So this is where you stop letting your brain run on autopilot and you start actively showing it a new way to be. You're going to teach your brain a new pattern to follow, and the beautiful part is the more that you practice this, the faster it becomes your new default state to the point where you don't even have to try anymore.
So here's exactly how you do this. There are three simple ways that I love to retrain your brain out of anxiety and into calm and happiness, right?
So, the first one is to start considering the best-case scenario.
You're gonna take the doomsday scenario and you're gonna flip it around. So instead of, "What if it all goes wrong?" try this: "What if this turns out even way better than I think?
... So ask yourself, "What would it feel like to be at total peace with this situation? What would it feel like if everything worked out way better than I expected?"
And do this for everything, and you will notice a shift in your body immediately. It is instantaneous.
So this is what I want you to do in the moment if you're experiencing, you know, anxious thoughts or anxious sensations. - Meredith Louden
Put yourself in the presence of Jesus. Ask Him to give you the grace to listen to His peaceful voice and be at peace for a few moments.
Then ask Jesus to allow you to overcome the fear or anxious voices, also called the whispers of the enemy. The "fear voice" and "anxious voice" over and over again presents to your brain the irrational worst-case scenarios, catastrophe scenarios, and those are predictions that are over and over and over again wrong. 99.9% of the time they're wrong.
The whispers of the enemy magnify fear and anxiety in you. Whereas generally if something really bad is going to happen, you don't get all the sensationalism of anxiety or fear, and there's a calmness that is more "neutral, with less emotion tied to it".
Whenever you're getting this irrational fear and anxiety, one of the best ways to overcome it is to make the most positive prediction and pray about it coming about by the grace of God. Since your "fear voice" is giving you the worst-case scenario and catastrophic scenario that is over and over again wrong, why not just pray to Jesus and ask for the best-case scenario and predict it and pray for it.
Notes:
I got a lot of the above method is from a Meredith Louden video in which I use a kind of Ignatian Spirituality method in which I call her "fear voice" the whispers of the enemy and the peaceful voice of Jesus equates with her "truth voice". Below are three of her videos:
Watch "Permanent Anxiety Relief: How to Become Truly Anxiety-Free (No Meds!) | Generalized Anxiety Disorder" on YouTube
Transcription:
Remember that you are the commander. Right now, your identity has probably gotten a bit entangled and enmeshed with the negative worry thoughts in your mind. But those thoughts are just the voice of your survival mind, and this part of your brain has become a bit overprotective based on what it learned from your past life experiences. And so now it's been keeping you on guard for potential threats just in case.
So this is why you sometimes feel anxious for no reason, and maybe being more on guard, more alert, did make sense at one point in your life, especially if you grew up in a dysfunctional environment, or you lived with toxic people, or worked in a toxic job.
Which actually, you know, kind of leads me down a whole other train of thought, which I'll mention quickly, which is my question to you: Are there things in your life right now that are toxic? Are there people that are toxic? Are there jobs that are toxic? If there are, you might want to reconsider some of those things, set some boundaries, change something to protect your own peace.
So if that's the case, then I look at anxiety as your messenger trying to get your attention that something in your life needs to change, okay?
But if overall things in your life are pretty good, you know, nothing catastrophic going on, and you're not under any real life-or-death threats, then that anxious voice is inaccurate and should not be listened to. It's a pattern that your survival mind learned from the past that's still turned on, and it's scanning for threats that don't even exist and sending you false alarms.
And here's a really helpful trick for recognizing this: That fear, survival, anxiety voice is always loud and dramatic. It is that panicked, scattered voice that makes you feel like something is so urgent or dangerous right now.
On the other hand, your intuition voice is quiet, subtle, and not scary at all. So if something were actually bad going to happen, it wouldn't feel scary. You would more just kind of know, and you'd be kind of like, "Oh shit, that's going to happen," but it's not a panic. It's a very kind of grounded knowing without any fear attached to it.
So all those scary, annoying thoughts that are running through your mind, those are not your intuition. No way.
So this is where you step in as the commander. So you can thank your brain for trying to keep you safe, but then you tell it, "Hey brain, you're now off duty. There is nothing else that needs to be done about this right now."
And I know that the brain seems like it's you, but it is not you. You get to command your brain. And once you remember that you're in charge, that is when you can actually move into step four, which is where you actually start commanding your brain to feel safe again.
So I have three ways to do this that are literally epic and going to change your life. So this is where you stop letting your brain run on autopilot and you start actively showing it a new way to be. You're going to teach your brain a new pattern to follow, and the beautiful part is the more that you practice this, the faster it becomes your new default state to the point where you don't even have to try anymore.
So here's exactly how you do this. There are three simple ways that I love to retrain your brain out of anxiety and into calm and happiness, right?
So, the first one is to start considering the best-case scenario.
You're gonna take the doomsday scenario and you're gonna flip it around. So instead of, "What if it all goes wrong?" try this: "What if this turns out even way better than I think? What if this actually works out perfectly? What if this is the best thing that's ever happened to me?"
Instead of, "What if I feel like this forever?" you would consider the best-case scenario, like, "What if this feeling goes away way faster than I ever thought it would? What if this goes away so fast I forgot it even happened in the first place?"
When you ask yourself a question, your subconscious mind can't help but start looking for evidence that makes that question come true. This is how you retrain your brain to start looking for evidence that feels good in your body.
Your default for so long has been way too one-sided on considering the worst-case scenario, and that's not accurate. So if you're gonna consider the worst-case scenario, you gotta even it out. You know, you gotta even it out. You're, like, all the way down here. You gotta even it out, and you also got to consider the best-case scenario to be balanced.
So ask yourself, "What would it feel like to be at total peace with this situation? What would it feel like if everything worked out way better than I expected?"
And do this for everything, and you will notice a shift in your body immediately. It is instantaneous.
So this is what I want you to do in the moment if you're experiencing, you know, anxious thoughts or anxious sensations.
Watch "It Sucks for 3 Days, But It Fixes Your Sleep" on YouTube
Question Your Thoughts Relentlessly
For the next three days, I want you to watch your mind like a hawk. Pay attention to every negative thought pattern that comes up throughout your day. And I'm not just talking about your sleep. I'm talking about anything that you're worrying about, anything that you're imagining going wrong, or anything that you're criticizing yourself for.
Because here's the thing: so much of our thinking is habitual. We keep repeating the same old thoughts without even realizing we're doing it. And if you want to change those patterns, you have to start interrupting them.
I've noticed a pattern in people who struggle with sleep, and it's that they tend to be really good at imagining all the things that can go wrong. And I used to be exactly like this, and I know that it contributed to both my anxiety and insomnia.
All of those thoughts that sound like, "What if I can't sleep tonight? What if I'm exhausted tomorrow? What if I never get rid of this problem?" If that sounds familiar, then for the next three days, every time you catch yourself thinking this way, I want you to challenge that thought with a completely different question: "What if everything goes right?" Or, "What if this turns out to be easier than I think it is?"
So instead of, "What if I can't sleep tonight?" ask yourself, "What if I sleep great tonight?" Instead of, "What if tomorrow is another terrible day?" ask yourself, "What if tomorrow turns out to be an amazing day?" And instead of, "What if I never fix my sleep?" ask, "What if I'm actually way closer to getting consistent, good-quality sleep than I realize? What if this is so much easier than I've been making it out to be?"
And you can do this with anything in your life. Instead of, "I'm so bad at this," ask yourself, "What if I'm just being too hard on myself and I'm not as bad as I think?"
Think of this as you're just giving your brain another option to consider. Because remember, your thoughts are habits. And for so many of us, our brains have spent years learning to constantly be on guard, always looking for what could go wrong, expecting the worst, and being overly critical of ourselves.
And after doing that for long enough, it starts to feel like that's just the way that your brain works. But it's not. It's a habit that you've practiced over and over and over again.
And every time you catch yourself falling into one of those old thought patterns and you consciously choose a different way of looking at things, you're practicing the new habit of empowering, best-case-scenario thinking instead.
Where focus goes, energy flows. What you consistently focus your attention on is what you're going to notice more of in your life. So if you're constantly looking for what's wrong, that's what your mind is going to keep finding. But when you start deliberately looking for what's going right, you give yourself a chance to experience life much differently.
Watch "Sleep Anxiety RELIEF: Overcome the Fear of Not Sleeping" on YouTube
Transcription:
Truth three is that the fear voice is not accurate. There are two voices inside your head, and learning the difference between them is everything. The first is the fear voice. The fear voice comes from your survival brain. It is loud. It is frantic, and it catastrophizes. It says things like, You're never going to get better. Tomorrow is going to be a disaster. Something is seriously wrong with you. It speaks in worst case scenarios. The second is the truth voice. This comes from your intuition. The truth voice is quiet and calm. It feels like a subtle knowing, not a panicked screaming. And here's how you can tell the difference in the moment. If something bad actually was going to happen, it wouldn't scare you. If it was coming from your intuition, it would feel much more neutral, with less emotion tied to it. It would feel more like a fact, without any stress or anxiety. The stress and anxiety that you feel is the fear voice coming from the survival brain, which is just not giving you reliable information. It is giving you worst case scenarios designed to keep you on high alert, because your brain has learned to stay on high alert at night.
So the next time that fear voice pops up at 2 a.m. telling you that everything is falling apart, just recognize it for what it is. That is just your survival brain being overprotective. It doesn't mean any of it is true. You are not your fear voice. You are the one observing it, and that awareness alone starts to take away its power. Now that you know about the fear voice, let's get specific about what it's actually saying. Truth four is that you're not really afraid of not sleeping, because you're not really afraid of just lying in bed with your...
... What you're actually afraid of is what you think will happen next: having a terrible day, if it will impact your health, affecting your performance at work, being stuck like this forever. So take a second to identify what you're actually afraid of and tell me in the comments, because any time you catch this fear, you're going to remind yourself that that is just the fear voice. It's not actually true. If you're going to predict the future, you might as well predict one that you actually want to experience, because your brain is going to believe whatever story you tell it. So make it a good one [and pray].
- Distorted reality: St. Ignatius taught that anxiety often magnifies fears, making worries feel like absolute truths when they are mostly in our heads. [1, 2]
- No major choices: He advised never making major changes or decisions while experiencing anxiety, because your perspective is clouded and defensive. [1]
- Spiritual turbulence: Anxiety creates a restless "noise" that mimics an internal committee, draining your energy and disconnecting you from the present moment. [1]
- Act against it: Ignatius recommended "acting against" anxiety by doing the opposite of what fear dictates—such as speaking words of trust, slowing down, or engaging in simple acts of gratitude. [1, 2]
- The Daily Examen: Reviewing your day with God without judgment helps quiet the mind, separate past fears from current reality, and re-center your spirit. [1]
ChatGPT:
The key is to distinguish fear as a response to an actual danger from anxiety generating hypothetical catastrophes without adequate evidence.
For example:
- Proportionate fear: “There is a car coming toward me; I need to move.” → the fear corresponds to an identifiable danger.
- Irrational anxiety: “What if I suddenly lose control tomorrow, everything goes wrong, and my life falls apart?” → the mind is generating a chain of hypothetical catastrophes without evidence that they will occur.
In the second case, saying “this is the fear voice, not reliable information” can be very useful.
I'd still make one modification to the original claim:
Don't say that anxiety proves the feared event is false. Say that, when the anxiety is irrational and disproportionate, the intensity of the feeling is not evidence that the catastrophic prediction is true.
That's a much stronger proposition.
And this makes your Christian formulation work particularly well
You could formulate the method as:
When irrational anxiety begins, put yourself consciously in the presence of Jesus. Ask Him for the grace to hear His voice and remain at peace. Recognize that the catastrophic predictions produced by fear are not facts. They are possibilities generated by an overactive threat response. You do not have to believe them simply because they feel urgent.
Then deliberately turn away from the catastrophe and toward hope. Pray for the good outcome you desire. Entrust that outcome to Jesus rather than trying to control the future.
“Jesus, this fear is telling me the worst is going to happen. I don't know that this is true. I place this fear in Your hands. Give me the grace to hope for the good, to do what I can today, and to trust You with tomorrow.”
The particularly important insight is:
Feeling afraid does not make the feared scenario more probable.
And for irrational anxiety:
The intensity of the fear should not be mistaken for the certainty of the prediction.
I ask all The Catholic Monitor readers to also pray for the end of this war. Watch "Trump Calls Putin To Get Iran War Offramp! w/ Scott Ritter" on YouTube: ...Read more Please Pray for Trump to end the Iran War: Watch "Trump Calls Putin To Get Iran War Offramp! w/ Scott Ritter" on YouTubeFranklin & Graham calls on Christians to pray for 'end to the bloodshed' ahead of Trump-Putin summit...7mo
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Conclave Notes:
-- Open letter urges Pope Leo XIV to correct ‘scandalous incoherence’ in Amoris Laetitia...[Wow! Even notorious Popesplainer Fr.] Harrison warns that Pope Francis taught a ‘dangerous self-contradiction’ on Communion for the divorced and ‘remarried,’ petitioning Pope Leo to correct the record. [https://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2025/08/open-letter-urges-pope-leo-xiv-to.html]
-- Are the Cardinals who will participate in the upcoming conclave authentically appointed & morally justified in voting, or will the shadow of Francis's possible illegitimacy cast itself over the next papacy? [https://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2025/04/are-cardinals-who-will-participate-in.html]
-- 5 Dubia Questions for 1P5's Steve Skojec & All faithful Catholics especially Francis is definitely Pope Cardinals, Bishops & pundits [https://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2019/06/5-dubia-questions-for-steve-skojec.html]
Francis Notes:
l– Doctor of the Church St. Francis de Sales totally confirmed beyond any doubt the possibility of a heretical pope and what must be done by the Church in such a situation:
“[T]he Pope… WHEN he is EXPLICITLY a heretic, he falls ipso facto from his dignity and out of the Church, and the Church MUST either deprive him, or, as some say, declare him deprived, of his Apostolic See.”
(The Catholic Controversy, by St. Francis de Sales, Pages 305-306)
Saint Robert Bellarmine, also, said “the Pope heretic is not deposed ipso facto, but must be declared deposed by the Church.”
[https://archive.org/stream/SilveiraImplicationsOfNewMissaeAndHereticPopes/Silveira%20Implications%20of%20New%20Missae%20and%20Heretic%20Popes_djvu.txt]
– “If Francis is a Heretic, What should Canonically happen to him?”: http://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2020/12/if-francis-is-heretic-what-should.html
– “Could Francis be a Antipope even though the Majority of Cardinals claim he is Pope?”: http://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2019/03/could-francis-be-antipope-even-though.html
– If Francis betrays Benedict XVI & the”Roman Rite Communities” like he betrayed the Chinese Catholics we must respond like St. Athanasius, the Saintly English Bishop Robert Grosseteste & “Eminent Canonists and Theologians” by “Resist[ing]” him: https://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2021/12/if-francis-betrays-benedict-xvi.html
– LifeSiteNews, “Confusion explodes as Pope Francis throws magisterial weight behind communion for adulterers,” December 4, 2017:
The AAS guidelines explicitly allows “sexually active adulterous couples facing ‘complex circumstances’ to ‘access the sacraments of Reconciliation and the Eucharist.'”
– On February 2018, in Rorate Caeli, Catholic theologian Dr. John Lamont:
“The AAS statement… establishes that Pope Francis in Amoris Laetitia has affirmed propositions that are heretical in the strict sense.”
– On December 2, 2017, Bishop Rene Gracida:
“Francis’ heterodoxy is now official. He has published his letter to the Argentina bishops in Acta Apostlica Series making those letters magisterial documents.”
Pray an Our Father now for the restoration of the Church by the bishops by the grace of God.
Election Notes:
– Intel Cryptanalyst-Mathematician on Biden Steal: “212Million Registered Voters & 66.2% Voting,140.344 M Voted…Trump got 74 M, that leaves only 66.344 M for Biden” [http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2020/12/intel-cryptanalyst-mathematician-on.html?m=1]
– Will US be Venezuela?: Ex-CIA Official told Epoch Times “Chávez started to Focus on [Smartmatic] Voting Machines to Ensure Victory as early as 2003”: http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2020/12/will-us-be-venezuela-ex-cia-official.html
– Tucker Carlson’s Conservatism Inc. Biden Steal Betrayal is explained by “One of the Greatest Columns ever Written” according to Rush: http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2021/01/tucker-carlsons-conservatism-inc-biden.html?m=1
– A Hour which will Live in Infamy: 10:01pm November 3, 2020:
http://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2021/01/a-hour-which-will-live-in-infamy-1001pm.html?m=1
What is needed right now to save America from those who would destroy our God given rights is to pray at home or in church and if called to even go to outdoor prayer rallies in every town and city across the United States for God to pour out His grace on our country to save us from those who would use a Reichstag Fire-like incident to destroy our civil liberties. [Is the [J6] DC Capitol Incident Comparable to the Nazi Reichstag Fire Incident where the German People Lost their Civil Liberties?: http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2021/01/is-dc-capital-incident-comparable-to.html?m=1 and Epoch Times Show Crossroads on Capitol Incident: “Anitfa ‘Agent Provocateurs‘”:
http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2021/01/epoch-times-show-crossroads-on-capital.html?m=1]
Pray an Our Father now for the grace to know God’s Will and to do it.
Pray an Our Father now for America.
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