Freedom from Anxious Thoughts and Feelings: A Two-Step Mindfulness Approach for Moving Beyond Fear and Worry

by Scott Symington

A ridiculously easy, breakthrough approach to practicing mindfulness.

If you suffer from anxiety and experience racing, panicky thoughts, you need help right away. You’ve probably heard about mindfulness, and how effective it can be in easing anxiety and worry—but how do you do it, exactly?

In this go-to guide, psychologist Scott Symington presents a practical, breakthrough approach called the two-screen method to help when painful thoughts feel overwhelming. Using this simplified mindfulness approach, you’ll learn to accept and redirect your thoughts and focus on your values. By using the two-screen method outlined in this book, as well as the three anchors—mindfulness skills, healthy distractions, and loving action—you’ll learn to relate to your thoughts and feelings in a whole new way. And when threats, fears, insecurities, and potentially destructive thoughts and feelings show up, you’ll have a game plan for dealing with these difficult emotions so you can get back to living your life.

If you have anxiety, being present with your negative thoughts is probably the last thing you want to do. That’s why the two-screen method in this book is so helpful—it offers a way to diffuse from your anxious thoughts while still focusing on the things that really matter to you.

Genres: Self Help, Mental Health

219 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 2, 2019

Reviews

[Fanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is genuinely good with respect to giving a doable approach to lower anxiety. There's a specific theory that it talks about called the Two-Screen Method that is easy to understand and comprehend, and actually works as a good model to build the rest of the book on as it progresses to give some insightful and helpful tips. There's mindfulness being talked about and of course, breathing techniques like breath meditation. Even spirituality is being sprinkled at some places. An interesting bit was mindfulness through the daily, usual activities that one does like driving and washing dishes and how that builds up to complex situations so you can better handle those. It even n=includes real experiences and stories to guide the readers better. Overall, definitely a good read for someone looking for a more approachable anxiety guide.

Disclaimer: I received a digital copy of this via Netgalley but that, in no way, influences my rating and/or thoughts on it. Thank you, Scott Symington and New Harbinger Publications!

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[Chocolategoddess · Rating 4 out of 5]

Being a ball of anxiety almost all the time, this book certainly appealed to me. It presents the "Two Screen Method", a simple mental device to help people stop intrusive thoughts interfering with their lives too much.

It's based around mindfulness, which is a topic I've researched on and off over the years and pretty much boils down to 'yeah you just need to think in the moment! Then you won't worry about the past and the future!' Thanks, I'd never thought about just not worrying before, that's super helpful. /s

The Two Screen Method is way more concrete in creating mental steps you can take to actually deal with these worries, while accepting that they're still going to be there. This seems far more likely to work than other methods I've come across, certainly for me.

The real value in TSM for me is that is doesn't rely solely on some of the most popular mindfulness techniques like breathing exercises and focusing on the feelings in your body, which actually make things worse for me. Symington offers a range of alternatives for anchoring yourself in the present, including doing things that will add value to your life, or committing to doing loving actions. This really resonated with me because I like to be doing things and actively working on solving problems. This isn't always possible, but using the TSM I can leave my problems on the side screen and focus on doing good things, even if it's not exactly what I want to be doing.

Fortunately I've been having a streak of good weeks since I received this book for review, so I can't say how helpful it would be in a serious crisis, but I have used the technique several times during low-level issues and it's been very successful.

The book doesn't just show you how to use this method to deal with anxiety, as the title seems to imply. It also has uses in addiction, depression, and to some extent in OCD.

There are a couple of quibbles I have with the book, but they're fairly minor. One is that spirituality occasionally cropped up. I get that spirituality is important to a lot of people but in what appears to be a well-researched science-based book it's a little jarring and alienating to me. It opens with a quote about God and I did wonder if I'd accidentally requested to review a Christian self-help book and nearly put it down.

The other problem is that the anxiety section uses typical examples of 'eek I have had a mild stomach ache for 5 minutes, I must have cancer' or 'Bob didn't say hello to me today, he must hate me now'. While these are familiar anxious thoughts that aren't that easy to deal with, as usual this book totally ignores the fact that actual problems exist and need to be dealt with too. Maybe that's a different subject entirely, I don't know.

Ultimately I found this book contained a lot of valuable information and would recommend it to anyone struggling with some of the more well-known ways to mindfulness.

[Celia · Rating 3 out of 5]

While the book introduced/reinforced some aspects of anxiety management and mindfulness, I did not find it a very useful self-help book.

First, the writing style is difficult for a self-help book. When I read a self-help book, I want it to read like a recipe book for self-help (the For Dummies books are a sample of a successful self-help book formula to me). This book had too much theory and too much clinical details about some of his clients. Though this may sound selfish when I read a self-help book, I want to know how the information in the book will be useful to ME.

Secondly, the examples of the people who used his techniques successfully were receiving professional psychological help (not that there is anything wrong with that). I felt the severity of these people's problems probably required professional help. However, I think of self-help books as being for used for people who don't necessarily need/want to go for professional help.

Many of the concepts of the book I had previously come across. While the mirror analogy may be unique to the book, I have read other books on anxiety where there was the thesis was that an anxious person should OVERIDE and not listen to their anxious feelings.

Though the title of the book states that it is about anxiety, it also has sections about depression and addiction. The section on addiction I found moderately interesting because the author states that unlike the inner dialogue regarding depression and anxiety, the voice in our head encouraging us to use our bad habits can be highly seductive. Our bad habit inner voice is like a charming person who leads us to harm.

In addition, the author provided some information on grounding techniques which I found useful. I have seen those techniques discussed in other places but never really explained.

Despite some worthwhile material, I think most readers will have a very hard time using the techniques described in this book on their own. Better self-help books for anxiety have been published.

I received a free copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review,

[Kat Riethmuller · Rating 3 out of 5]

Imagine a pink elephant in a tutu. If someone mentions this image to you, it’s impossible not to think of it. Similarly, it’s hard to ignore the negative thoughts and feelings banging around inside your head. Your negative thoughts and feelings are part of you, but they don’t define who you are. Clinical psychologist Scott Symington reports that his emotional management system – the “Two-Screen Method” – helps people deal with worries, fears, anxieties and addictions. While getAbstract never gives medical advice, Symington offers interesting ideas for those seeking peace of mind. 

Takeaways:
Negative thoughts and feelings and addictive or destructive behaviors plague many lives.
Most unhappy people want to be happy, and most have the willpower to change but don’t know how.
Just as you have relationships with other people, you have a relationship with your thoughts and feelings.
The “Two-Screen Method” (TSM) proposes visualizing a “front screen” in your mind for positivity and a “side screen” in your mind for negativity.
Accept the existence of bad thoughts and feelings. Redirect your attention away from their negativity.
In your mind’s “sacred space,” you can choose good thoughts and feelings over bad thoughts and feelings.
Use mental anchors to keep your attention locked on the positive front screen.
Putting TSM to work requires information, confidence and practice.

Summary:
Negative thoughts and feelings and addictive or destructive behaviors plague many lives.
Too many people live unhappy, unfulfilled lives burdened with anxiety, worry and fear. Many regularly suffer bouts of depression or addiction. On the surface, these people may look like they’re fully functioning, but down deep, they often harbor emotional pain.

Most unhappy people want to be happy, and most have the willpower to change but don’t know how.
Unhappy, distressed people don’t want to be sad, but they often have no idea about how to extricate themselves from their troubled thoughts and feelings or their addictions.

You are not the worry. You are not the anxious feeling. These are experiences showing up inside you, but they don’t speak to who you are, what you believe or what you decide to do in life.
Many have the willpower to change – but not the knowledge. They don’t know how to deal with their negative thoughts, nervous feelings or destructive actions. They feel trapped in recurring “worry loops.”

Most people learn to manage their external reality, that is, the world outside themselves, but few receive training in how to deal with the often negative thoughts and feelings inside their heads. They have little understanding of their internal world and what transpires there. They often take actions to deal with their negative thoughts and feelings that only make things worse, not better. Instead of defusing negativity, they may exacerbate it.

Just as you have relationships with other people, you have a relationship with your thoughts and feelings.
People’s automatic responses to their emotional hobgoblins almost always backfire. They repeat self-defeating actions and patterns and end up stuck more deeply in their emotional mire.

Inside us all, whether conscious or unconscious, is a burning desire to burst out onto life’s stage, proclaiming, ‘Here I am!’ It’s the human person fully alive. 
Anxious people can learn to relate to their thoughts in different, more productive ways. Just as people have person-to-person relationships, they also have relationships with their negative emotions and ideas. When hurtful thoughts and feelings arise, people can take effective internal steps to defuse the negative power that these ideations generate. But to do so, they need a mental management program.

The “Two-Screen Method” (TSM) proposes visualizing a “front screen” in your mind for positivity and a “side screen” in your mind for negativity.
The Two-Screen Method suggests taking mental and emotional steps to relate to negative thoughts and feelings in new, constructive ways. To understand how TSM works, imagine your “internal world as a media room with two screens.” The front screen depicts the wonderful events in your life and the great activities you have experienced. This screen shows your positive ideas and emotions. Your front screen represents feeling happy, content and close to other people. It depicts the present.

When you say to yourself, ‘Today is a good day,’ it’s a sign you’ve been connected to the front screen.
Off to the right in your mental media room, there’s a side screen, where the terrible stuff in your life shows up, literally, like a horror movie. It includes all your fears, worries, anxieties and addictive dependencies. The side screen consists of three parts:

The “anxious side screen” – This screen helps you move ahead in life, without avoidance, even though you face the threat of anxiety. You must divert your internal eye off the anxious side screen so you can proceed with your life, even while you’re aware that anxiety threatens you.
The “addictive side screen” – This screen teaches you to move your attention away from the negative temptations that plague you. It helps you avoid giving in to destructive cravings, whatever they may be.
The “depressive side screen” – This screen is like a never-ending movie showing the story of your failures, losses and mistakes. To shut it down, direct your “life energy” to something positive that uplifts you. Move purposely toward something bigger than yourself, even though you may lack the motivation for making such a move.
Accept the existence of bad thoughts and feelings. Redirect your attention away from their negativity.
The idea behind the TSM is that you can learn to place your focus on the positive content that plays on the front screen so you don’t obsess about the negative stuff on the side screen. This calls for you to stay in the present by using the principles of mindfulness to direct your thinking. Practicing mindfulness means adopting “an attitude of openness, acceptance and present-moment focus.”

When you have a reliable way of bringing your mind into the here and now, you also have a way to exit worry loops and gain healthy space from destructive moods.
When you embrace acceptance, you don’t run from or avoid your anxious feelings or unwelcome ideas. You accept them for what they are and mentally move away from them.

Acceptance isn’t tangible, touchable, physical reality; acceptance is conceptual and ephemeral. People often don’t understand how to make acceptance a reality in their thinking. Using the TSM can help. Bad feelings will always play out on the side screen. But you needn’t focus on that screen. Focus on the front screen which emphasizes the positivity in your life. Though simple to understand, this might not be simple to implement.

In your mind’s “sacred space,” you can choose good thoughts and feelings over bad thoughts and feelings.
You can get in touch with the sacred space inside your head – your vital center that distances itself from thoughts and feelings even as it objectively evaluates them.

When you’re feeling good and free of worries, you don’t need to give much thought to how you relate to your internal world.
When you’re in touch with your sacred space, you take command of your emotional responses to the negativity that plays inside your head. The quality and power of your emotional responses – not the bad emotions themselves – determine if you will live a happy life rather than a sad life.

We’ve never been taught how thoughts and feelings work.
Many people become glued to the side screen. You can’t control these mental images. You can’t ignore your side screen. Put aside your automatic reaction, which usually means refusing to look. Everyone looks. When you learn to accept your side screen, you will you stop obsessing over it and it will lose much of its power. And you won’t look as much.

The more you try to avoid or resist an anxious feeling, the stronger it becomes.
Accepting the reality of your side screen and stopping all efforts to resist it is a giant step toward mental harmony. When the side screen tries to pull your attention away from the front screen – as it inevitably will – “accept and redirect.” This means accepting the negativity on the side screen and redirecting your attention to the front screen – the first step in your mental health recovery program. The second step is to find an effective way to keep your focus on the front screen.

Use mental anchors to keep your attention locked on the positive front screen.
People plagued by difficult thoughts and feelings usually find it difficult to take their thoughts or internal eye off the side screen. Here you embrace TSM’s three mental anchors – “mindfulness skills, healthy distractions and activities (HDA),” and “loving action.” These anchors help people lock their attention onto their front screens. Acceptance is a primary principle of mindfulness and of TSM.

TSM guides you through the change process – through the world of thoughts and feelings – visually and spatially.
In mindfulness, you view your thoughts and feelings as if you are an objective observer. You don’t have opinions about them or see yourself in your mental images.

The mindfulness-skills anchor involves focusing on your breathing by doing some “breath meditation.” Breathing deeply from your diaphragm helps you reduce stress. Try to pay mindful attention to the everyday activities in your life to shift focus from your side screen.

The more we try to seek emotional safety or change the way we’re feeling or get rid of threatening thoughts, the more we energize the unwanted thoughts and feelings.
The HDA anchor provides a fulcrum for deliberately diverting your focus from your side screen. HDA diversions can take the form of physical exercise or any pleasure-giving activities that lock your focus on your front screen.

Physical activity can be running, participating in an aerobics class, or engaging in weightlifting or team sports. Pursue activities that give you pleasure. Enlivening activities are challenges you pose to yourself, such as handling a complex home-repair project or teaching yourself something new and difficult. Engage in something that totally drives your attention to the front screen.

When two separate worlds – the external world of language and psychological concepts and the internal world of thoughts and feelings – try to communicate, much gets lost in translation.
Use the loving-action anchor to focus on the welfare and betterment of others, so you will spend less time worrying or obsessing about yourself and your fears and anxieties. Your actions to help other people will manifest your finest self.

Putting TSM to work requires information, confidence and practice.
Some common questions that arise when people first use TSM include:

“Where should I start in terms of applying the Two-Screen Method? – Begin with the side screen. Watch it briefly, then redirect your attention to the front screen. Spend less and less time occupied with the side screen. As you engage in this practice, periodically put the brakes on your mental activities, and ask, “Where is my mind right now?”
“What should I expect, in terms of positive change, as I begin applying TSM?” – View your efforts to redirect your attention away from your side screen as exercises for the mind. As you accomplish this for longer and longer periods of time, you can expect to gain increasing mental strength.
“Do people take medication in combination with TSM?” – Some people working with a medical professional find that appropriate medication can be a useful support in attaining mental harmony. The right medication may help someone turn down the volume on their side screens.
“Can I integrate TSM into my current therapy?” – TSM is a user-friendly method for dealing with negative thoughts and feelings. It blends well with mindfulness-based approaches and other therapies.
“Is mindfulness (the Two-Screen Method) compatible with my faith?” – No matter your spiritual beliefs, mindfulness and present-moment awareness often enhance spiritual awareness and can help you more deeply experience your personal beliefs.
“Where do I go from here?” – Practice, practice and more practice will help you more than anything.
Saint Irenaeus of Lyons believed that everyone should be able to live a totally fulfilled life, and that is a fine goal as you set out to free your mind of negativity and to practice mindfulness to help you achieve mental harmony.

[Leslie Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is a bright light in this book for everyone.
If you have anxious thoughts, depressed moments, or temptations that plague you, the author’s Two Screen Method (TSM) can guide you in the steps that lead not only to freedom, but to an enhanced quality of life.
This is a book you will want to keep readily at hand. Progress towards freedom requires reminders and repetition as you build a new muscle set. Help and guidance come in the form of personal worksheets and homework, as well as clarifying conclusions at the end of each chapter.
Dr. Symington is encouraging, supportive, nonjudgmental, and strongly optimistic about your success.
My favorite chapter was the Loving Action Anchor (on the front screen). We can take a fear or a depressive mood or a bad habit and not only resolve the issue over time, but we can become better people and be a blessing to others.

[Jelani Rios · Rating 5 out of 5]

Easy & Effective Practices

The author does a great job presenting powerful techniques to bring about calmness and peace. I can practice the techniques anywhere, anytime and often. The author does not try and cover-up or ignore anxious thoughts, but allows them to exist AND provides a pathway to become courageous, powerful and peaceful.

[Dawn McCauley · Rating 2 out of 5]

Couldn’t finish- not written to my taste. Very slow and technical. Might be good for some but I found the writing confusing.

[Cassidy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was the first anxiety related self-help book that made an impact for me. I had tried and quit several others before sticking this one for a slow but steady months long read.
I enjoyed the simplistic imagery of the “two screen” comparison, as well as the theory behind why the applications of the anchors work. Unlike other reviews, I felt the more “technical” information validates the information and gives insight on how each anchor could help. This is an easy read that introduces you to many tools you need to conquer anxiety on the daily.

[Pammy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great book, whether you have anxiety or not, it’s very interesting and has some good advice. They follow mindfulness and a new approach they’re calling the “two screen approach” which is very understandable. I would recommend this book to all that have anxiety and if you know someone who suffers, this book could help both of you....you to understand what the sufferer is going thru and them to try a little self help. Enjoy!!! :))

[Steve Brock · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was a Best of the Best for the month of June, 2019, as selected by Stevo's Book Reviews on the Internet. You can find me at http://forums.delphiforums.com/stevo1, on my Stevo's Novel Ideas Amazon Influencer page (https://www.amazon.com/shop/stevo4747) or search for me on Google for many more reviews and recommendations.

[Kathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent! Very approachable self-help book offering helpful strategies to combat anxiety and depression. Offers an explanation of how these strategies help to "rewire" our brains in clear language that the layperson can easily grasp.

I'm a therapist. I'm implementing Dr. Symington's suggestions for myself as well as recommending his work to my clients.

[Page · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has been an incredible resource for me in dealing with my anxiety in a healthy way. I have learned tools to help me become a healthier, happier, and less anxious person. I HIGHLY recommend this book.

[Bret Legg · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent book for anyone who wants to learn to better control their anxiety or other problematic emotional responses. It’s easy to read, easy to understand, and practical to apply. I highly recommend this book and the principles and approaches found there.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

One good idea:

Visualize positive main screen and secondary side screen for anxious, addictive, and depressive thoughts.

Accept negative screens as useful alerts but not where focus attention.

[Paiman Chen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Super true !!!

[Heather Bennett · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book to be interesting and those suffering from OCD or anxiety might give this book a try. The author presents a two step process to try to help calm your thoughts.

[Jo · Rating 4 out of 5]

A helpful guide to understanding anxiety especially before the exams.


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