© Unknown
Worrying almost destroyed her life.
I could tell Elizabeth was a worrier before she opened her mouth: she had a haunted look and wrung her hands together so compulsively I thought the skin would come off. With a loving, supportive husband, healthy children, a good job, and sufficient income, what did she have to worry about?
Everything, it turned out. In the first session it was a headache she was sure signalled a brain tumor. In the next session, she'd moved on to the polar ice caps melting ("shouldn't we relocate to higher ground?"). Her inner world was a hellish place where incessant worries bound her in a web of doom.
You might not worry like Elizabeth. But most of us suffer from some version of negative thinking. For you it might be complaints about life or self-criticism. Whatever the content, repetitious thoughts create a negative energy that envelopes you. We call this the Black Cloud.
The Black Cloud screens out everything positive. All you can see is what's wrong with life. Pretty soon you can't enjoy anything. Elizabeth couldn't settle in with a good book, take in a movie, or meet a friend for lunch. The Black Cloud also alienates people. Elizabeth's husband was losing patience with her, and her college-bound daughter complained, "When you help me with my applications it feels like you aren't doing it for me - you're doing it to quell your own anxiety about me getting into a good school."
Before she came to me, Elizabeth had tried to solve her problem by thinking positively. "For three days I tried to substitute a positive thought for every negative one. But I ended up feeling like I was just sticking my head in the sand. I don't know why they call it the power of positive thinking - the negative thoughts have all the power."