Stop imagining disasters.  Our imagination is an incredibly powerful thing and if it is left alone to ramble about it can sometimes create terrible scenarios that can cause us great stress.  It is very easy to take a very minor incident and turn it into a horrible thing.

It is easy to imagine for example that someone’s tardiness is actually a car accident or some other terrible thing.  We all worry excessively sometimes about minor things just because we let our imaginations get the best of us.

It can be very straining and consuming to always imagine the worst case scenario.  We then live our lives in a constant state of stress, and this stress affects us and all those around us.  This terrible imagining can over time take over our lives, and if it’s given free rein, will eventually begin to shape our reality.  This stress can manifest itself through personal illness and self depression.  It can also stress out those that hear your negative ramblings and can cause them to distance themselves from us.

You can stop this train of negative imagining:

• First always try and put your thoughts in perspective.  Try to use logic and to see logically that most of your imagined disasters are only a figment of your mind.  This is a powerful way to get perspective and to see that most of the things that go through your head are just phantoms of the imagination.
• Secondly try to control your imagination.  Try to imagine a more positive and less terrifying explanation for whatever is going on.  Instead of thinking that a plane crashed or that someone got mugged, try to imagine that they are fine and that perhaps they ran into a friend.  Turn your imagination around by catching yourself in the middle of a negative stream and consciously stop it.  If you can manage it, try to imagine a better scenario. If you find imagining something good is impossible, then just stop thinking about the situation at all, occupy yourself with something that will keep your mind busy like television or a game.
• Always look at the evidence.  Objectively see all of the evidence before you and try to realize that you usually are inventing things that aren’t real.  You take one thing that you know to be true and you add on to it, with your imagination, until you have something that could never be a real.  Identify the things that you know for sure and realize that everything else is just your imagination working overtime.
• Try to focus on a solution.  Many times our imagination creates the most horrible worst case scenario but we don’t use this powerful imagination to try and come up with solutions.  The next time that you find yourself imagining some disaster, use your mind instead to find a solution to what you think is a problem.  Use your powerful mind to discover your resources at the moment and to see how these resources can be used to solve your stress and dilemma.  There are many situations where you think you do not have any control but if you spend as much time trying to figure out a solution instead of trying to see the worst, you will discover that you have many more options than you thought he did.

You cannot let your imagination rule you because you are not your imagination.  Your imagination is a tool that you must learn to use for your benefit instead and your distress.  Like any tool, your imagination, can be used in the wrong way or at the wrong time.  It is up to you to know when to let your imagination have free rein and when to direct it in a specific direction.  Focus on the present moment and use the techniques mentioned above to stop imagining disasters and worst case scenarios.