Making Movies in Our Minds: Working Through Our Anxiety

By John Trentalange PhD

Making Movies in Our Minds was written for the scholar practitioner as well as everyday individuals seeking practical ways to ease anxiety.

John Trentalange, Ph.D., a clinician specializing in assisting individuals heal from emotional trauma, anxiety, depression, and attachment issues, draws on his more than twenty-five years of experience to offer techniques that he and his clients have used to diminish anxiety.

The author also observes that some individuals who struggle with anxiety also struggle with despair, which can include believing they’ll end up homeless, destitute, lonely, alone, or failures in life. Other thoughts of despair can be more global, such as a fear of hurricanes, tornadoes, or the world coming to an end.

By following the steps in this book, however, you’ll be able to:
· Manage your emotions;
· Stop believing the worst will happen;
· Focus on the task at hand;
· Navigate challenging situations.

The best part is that the techniques you learn can be used almost anywhere and anytime. You can use them by themselves or in conjunction with therapy you’re receiving.

Overcome the exhausting cycle of anxiety, regain peace, and calm your anxious brain with the lessons and insights in this guidebook.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Publishing
• Release date: Jul 3, 2023
• ISBN: 9781665743921

John Trentalange PhD

John Trentalange, Ph.D. has more than twenty-five years of experience working as a clinician, specializing in assisting individuals heal from emotional trauma, anxiety, depression, and attachment issues. He has also worked as an educator, trainer, and researcher. He has trained thousands of early childhood educators, parents, teachers, social workers, school counselors, psychologists, and attorneys on a variety of subjects.

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Copyright © 2023 John Trentalange, PhD.

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ISBN: 978-1-6657-4391-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6657-4392-1 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023908775

Archway Publishing rev. date: 06/16/2023

CONTENTS

Understanding Anxiety

Anxiety and Personality Disorders

Is Anxiety Rooted in Childhood?

Anxiety, Stress, and Depression

Anxiety in Performance-Based Individuals

How Anxiety Affects All Aspects of Our Lives

What Does an Anxious Person Look Like ?

Some of the Internal Effects of Anxiety

Anxiety and Our Internal Messages

Anxiety and Mindfulness

Anxiety and van der Kolk

Faith, Control, or a Thinking Disorder

Exercises Used to Work through Anxiety

References

UNDERSTANDING

ANXIETY

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Making Movies in Our Minds was written for the scholar practitioner and the individual who wants easy, practical ways for easing anxiety. The techniques that I offer in this book have been used by me and my clients and have been proven to diminish anxiety to a level where the emotions are manageable. Individuals can use these techniques almost anywhere and at almost any time. They can choose to use the techniques by themselves or in addition to the therapy they’re receiving. I designed these techniques because I couldn’t find the help I needed without having a professional suggest I take medication or use marijuana.

The anxious brain is unique in that it’s filled with ideas, imagined and real, that cause further anxiety-driven thinking. For example, an argument with our bosses will often cause anxiety through wondering what the consequences of that argument will be. However, when we think that our bosses will retaliate by firing us or making our lives hell, we’re simply getting carried away and believing the worst. This is fantasy because it hasn’t happened yet, and the likelihood of it happening is probably low.

Once we face our bosses and discuss the matter in a more respectful and professional manner, we regain our peace. Most individuals move forward and join other activities with confidence and contentment. Individuals with anxious brains only momentarily move forward with peace. Then they begin new activities with a new set of anxieties. And the cycle begins again.

This cycle of anxiety becomes exhausting, as anxious individuals move from one activity to the next with consistently anxious thoughts, wondering whether they’ll be okay. Other internal questions include the following: Will I fail? What do others think of me? Will I be left behind? Who will reject me? Who will laugh at me? Can I get through this? Notice that all of these questions are negative. All these questions show low self-esteem, a lack of confidence, a lack of trust in themselves, a lack of trust in others, and a lack of faith. Some individuals who struggle with anxiety also struggle with despair. Thoughts of despair can include believing they’ll end up homeless, destitute, lonely, alone, or failures in life. Other thoughts of despair can be global, such as devastating hurricanes, tornadoes, or even the world coming to an end.

Some folks with beliefs of global despair turn into survivalists, preparing for end times by storing up water, food, and other supplies. Other folks with feelings of despair become emotionally and cognitively stuck, and they end up being hermits, loners, or depressed, living quiet lives of desperation, hanging on to daily survival. The saddest part is that these same individuals are seldom relaxed and seldom enjoy themselves.

As I mentioned earlier, individuals who struggle with anxiety go through the torture of moving from one anxious thought to the next, with only a short time of peace and relaxation in between. Anxiety is future oriented, meaning that those of us who struggle with anxiety also usually struggle to stay in the present moment. We struggle with anxiety, have anxiety attacks, have periods of peace, and then have anxiety about the next event or situation on our minds.

In addition to moving from one anxious event to another, anxious individuals stretch their stories into deeper layers of anxiety. For example, they will become anxious about their partners not calling them back. When they don’t receive a response, their thoughts go from he or she isn’t responding because they are angry with them to they are angry with them and are now having an affair. Their story continues to when the relationship is over and they’re destined to live alone, depressed until their deaths. Anxious individuals write movies in their minds.

The movies that anxious individuals write are stories with themes of drama, tragedy, sadness, gloom, or heartbreak. These individuals have grave difficulty holding onto peace or happiness for very long, staying in the present moment, relaxing their minds, and not thinking about the things that could possibly go wrong as they move from one story to another.

Moving from one event to the next with worry or concern may sound like fear, but it’s not. It’s anxiety. Fear always contains a stimulus and is present oriented. For example, an individual might frighten us, but as soon as we’re away from that individual, our fear also goes away. A person can have a fear of heights, but that fear only manifests when an individual is faced with an event that involves heights. There are numerous phobias, and all of them pertain to specific stimuli: heights, violence, people, spiders, and so on. As soon as a particular stimulus goes away, the fear goes with it. Therefore, the fear is directed at a particular stimulus and is present oriented.

Anxiety differs from fear in several ways. While anxiety is felt in the present moment, it’s future oriented, connected to an event in the future, even if that event is only five minutes from now. An individual might be anxious right before opening a specific email. Another individual might have an anxiety attack while in the doctor’s office. Both events are connected to what the individual thinks is going to happen in the next few minutes. Other examples can involve all categories of our lives, romantic partners, jobs, school, neighbors, and so on.

Individuals who struggle with anxiety are thinkers. I’ve found this to be one of our most common characteristics. Our brains and minds are always running. The challenge is that anxiety is a thinking disorder. Despite our logical minds, the logic that leads us to anxiety isn’t correct. The challenge is that it’s logical. It’s just not rational for the particular situation that is bringing us anxiety. Our minds rush to inaccurate conclusions, and our conclusions cause our anxiety.

The conclusions we draw in our minds present us with the belief that we won’t be okay. If we lose our jobs, we’ll end up homeless. We don’t consider that we have enough savings to live for several months, can collect unemployment, or can find another job. Our thinking becomes very narrowly focused; therefore, our conclusions are limited and often filled with pain or disaster. Often our conclusions include some form of abandonment by others.

The etiology of anxiety comes from emotional or physical abandonment. The root of anxiety is often in childhood. Individuals who come from traumatic pasts—including childhood abuse, physical abandonment, or emotional abandonment—often grow into adults who struggle with anxiety and depression. This book is focused on the anxious individual. One key element is that abandonment helps to create anxiety, and anxiety leads to feelings of abandonment.

This vicious cycle starts our downward spirals. An anxious thought leads to feelings of worry and concern. This leads to heart palpitations, which turn to further worry and concern, creating a deeper sense of being alone in the world. This leads to not being able to concentrate. Our brains shut down, and we feel a sense of doom that gets deeper until it eventually culminates in a full-blown anxiety attack. We’re now deep in our downward spiral, often experiencing depression and anxiety simultaneously. This is when we catastrophize.

Catastrophizing refers to exaggerating an event or incident into something far worse than what the initial incident dictated. One example is when our bosses don’t give feedback on a particular assignment. We interpret this ambiguous incident as negative. Then we add that the boss is angry with us and that we’ll be fired. This is already an exaggeration of the incident. However, some individuals will further add to this catastrophe by believing that they’ll be fired, their spouses will leave them, their houses will go into foreclosure, and they’ll end up homeless. They make movies in their minds.

There’s a theme among the movies that all of us who struggle with anxiety make in our minds. That theme is the tripod of anxiety. Feeling alone, helpless, and a lack of control is the invisible tripod imprinted in the brain of an anxious individual. This can feel like hell. Who wants to feel alone? Who enjoys or is even comfortable with not feeling like they have some control? Who likes to be helpless?

As stated above, we have this tripod of anxiety instilled in our brains. It’s the root of our anxiety and, at the same time, creates further anxiety. The tripod of anxiety is the driver of the downward spiral. American society states that independence reigns. When we measure an individual’s strength and value on their ability to be independent, that individual can withdraw, becoming isolated and depressed.

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Let’s discuss the three points/concepts of the anxiety tripod. First, the sensation of feeling helpless coincides with withdrawing from others because of our inability to recognize any