One, we'll start, we'll start with checking the thoughts, which really let's check the facts because when your mind starts spinning more often than not, those thoughts are not true. They're not truth.

They are perceived. They are future oriented or past oriented. So they're not really truth in the present and what's happening now. So ask yourself, write it out on a sheet of paper. Is this actually true? Write out the negative thought, write out the fear based thought, the anxiety loop that's happening.

And then the next column, right? Is this actually true? Is your pain ruining your entire life? Have you felt relief from it before? See if you can work through and it's called checking the facts. Is your perception actually truth? Like full on 100 percent truth guarantee you most of the time, it's not. You might say, well, you know what?

Sometimes this pain feels like it's ruining my life. But the key between feeling like it's ruining your life and it's actually ruining your life is different and also subjective, right? That is not full on factual 100 percent truth. So we have to challenge those thoughts because thoughts are not you.

They're not always real. We cannot always trust them. Thoughts come from so many different contexts, reasons, societal standards, negative family dynamics, lessons you've learned over time that were hurtful or shameful. So moral of number one of the story of this tool is we can't trust the thoughts, so we need to check the facts on what the thoughts are.

Number two tip is name what's really going on. Catastrophizing is often just a mask for deeper emotions like fear or anger. So for instance, when I, whenever I have a flare up, I'll take a deep breath, sometimes multiple breaths. And yeah, sometimes it takes some time and ask like, okay, what am I actually feeling here?

Sometimes it's not the pain. That's the problem. Sometimes what's initially underneath is that I've scared. It'll never end. Or sometimes for me, and if you've been at this work for a while, it might be you too. It's, man, I thought that I quote unquote move past this. I thought that I was over this. Like, what am I doing wrong?

Right. And I start to shame myself. And that is definitely something we have to catch because it's just not true. You can learn these principles, but it's always a practice and you get better at it. So when you can recognize actually the fear that's underneath the pain, the anger that's underneath the pain, the sadness that's underneath the pain, again, sometimes the first layer is, I'm scared it'll never end.

What am I doing wrong? How am I going to get through the day? That's the initial thought. And then we have to recognize what's the feeling it's going along with those. Usually it is some fear. It's, it's, it's scary to have something you don't know how to control, or does it, you don't feel like you have control over it.

But part of this process is recognizing, okay, how can we surrender? On one hand to not always having control. And on the other, how do we tend to ourselves in that fear and recognize that we can be okay. And we are safe in that fear. Usually what's underneath that layer of fear is an automatic response of fear that you learned very early on in life.

Those are primal instincts that are coming back out in multiple different ways. So I don't, it doesn't mean you need to go down all the different layers. It can help, but catastrophizing those thoughts are just the top layer. So I want you to learn how to get to the bottom layers. Where do you scared or feel for all that's going on in your life now?

And if you have an initial answer of, Not, not much. I'm fine. I invite you, encourage you to dig a little bit deeper. A lot of times we cut off from acknowledging what's hard in our lives. What and let me rephrase that sometimes we cut off acknowledging what has actually impacted us and maybe a negative way or just a difficult way or really just a human way we've told ourselves that whatever we've gone through isn't really deserving of pain or sadness or anger or fear.

And that it's fine. I had a fine childhood. I'm doing fine right now. I'm not saying that you have to dig deep and find all the things that are wrong and blame people and situations. It's definitely not where I'm going. It's that you have to acknowledge what has gone on. What is getting stuck in your nervous system?

It might not sound logical. A lot of times. It's not actually logic doesn't have a lot of place. a big place in all of this. It's what are our primal instincts and experiences that have been happening. So when you contend to those and simply acknowledge, I say simply, I recognize it's not that easy, but honestly, sometimes this work is simple, but it does not make it easy, but we try to make it more complicated than it is.

So let's go over one and two again. First of all, check the thoughts, check the facts of those thoughts. Is it actually true? Number two, name what's really going on underneath those thoughts, those catastrophizing thoughts that are happening. What are you feeling? What's going on? Are you scared? Are you frustrated?

Are you freaking angry that this is keep happening? What's there? And go with that. Number three is retrain your brain. Next time you feel pain or sensation, whatever's going on, instead of thinking, Oh no, it's back. It's never going to go away. Try telling yourself, You know what? This is uncomfortable, but it's not harmful.

I am okay. I am safe. I don't need this pain to be here, but it is, it is okay. I'm okay. I am safe. Basically, we want you to retrain your brain to see pain as something else. Safe, which is the first step towards recovery, because when you can start to acknowledge that the sensations in your body that you've been calling pain are actually safe, then your brain doesn't have to be scared of it to keep sending you signals of danger, to keep sending signals of pain.

So check the facts, name, what's really going on and retrain your brain, talk to your brain. This is uncomfortable, but it's not harmful. I am safe. I am okay. Breathe into the roots of your spine.

Feel that breath and live in your body and bring safety into your mind and your body.



Okay. So look, I get it. Chronic pain and anxiety can be tough. Catastrophizing doesn't have to keep you stuck though. By changing how you think about the pain, you can start to change the pain itself. It's all about rewiring that beautiful brain of yours and tending to those difficult emotional sensations and places in your body and your nervous system that Are there, if you've been living in a cycle of anxiety and pain, know that it really is possible to shift reducing catastrophizing might feel small, but trust me, it has a huge impact on your healing journey.

This is something I talk about so, so much with my clients. And usually when we bring this up, we talk so much about self compassion and it's one of the biggest feedbacks I've gotten from working with clients in my program. And one on one is that they say they've never been able to give themselves so much self compassion before.

They're really grateful to be able to have that relationship to themselves, to know that they can tend to whatever comes up. Instead of being so self critical, they can give themselves compassion and grace and learn how to soothe. So I hope that, you know, this helps. And if you've been wrestling with catastrophizing, and anxiety and pain, and you want some support.

I'd love to hear from you. You can find the link below. You can send me a DM on Instagram. I, we are accepting more clients right now, and I also have the mind body healing method you, so you can get started right away. If you would like to really help to understand this process, learning how to get out of the stuck place in your nervous system, reducing pain signals and feeling free, free from all of this.

Remember that you're not broken. You are resilient and your healing is closer than you think. Until next time, keep healing, keep growing, and we'll chat soon.