Don’t fight anxiety—change your relationship with it.
Your thoughts are not always facts.
When anxiety hits:
- Identify the thought
- What am I telling myself?
- Check it
- Is this a fact or an assumption?
- Challenge it
- What evidence supports this?
- What evidence doesn’t?
- Replace it
- What’s a more balanced thought?
- Take action
- Do NOT avoid
- Take one small step forward
Adults
- Situation (What happened?)
- Emotion (How did you feel?)
- Automatic Thought
- Evidence for the thought
- Evidence Against the thought
- Balanced Thought
- Outcome (How do you feel now?)
Teen
- Situation:
- What thought popped up?
- What kind of thinking error is this?
- ☐ Catastrophizing
- ☐ Mind reading
- ☐ All-or-nothing
- ☐ Other: ______
- What’s the reality?
- New balanced thought:
- Action I will take:
Children
- What happened?
- What did I think?
- Is that thought true or just a guess?
- ☐ True
- ☐ Guess
- What’s a better thought?
- How do I feel now?
Coping Tools
- Mood Tracking
- Track emotions daily
- Identify patterns and triggers
- Helps increase awareness
- Mindfulness (STOP Method)
- S = Stop
- T = Take a breath
- Observe (thoughts, feelings, body)
- Proceed intentionally