Quotes & Sayings About Catastrophizing

Worries typically follow such lines, a narrative to oneself that jumps from concern to concern and more often than not includes catastrophizing, imagining some terrible tragedy. Worries are almost always expressed in the mind's ear, not its eye - that is, in words, not images - a fact that has significance for controlling worry. — Daniel Goleman

She had moved to Los Angeles from the Midwest, lured by a job with a publisher. But the publisher was bought by another soon after, and she was left without a job. Turning to freelance writing, an erratic marketplace, she found herself either swamped with work or unable to pay her rent. She often had to ration phone calls, and for the first time was without health insurance. This lack of coverage was particularly distressing: she found herself catastrophizing about her health, sure every headache signaled a brain tumor, picturing herself in an accident whenever she had to drive somewhere. She often found herself lost in a long reverie of worry, a medley of distress. But, she said, she found her worries almost addictive. Borkovec — Daniel Goleman

To let ourselves be seen, deeply seen, vulnerably seen; to love with our whole hearts, even though there's no guarantee
and that's really hard, and I can tell you as a parent, that's excruciatingly difficult
to practice gratitude and joy in those moments of terror, when we're wondering, "Can I love you this much? Can I believe in this this passionately? Can I be this fierce about this?" just to be able to stop and, instead of catastrophizing what might happen, to say, "I'm just so grateful, because to feel this vulnerable means I'm alive." And the last, which I think is probably the most important, is to believe that we're enough. Because when we work from a place, I believe, that says, "I'm enough," then we stop screaming and start listening, we're kinder and gentler to the people around us, and we're kinder and gentler to ourselves. — Brene Brown

UNREALITY IS THE HALLMARK of narcissism. Whether it's idealizations, expectations of perfection, manufactured images, illusions, distortions of fact, catastrophizing or other kinds of exaggerations, denial, or outright lying, Narcissists will go to great lengths to avoid any reality that evokes shame and to promote fanatasies that sustain their grandiosity and omnipotence. They require accomplices for this, people to admire them and do their bidding, — Sandy Hotchkiss

Sort of Coping"

Why is anyone in the world so terrible. Real catastrophe
and catastrophizing. If we only knew when it was going to
happen.

I saw you put your hands on the floor. Intimacy without
disturbances.
The scope here of memorization, planets. The history of children

sitting still. You are so cute in all your facebook photos.
When you moved to Portland I forgot we used to call you

Tumbleweed Tex. All those barking dogs, feathered hair.
We have something in common I never mention. I wish

I'd written it down and folded it into one of your piles
saying I want to read every one of these books! Do you think

you'll have read them all before the end of time. Did you go in
to see her when she was dead. Maybe you already knew. — Farrah Field