Practice step #2
Practice stopping a train of thought that trends toward anxiety, stress, or “what ifs.”
Statistically, this is especially challenging for women. In Chapter Three of For Men Only, we demonstrated how, unlike most men, most women can’t easily compartmentalize or shut off worries that are bothering us.
That said, on the survey, 41% of women said they had learned how to do that; how to set aside anxious, stressful, and what-if kinds of thoughts. What is their secret? When I ask them, the common thread they share is that it’s basically practice. They practice “taking every thought captive.” For example, when a mom starts worrying because her teenage driver hasn’t checked in yet, she shuts down the horrific thoughts about accidents and ambulances and instead tells herself, “He is a responsible driver, traffic is probably bad, and he probably hasn’t called to check in because he is driving.”
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