Let’s destroy the beliefs that create anxiety: the table of ideas.

A simple practical exercise that you can apply to your life to modify problematic beliefs.

Often there are many facts that in our day to day life create anxiety, an intense suffering that makes us become phobic of certain words, facts, or people.An intense suffering that makes us take phobia to certain words, facts, or people, and we do not find the reason why it is being generated.

That is why I bring you a practical exercise with which you are going to be able to approach those limiting ideas and linked to the anxiety..

The cognitive table

I do not know if you know it, but our ideas have different aspects very marked by the uncertainty (how much we believe it) and on the other hand the emotional intensity (how much we feel it). I would like to classify ideas into three categories that I show you below and that will help us to do this exercise better. These are:

• Opinions.
• Beliefs.
• Convictions.

An opinion makes us feel relatively safe, but unfortunately this is temporary, as it can be easily changed.because it can be easily changed. For example, we may have an opinion that a T-shirt looks good on us, but if three friends tell us that it is not our style, we will surely forget this opinion. So, if we look at this is the nature of most opinions, we will realize that they vanish easily and are usually based on a few references in which we look at a given time.

Secondly, we have Beliefs are formed when we begin to develop a base on a much larger idea, which is what we will call the most important one.This is what we will later call the legs of the table of ideas. In addition, we will have a strong emotion about that idea, which will make us feel totally confident about it. In some cases this can be negative, since people with strong beliefs are closed to new information and to get them to change their opinion it will be necessary to interrupt their pattern and get them to question it.

And finally we have the conviction; this is superior to the belief, it eclipses it, due to the fact that it brings with it a great emotional intensity that is it brings with it a great emotional intensity that is linked to an idea.. If we look at it, when we are sure of something (having a conviction) and we are denied that idea, we will feel anger and uneasiness and we will not be willing to question our references, so many times, unfortunately, they become an obsession.

As we see, the problem occurs when we carry out convictions based on ideas that support it and make it a strong position. Therefore, I would like to give you a very simple exercise that will help you to address this blindness we have reached.

How to do the exercise?

The cognitive table is a very practical exercise, in the following picture I show you:

As you see, in the upper table we will place the convictionFor example, the idea that we are going to fail in the delivery of a university work, and underneath we will write the ideas that support this conviction that is generating anxiety. In this example I have chosen four ideas, but your table can be very modern and have five leg-ideas, or be smaller and have three. I would love for you to customize the exercise.

So, the ideas that come up are:

• Idea 1: I don't know what's going to happen.
• Idea 2: lack of confidence.
• Idea 3: if I don't turn this paper in on time I won't graduate and will lose a job opportunity.
• Idea 4: I have chosen the wrong topic.

Well, once you put I would like you to carry out an individual analysis of each one in order to understand its implications.. Therefore, I am going to show you how to do it with the first idea, so that you can apply it to each one.

You are going to take a notebook (I suggest you use it from now on for practical exercises of this type) and in it you are going to write five columns with headings in column order: idea, thought, emotion, behavior and alternative thought.

As you can see the first four columns are very simple to identify, but the fifth one is the most complex, because we have to put an alternative thought that is, so to say a re-explanation of the idea that sustains that negative conviction.. Therefore, we must look for a thought (I like to call it a "lever") that will make you relax when you see it from this angle; in this last column it is important that we try to make sense of the explanation of the problem and that we do it by understanding it.

Apply this exercise on the thoughts or ideas that cause you discomfort, so you can face them in a different way. Take your time and learn to manage these problems from a different perspective. Create your table of ideas and restructure your anxieties in order to solve them.

Anxiety problems? I help you

If you want to reduce your anxiety and boost your emotional well-being with the professional support of a psychologist, do not hesitate to contact me. We can start the sessions without moving from home and with a price appropriate to the times.

My name is Javier AresI am a General Health Psychologist and one of my specialties is the treatment of anxiety. With my help you will be able to solve the complications that have arisen from the beliefs that you have been generating and that produce stress.

If it seems good to you, we can start working on you, so do not hesitate to contact me through this page.