Now you know that only thoughts are 100% responsible for your anxiety and panic attacks. What can you do with your thoughts? And more importantly, what can’t you do with your thoughts? Maybe you’ve heard about the mental exercise with the pink elephant:

• You’re not allowed to think in any way about a pink elephant for the next two minutes.

Chances are that you will think about a pink elephant. You can’t give your mind the instruction to not think about something and expect you won’t think about it. That’s not how your mind works. It actually increases the chance you will think about it. Because if you want to think about something or not, in both cases you’re thinking about it!

Words like “don’t”, “have to” and “not” are important for people with anxiety and depression. Not wanting something is a signal for your mind to start searching for a solution. People with anxiety, panic or depression often don’t want to feel or think about something. It has to go. It has to stop. But this only increases negative thoughts and feelings. What else can’t you do with thoughts and feelings without consequence:

• Trying to stop them;
• Ignore them;
• Wishing them away;
• Trying to get rid of them.

Once you try one of the above, you send a signal to your mind that something needs to be solved. There is danger. So your mind gives you all kinds of suggestions. In return, you get even more negative thoughts and feelings. But also realize that you can’t do the above with “positive” emotions either! What happens if you want to burst out in laughter but you’re making an exam and everyone else in the room is dead silent? You’ll probably get tears in your eyes and your face turns red. In the meantime, you have a hard time trying to hold in your laugh. You can’t hold back any emotion without consequence.

What can you do with thoughts, feelings and sensations:

• Summon them;
• Greet them;
• Let them be;

Your mind can only do two things with thoughts:

Your mind can only add up or multiply thoughts. You can’t magically make thoughts disappear or stop. That’s not how your mind works.

The important difference is:

If you continue to give your mind the command to make something go away or ignore it, you continue adding up and multiplying thoughts! Simply because not wanting something always comes from thought. And what do you get when you add up or multiply something? Always more than you start with! So the only logical outcome is that you get more of the things (negative thoughts and feelings) you don’t want.

But if you consciously summon, greet or let thoughts and feelings be, it’s very hard for the mind to add up or multiply them. It’s impossible to consciously think about something 24/7. And you can test this yourself. When you wake up tomorrow, you only have one task:

• You need to think of a pink elephant every second of the entire day.

I can already guarantee that you will fail. But it’s perfectly possible to think about something you don’t want 24/7. Because if you don’t want to think about or feel something, you’re adding up and multiplying thoughts. That’s the reason people can end up in depression. They don’t want all those negative thoughts and feelings so they keep thinking about it. 

So, what’s the solution? What happens when you’re in a meeting for 30 minutes and you constantly tell yourself you don’t want to get a red face when it’s your turn to speak? You start adding up and multiplying thoughts about not wanting a red face when it’s your turn. But what happens when you do want a red face when it’s your turn?

If you’re trying to prevent your disaster scenario from coming true, you’re only fighting against the fundamental working of your mind. It will never work. Your disaster scenario will only disappear when you’re OK if the disaster scenario comes true. In the case of a red face, letting the red face be. Let it do its thing.

The solution for my social anxiety about getting a red face (I suffered from for almost three decades!!) was deliberately trying to get a red face instead of preventing it. I told myself that everybody was allowed to see my red face. In fact, I wanted to get the reddest face possible! Did my face turn red? No, my face didn’t turn red when I wanted to! Actually, it’s impossible to get a red face when you really want a red face. You can test this at home:

• Go to your bathroom and look in the mirror;
• Tell yourself you want to get a red face by thinking about it. Make it as red as possible. Only use thoughts, don’t hold your breath.

It doesn’t matter if you suffer from social anxiety or not. Even if you get the reddest face in the entire world during social events, you will see it’s impossible to get a red face at home while looking in the mirror and deliberately summoning it.

The reason why this technique works is that your “What if..” thoughts and disaster scenarios don’t exist anymore. Instead of preventing the red face because something might happen (the disaster scenario), you now deliberately summon the red face and you don’t care about what happens. You don’t care if your disaster scenario comes true so the anxiety program stops running. And this works for any type of anxiety, panic or depression because they all start the same anxiety program.

Do you have panic attacks? Try to summon one. Make it the worst panic attack you ever had. I know that sounds scary, but it’s impossible to get a panic attack when you truly want one. The only reason you have panic attacks is because you are resisting your disaster scenario (whatever that scenario may be). 

The trick is to learn how to dismantle your disaster scenarios or how to stop your resistance. Without going against the fundamental working of your mind. Any therapy that is focusing on reducing your symptoms is useless. You can’t reduce symptoms or thoughts. Only add up and multiply. Only once you have accepted that the outcome of your disaster scenario can come true, only then your negative thoughts and anxiety complaints and even depression will completely go away. Always remember:

Without thinking, anxiety, panic and depression can’t exist!

And what happens when you accept something? You stop thinking about it! 

Did you learn something new about anxiety?

Then maybe my e-book can help you. You can see the above chapters as an introduction. In my e-book, I’ll go even more in-depth discussing many different techniques and variations, how your brain works, how medication works and many more. All based on the fundamental working of your mind.

• 130 pages e-book (.pdf format);
• 10 techniques + multiple variations;
• Free updates (you get the new version of the book in your email);
• Different assignments to help you figure out where it goes wrong in your case;
• Clear step-by-step plan + goal;
• Alternatives for medication;
• How your diet may affect your anxiety + suggestions;
• Money back guarantee;
• Bonus 1: The Wim Hof Method;
• Bonus 2: Ask me any question about your anxiety;

You can read reviews from real people who bought the book below.

P.s. some reviews might appear in another language (dutch).