From the author: Fear for your children often arises, turning into suspiciousness and catastrophic expectations. The article describes techniques for working with such fears. Anxiety is the interest that we pay in advance to our troubles. William Inge Many women, after giving birth to a child, note that their lives have changed radically. New joys appeared, pleasant moments of tenderness and enjoyment of the sight of your baby, a gentle feeling of warmth from the little man on your chest, the sound of his laughter or crying. But along with this come new worries associated with increasing the level of responsibility for your child, and, as a result, with various fears for him. In general, fear for your child is instinctively inherent in a woman. Apparently, this has been genetically transmitted since ancient times, when the mother was the only one responsible for her child, and without such care the child might not survive. Nevertheless, many women complain that fear and suspiciousness often become unbearable. Thoughts that something bad could happen to a child bother us for a variety of reasons. Scary frightening pictures are drawn in the imagination. Oddly enough, it is common for almost everyone to draw such frightening pictures in their thoughts. In the most calm and balanced person, no, no, the image of some horror story will flash through. Such fear is associated with our future. It frightens with its uncertainty, the uncertainty of a positive outcome. Young mothers are more susceptible to such fears than anyone else. One negative experience can be enough to cause suspiciousness and a constant expectation that something terrible will happen. Other people's stories about “horror stories” only aggravate the situation. The simple advice to “think about the positive” does not work. Anxious thoughts keep coming back. What to do? In fact, the above advice is not so ineffective. You need to really start thinking about a positive outcome when you are overwhelmed by thoughts of a frightening outcome. To do this, it is proposed to use the technique of eliminating catastrophic expectations. The essence of this procedure is to set yourself up for a positive outcome and remove expectations of a bad scenario, no matter how illogical it may be. Step 1. Create a generalized line of the future. Take a simple event that repeats from time to time, for example, brushing your teeth. Place a marker (piece of paper) No. 1 on the floor - this is the point of your present. Where will you place markers on the floor that correspond to brushing your teeth in a week, two weeks, a month, two months, six months? Mentally connect all these dots with a single line. This is your generalized line of the future. Step 2. Picture of the expectation of a negative outcome. Now imagine the image of an event that frightens you associated with your child in the form of a picture. Mentally take this unpleasant picture in front of you in your hands and release it over the generalized line of the future. Mark with a marker the point where it will land. Rate on a scale from 1 to 10 the degree of your anxiety associated with this event. Step 3. Picture of a positive outcome. Now create an image of a positive development of events when everything ends well. See yourself with your child, where you are calm and confident that everything is fine, and it will continue to be so. In the same way as in the previous paragraph, take a positive picture in your hands and release it over the generalized line of the future. Place a marker where the positive picture lands. Step 4. Association with the positive picture. Exit the present point and walk along the side of the generalized future line to the place where the positive picture lands. Stand on this marker and immerse yourself in this pleasant and peaceful future. See everything that happens from your eyes, feel all the feelings associated with it. What are you doing there, how and with whom are you talking, where is your child? Feel calm and confident that everything is fine. Enjoy everything you see for a while. Step 5. Eliminate catastrophic expectations. Continue to stay on... ☼☼☼