Thinking Traps 113
a presentation to a committee. Picture what it would be like if your
mind went blank, preventing you from finishing your presentation
and provoking laughter among the committee members. As embar-
rassing and uncomfortable as the thought may be, confront it. Don’t
shrink from it. Instead of reacting to this fearful thought and feeling
a need to worry about how you might do better, simply accept that
you are having a fearful thought. If you find yourself reacting to the
distress your imaginings cause and engaging in repetitive negative
thinking , you can recompose yourself by accepting your thoughts,
feelings, and inclinations without ascribing any particular meaning
to them. By so doing , you will be regulating your emotions mind-
f u l ly.
Another reason why repetitive negative thinking is
repetitive in nature is because people never really feel satis-
fied that they worried or ruminated enough. Usually worry
and rumination are undertaken with some purpose in mind.
People often believe that if they worry enough about some-
thing happening, then they will be better equipped to handle
their emotions if it really happens. But that’s the main catch
with repetitive negative thinking: how much worrying is
enough? Despite people’s intentions, they often fail to achieve
the sense of satisfaction and closure they desire at the outset.
The lack of clearness about when it’s appropriate to stop
worrying leads to an out- of- control spiral of negative
thinking.
Exercise 4.3: Postpone Your Worries Set aside a fifteen-
minute period every evening in which you do nothing but worry.
Then, if at any other time of day you think you have reason to worry,
instead of mentally addressing the problem on the spot, just leave it
alone and tell yourself that you will deal with it during your worry