The Stories We Tell Ourselves: How Anxious Thought Becomes Belief.

Why understanding the shape of our thinking matters for individual resilience at work and at home.

In the first article on anxiety, we explored anxiety not as weakness, but as prediction error.  A misalignment between what the brain expects and what it receives.

That signal often begins in the body before the mind has words for it.

However, once discomfort enters the system, the brain does what it always does.  It tells a story.

Those stories matter because they shape how we interpret our experience, how we view others, how we react to uncertainty and how we show up in our lives, at work and at home.

A Body First, Brain Later Experience.

When the nervous system detects a shift, a sudden heart rate change, a cortisol spike, a rush of tension, the brain doesn’t just notice.  

It searches for meaning. 

Often, this meaning is not objective, it is autobiographical.

The brain asks: What does this remind me of?  Then the answers come quickly.  From moments of past rejection, failure, risk or shame and the result is not always an accurate interpretation.  

It is however, a very fast one. This speed matters, because it means we often react before we’ve had the chance to reflect. 

A deadline reminder triggers a memory of an earlier mistake.  A blank expression from a colleague reminds us of a time we felt dismissed or a missed call becomes a sign of bad news.

We think we’re seeing the moment clearly, but more often, we’re seeing the echo of something else.

Our internal narrative, is highly significant.

When the Story becomes the System.

Imagine Alex, he is a capable mid-level manager in a technology firm. He’s known for detail, reliability and composure. 

Six months ago, a senior stakeholder openly criticised a project outcome in a review meeting.  No one defended Alex and afterward, no one followed up.

Since then, he knows he’s become quieter in meetings.  He check his emails obsessively before sending them, double-reads every document.  He’s stopped delegating. 

His calendar is filled with unnecessary status checks and low-level work which he could have handed off.

What’s the reason, what’s the story he’s telling himself internally?

If I miss something again, it will confirm I’m not up to the job.

No one has said this.  In fact, feedback has been broadly positive, but the story has internally, taken hold.  

Just  like many stories built under stress, it resists updating. 

Alex’s performance hasn’t declined, but his capacity has and this is because his emotional energy is being spent managing a faulty prediction.

Worse, he will take this hypervigilance home too.  

Conversations become shorter, his partner notices a new hesitation, he seems less present.  Not because of the workload, but because his internal story hasn’t been challenged.

Why we believe the Worst First.

Dr Daniel Amen describes the internal narrative loops that emerge in these moments as ANTs,   Automatic Negative Thoughts.  

These are not chosen beliefs, but ingrained thought patterns that arise quickly and feel true.  

They sound like:

• “If I didn’t do it perfectly, I failed.”

• “They think I’m not good enough.”

• “This will go badly.”

• “I should have done more.”

• “I’m not the kind of person who copes well.”

• “I’m not good at making decisions.”

  
  
  
  

These statements form a kind of cognitive shortcut, a way of bracing for threat or explaining discomfort, but like some shortcuts they can become traps.  

When repeated often enough, these thoughts become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

In the workplace, they affect how we communicate, how we lead, how we handle uncertainty.  At home, they show up in how we parent, how we argue, how we interpret silence or emotional withdrawal.

The body may be calm, but the mind is rehearsing old injuries and preparing for a previous outcome.

A pause between event and interpretation reduces the chance that a single event, can become a defining belief.

Why Resilience requires Interruption.

To meet this challenge, many psychologists use structured tools like the ABC-DE method, adapted from cognitive behavioural therapy. 

This technique helps insert a pause between event and interpretation.

• A - Activating event: What happened?

• B - Belief: What did I tell myself about it?

• C - Consequence: How did I feel or act because of that belief?

• D - Disputation: What other story could fit the facts?

• E - Energisation: How does the new perspective shift my emotional response?

Here’s a real-world example:

Activating Event: You submit a proposal and don’t receive feedback for a week.

Belief: They must not value it. I’ve missed the mark.

Consequence: You withdraw, stop offering ideas, ruminate on whether to apply for another role or job.

Disputation: Could they be busy? Could it be in progress? Have they been complimentary in the past?

Energisation: You send a polite follow-up, stay engaged, and remind yourself that silence is not rejection.

This process takes practice, but it reduces the likelihood that anxiety becomes identity and that a single event can become a defining belief.

The Emotional Drivers Beneath the Thought.

Dr Christopher Cortman offers a complementary insight, something he calls the 3 W’s of Anxiety:

• Wishing the past had been different.

• Worrying about the future.

• Wanting control in situations that defy it.

  
  

These emotional drivers sit beneath the cognitive patterns and often trace back to early experiences or deep expectations about safety, acceptance and competence.

If someone has failed publicly, they may wish to rewrite that history, becoming overly cautious.

If someone dreads being judged, they may try to avoid future visibility.

If someone felt out of control in a key moment, they may micromanage others just to feel safe.

These patterns are not personality flaws, they are protection strategies.

Without conscious attention, they shape the structure of our professional lives in how we work, how we lead and how we relate to the people around us.

Thought patterns that begin at work, follow us home.

Why it matters Everywhere.

It’s easy to think of resilience as something we bring to work in the morning and leave behind at night, but resilience is not a uniform, nor is it time-boxed.  

These thought patterns follow us home.

The belief that “I’m falling behind” at work becomes “I’m not showing up enough” for our children. 

The mental habits that tell us “Don’t speak up, you might be wrong” show up in our relationships as silence, hesitation, or conflict avoidance.

If resilience training only addresses the office, it misses the larger truth.  The same predictive brain moves with us through both worlds and the same automatic thoughts emerge in different forms.  

The stories we tell ourselves do not stop five o’clock.

Resilience, then, must be taught not only as a professional skill, but as a life skill. 

A way of seeing the patterns we’ve inherited, hearing the thoughts we’ve rehearsed and rewriting the stories that no longer serve us.

A Closing Thought.

Our goal as students of resilience should not be to think perfectly, more to notice when we’re not.

When we learn to pause between sensation and story, we create a moment of space.  In that space, we don’t just break a bad rhythm and allow ourselves an opportunity to calm down, we also create a moment of clarity.  

We become able to ask better questions and in so doing we begin to replace habitual fear with conscious presence.

That’s where emotional and cognitive resilience lives.  

In the next article, we’ll turn our attention to the body, because no amount of reframing can outpace a system running on empty.