The origins of suspiciousness
Suspiciousness usually arises from self-doubt and low self-esteem. Morbid suspiciousness is a kind of manifestation of an exaggerated instinct of self-preservation. Many experts rightly believe that the causes of suspiciousness lie in those negative, and often psychologically traumatic, childhood impressions and experiences, which subsequently grow into neurotic complexes. Suspiciousness is a heterogeneous concept. It can be an independent character trait, or it can be part of a disorder, for example, obsessive-compulsive neurosis, hypochondria, pathological jealousy, and delusions of persecution.
Suspiciousness is a common problem; one third of the population of our planet suffers from it in one form or another.
Why fight suspiciousness?
Even the usual, and not pathological, form of suspiciousness causes a lot of inconvenience to its owner. And if the latter needs to be fought with the help of specialists: psychologists, psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, then you can try to eradicate the former yourself. Suspiciousness not only darkens a person’s life, but also paralyzes his activity, prevents him from achieving success on his path, and building a harmonious personal life. There are a number of ways in which you can get rid of the constant feeling of anxiety about your abilities, capabilities and health.
Fighting suspiciousness: 18 steps to success
Step 1: Train the skill of success Try to develop in yourself the best things that helped you cope with difficulties in the past.
Step 2: appreciate your strengths You should not concentrate on your negative (often imaginary) qualities. You need to try to find the positive things in yourself that distinguish you from others.
Step 3: Don't talk bad about yourself It is not advisable to talk bad about yourself. If you constantly, even jokingly, in the face of minor failures, say: “What can you take from me? I’m a coward and a bungler!” – then soon, no longer as a joke, you will involuntarily strive to meet this definition.
Step 4: Confidence in Friends Don't be shy about sharing your fears, doubts, and worries with good, trusted friends. When a person “verbalizes” a problem (that is, expresses it in words), he has already partially solved it.
Step 5: keep a diary You can start a diary or notebook in order to record your experiences due to suspiciousness. Couldn't communicate with the person you're interested in? Try to write down what you felt at that moment: confusion, heart palpitations, embarrassment, etc. At first, you will just take notes. But soon, knowing what can happen to you in a given situation, you will no longer be lost in similar circumstances.
Step 6: Change Habits Try changing your habits. Not forever, but for a while. Trying to change, even in small things (for example, putting on shoes in the morning starting with a different foot than usual), will gradually set you up for the possibility of more serious, profound changes in your attitude towards life: you will feel, think, act differently.
Step 7: set yourself up for the best Try to set yourself up. This is a very important skill. For example: “All this day I will be as joyful and cheerful a person as possible! I will certainly smile at least seven times during the day!” (precisely seven times, because it’s a lucky number!); “I will give sober, calm, reasonable, adequate reactions to any situation!”; “On this day I will not allow any pessimistic, let alone negative assessments of my actions and qualities!”; “I will simply ignore negative traumatic circumstances!”; “I will definitely try to live this whole truly new day with the belief that success in my life is simply inevitable! Perhaps to achieve it you just need to be patient.”
Step 8: massage your earlobes In the fight against suspiciousness, you can also use physical influence: if you tend to worry and panic in any significant situation, try pressing on two special points, one of which is located inside the auricle, in the upper part of the ear, and the second is in the middle of the lobe. You can also rub the entire surface of your ears, focusing on the earlobes.
Step 9: Laugh at Your Fears Learning to laugh at your fears is not easy. To do this, you can use one technique. Write statements on separate pieces of paper that you don’t like about yourself, for example: “I’m embarrassed by the fact that I immediately blush when talking to strangers”; “I’m worried that my nose (mouth, ears...) is not the same,” etc. Place or pin these notes near the largest mirror in the apartment. When you look at these “paper confessions”, try to arrange comic mini-performances: laugh at your fears, make faces at yourself in the mirror! Sooner or later, the intensity of your experiences will subside, and you will begin to overcome suspiciousness.
Step 10: write down your fears You can write down on a piece of paper everything that you fear because of your suspiciousness. For example: “My heart is tingling, but it’s just nerves, that’s what my doctor told me!” Looking at this recording (it will be better if you make it with colored markers), you will gradually begin to get used to the idea that there is “nothing wrong with you.”
Step 11: fall in love with aromatherapy You can use aromatherapy to combat suspiciousness. Try adding 1-2 drops of rosemary or vanilla essential oil to your handkerchief. They give confidence in their abilities, relieve shyness and anxiety.
Step 12: Replace fear with pity If you are afraid of some kind of disease or infection, you can fantasize, imagining it in the form of an intrusive guest, skinny, frail and frightened. This will help ease fear (well, really, how can you be afraid of such an insignificance?!) or even drive it away.
Step 13: draw your anxiety Drawing helps well in the fight against suspiciousness. You can try to depict your fears in the form of drawings, funny and absurd. You can decorate the walls of your apartment with them in order to have a good laugh at them.
Step 14: come up with a happy ending Modeling the situation that you fear, how events with a successful outcome can also help suspicious people. For example, you are afraid of doctors. Imagine that it is not you, but one of your friends or relatives who needs to visit the clinic. Laugh at their concerns and fears. And then try to model your own trip to the clinic as a calm and safe event. Step 15: scare... your fear Usually, suspicious people drive away their fears and anxieties and thereby simply drive them inside. Try doing the opposite. For example, at the dentist’s office, fearing not so much toothache as the possibility of getting some kind of infection, tell yourself: “Please, dear fear, come in and do me a favor! What do you have there? Some kind of stupid infection? Bring her here!” In this way, you paralyze not yourself, but your fear.
Step 16: find a hobby Try to find an interesting activity or hobby for yourself. This kind of bright and joyful passion will protect you from many fears for the future.
Step 17: apply auto-training In the fight against suspiciousness, you can “adopt” a special technique of autogenic training - self-hypnosis, proposed even before the “inventor” of this psychotherapeutic technique, Johann Schulz, by the famous poet Maximilian Voloshin. Copy his poem “The Spell” (written back in 1929) with colored felt-tip pens and hang it in a visible place, re-read it every day, instilling in yourself everything that is written in it (or even better, learn these lines by heart):
All your organs are working properly: the progress of eternity is counted by your heart, your lungs and stomach are smoldering imperishably! Communion transforms the flesh into spirit and discards the excess toxins. Intestines, liver, glands and kidneys - “Concentrations and altars of the High Hierarchies” in musical Concord. There are no alarm bells or pains: your hands don’t hurt, your ears are healthy, your mouth doesn’t dry out, your nerves are hardy, clear and sensitive... And if you, persistent in your work, exceed your physical strength limits, your subconscious will immediately hold you back!
It is best to repeat these blank verses while sitting in the most comfortable position with your eyes closed, breathing easily and freely.
Step 18: think rationally One of the most important skills in the fight against suspiciousness is rational thinking. You can’t think only about the bad, worrying, exciting or scary all the time. This is especially not worth doing when you are alone with yourself, in the evening or before bed. Everyone knows how these kinds of thoughts and experiences interfere with finding peace of mind, which contributes to normal falling asleep and restful sleep. And a bad dream, filled with disturbing dreams, plunges a suspicious person even more into the abyss of worries. Therefore, before going to bed, it is better to dream, fantasize about something pleasant, and remember joyful moments.
Self-hypnosis technique
To properly tune in and design the installation in the right direction, approach self-hypnosis responsibly.
1. Relax. A calm environment and complete relaxation of the body will help you focus. The ideal time for self-hypnosis is going to bed or waking up in the morning - the body is as relaxed as possible, no one bothers you and nothing distracts you.
2. Decide on a goal. Don't jump from one thought to another. Try not to focus your attention on more than two goals. Let this be the most important thing for you. It is advisable that one be something global (buying an apartment, a trip abroad), and the second not so large-scale - planning for tomorrow, setting plans for the coming week.
3. Enter a trance-like state. Stop thinking about today, rethinking some actions or words. Immerse yourself in emptiness, and then move on to the sensations of the setting you set. Find your goal, feel it, live with it, perceive it as if you already have it all.
4. Get out of the state of emptiness by perceiving yourself next to the desired object. There must be a feeling of physical contact for autosuggestion to work as necessary. If you didn’t catch some point, or missed something from your attention, repeat the process again.
Examples:
You have plunged yourself into a state of self-hypnosis with a sore head. Your attitude: “I am healthy, I feel the pain leaving me, I feel good.” Having emerged from the state of emptiness, you will feel that the headache has gone away, only lightness remains in your body and heart.
Self-hypnosis also affects physical abilities. Set yourself a mindset where you are strong and have completed the task required of you (swimmed 100 meters, lifted a barbell weighing 80 kg, etc.). After self-hypnosis, you will be convinced that you are able to perform these actions.
In a positive way
If you can master these steps and add your own to them, you will gradually begin to think in new ways. And you will understand how much in life you have lost because of your suspiciousness.
Yaroslav Kolpakov, clinical psychologist, candidate of psychological sciences: “Suspiciousness is a complex psychological phenomenon. It is associated primarily with such a concept as anxiety. Anxiety means a certain potential readiness of a person to react to new situations, life circumstances, events with one or another manifestation of anxiety. Suspicious people have a fairly high level of anxiety. Suspiciousness in the physical sphere can manifest itself in the form of hypochondria. A person tends to very sensitively and carefully “listen” to all the signals of his body, attribute to them a painful meaning, interpret them as threatening health or even life, and often seek help from doctors. Suspiciousness in the social sphere can manifest itself as paranoia, that is, a tendency to be wary in communication, a distorted perception of the attitude of other people as hostile. The result of a kind of “protection” from suspiciousness can be perfectionism, that is, an almost obsessive belief that “I must achieve only the best results, I must be the best.” In a pathological form, this is manifested by the conviction that “no personal result achieved is ideal,” which could be even better. The fear of not achieving the best result leads a person to procrastination - constantly putting off making important decisions, putting off important things “for tomorrow.” Because of this, a person’s anxiety can only increase, and a kind of “vicious circle” is formed: anxiety – suspiciousness – paranoia – perfectionism – procrastination – anxiety. If you cannot break this circle with the help of the advice given in the article, it is recommended to seek the advice of a psychologist.”
Expert: Yaroslav Kolpakov, clinical psychologist, candidate of psychological sciences
Author: Evgeniy Vosarat
The material uses photographs belonging to shutterstock.com
Sources of negative self-hypnosis
No person is born with a negative attitude, so where do “bad” thoughts come from? Why does a person convince himself that he is a loser? What led to this perception of yourself?
Parents.
All parents, without meaning to, mentally cripple their children. Moms and dads compare the child with their peers and often not in favor of their children. When a child does something differently than his parents demand, adults reproach him, sometimes calling him humiliating words. Parents' disappointment in some of their affairs is often projected onto the child, who does not understand that the negativity is not directed at him.
Examples:
Dad at dinner, seeing his daughter gobble up a second serving, jokingly calls her fat. The matter ended in a joke, but the father’s words are stored in the child’s consciousness. Then, when a girl, already in adolescence, encounters the indifference of a guy she likes, the parent’s once-lost phrases emerge in her memory and escalate the situation. So we see before us a pretty girl who considers herself fat and scary, which instills in her self-doubt for the rest of her life.
Or a guy goes to a teenage party for the first time, his mother, out of seemingly good intentions, explains to him that you should be careful with girls nowadays, that they all only want wealthy guys who have a lot of money. The party has long passed, the guy has grown up and become a man. But she still lives with her mother, who herself is no longer happy with the words she once said in passing. And all because the man has in his subconscious that all girls are “predators”, and his mother is good and only wants the best, so why should he leave her?
Mistakes of the past.
A once-negative experience forms in the subconscious a negative attitude towards this activity or phenomenon for the rest of your life. The setting is automatically triggered: if it didn’t work out last time, nothing will work out now.
Example: you were cheated on, and this fact caused severe mental trauma. After a while, you returned to normal, you even managed to forget your love. But, on a subconscious level, you now look at all girls or guys through the black prism of past betrayal. And even if there is no hint from your significant other, you continue to be tormented by doubts, you torment yourself and your loved one, all the time expecting a catch.
