Self-fulfilling prophecy

I have mentioned before in previous posts that in 2003 I was diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder (click here for an explanation of what GAD is). It was very hard for me to accept this because of the the sheer close- mindedness I had at the time of all mental disorders. In the very back of my mind I knew that something was wrong or different about me, but even that thought made me angry so denial was just a more comfortable place. I suppose I finally reached my breaking point, made the appointment with my doctor (after the urging of my therapist) and was my anxiety disorder was classified as "severe".

Several years later I am happy to say that I don't need medication anymore, but every once in a while it creeps back up. Interestingly, in both of my pregnancies in the first trimester my anxiety came back, but the episodes are few and far between now. I felt it coming back once when I had a coaching session with Larry Laprade and decided to bring the topic to my session with him. This is probably not a topic I would normally bring up, it's more of a therapy topic, but Larry was up for the challenge. As I told him about my worries, he asked me, "What is worry?" I asked him to elaborate and he wanted to know how I would explain the concept of "worry" to an alien from another planet that did not know what it was, or had never felt it. As I tried my best to explain it, I realized just how ridiculous all of my worrying really was.

Later, as I thought about it more, I wondered if all my worrying and anxiety was some sort of self-fulfilling prophecy. Wikipedia defines a self-fulfilling prophecy as: "a prediction that directly or indirectly causes itself to become true, by the very terms of the prophecy itself, due to positive feedback between belief and behavior."

Hmmmm.......

Now, I don't want to undermine the severity of GAD or any other mental illness, what I'm talking about here is general worry, stress, etc. That being said, my session with Larry got me wondering if all of our thoughts are little announcements to the universe of a desired outcome that we may or may not want in our life. Especially if a thought is repeated over and over again in our mind (or out of our mouth), that it gains momentum and energy. I don't think that it's a coincidence that when I worry and stress about about something in particular that things seem to fall apart, but when I concentrate on how well things are and all the positive, it breeds just that.

I'm a firm believer that anyone can train their mind to bring what they want into their lives. I also think that it takes more positive energy to counteract whatever negativity someone has manifested about a certain topic. Sort of how we remember the bad and hurtful comments someone makes to us much more than we remember the compliments. Affirmations are a great way of doing this.

If there is anything you do to help with this, or any experience you've had with this, let me know!

Photo courtesy of spaceodissey