Too many worries in your stomach?
The ingredient principle helps you unravel fears
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Psychology: Sometimes our head plays a trick on us, worries puff up and become a big, heavy ball of fear. How do we unravel the fears? The ingredient principle can help to find peace again.
If one had to assign feelings to years, the last would probably be that of uncertainty. Even people who normally go about the world carelessly were suddenly confronted with fears about the most elemental, their health and that of their loved ones. The safety scaffolding began to totter tremendously. And it’s still not that stable.
However, some people worry more than others. This may be due to their personality on the one hand, and the circumstances on the other. They sweep over their foundation like gusts, causing the scaffolding to wobble significantly. When many of them come together, a storm develops that we perceive as an uncomfortable gut feeling. A gray soup of fear is spreading. Our body reacts very differently to this diffuse emotion because it cannot fully grasp it. What was brewing there? If you are a silent observer: in your own body you may ask, helpless to fight your fear.
Anyone who knows these moments when fear takes over, one loses oneself in ruminations and worries, a recipe from psychology could help. And as in the original, everything revolves around ingredients.
Psychology trick: how does the ingredient principle work?
It’s actually quite simple. We work here with our imagination. When we feel uncomfortable because we are worried and fear is slowly but surely making itself comfortable in our stomach, it sometimes feels like a soup of insecurity is filling it. It spreads, makes waves, and is difficult to identify. Is that already a sea or just a small pond? Is fear underlying a real threat – or does it feel bigger than it is? To find out, let’s just rewind the recipe.
Fear is difficult to identify as a soup. But if we try to fish out the individual ingredients, it becomes clearer. And we recognize what really burdens us. In plain language this means: Think about which individual elements your gut feeling currently consists of. That can be the nervousness before an appointment tomorrow. Concern for the aunt’s health. The disagreement with the colleague.
At the same time, it helps to specifically name the feelings. Once we have this uncomfortable feeling, the soup of uncertainty, in our stomach, it is often difficult to specify what it feels like at the moment. Is it really scared? Or is it uncertainty? Fury? Grief? And how did they come about? Try to identify the individual aspects – and calmly write them down if you feel like it.
This simple method can have an impressive effect on us: we understand what makes up fear. And that takes away the power.