Have you ever had a bad case of the what ifs? They can keep you up at night, twist your stomach in a knot, ruin your weekend and sometimes even worse. The what ifs have kept many a person afraid and unwilling to live life to the fullest. The what ifs can be described as an imaginary illness in the truest sense of the word-imaginary yet quite real.

A wonderful human faculty is that of the imagination and it serves many different purposes. The most obvious is in works of creativity where we combine things in new and interesting ways. We also use the imagination as a predictive tool, where we attempt to envision possible future outcomes.

Sometimes what might be described as negative thinking can serve a useful function, such as when it alerts us to the possible negative consequences of a particular course of action. However, we are unconsciously drawn to whatever we focus on most and imagining only in negatives leads to stress, worry and self-defeating behavior.

?What if I get rejected?? ?What if I say the wrong thing?? ?What if I fail?? ?What if I can?t handle this?? Eventually we can be held captive by our fears as we dwell upon images of failure and shame. Yet there is a tool that can help you defuse the what ifs and it is so simple to use, it just requires a little diligence.

If you can remain aware of your thoughts and catch your what ifs as they present themselves, put the word so in front of the what ifs and a rational refutation at the end. ?What if I fail?? gets transformed to ?So what if I fail? It?s not the end of the world, I?ll get another chance? or something to that effect. This encourages us to put things in a more balanced perspective, that the worst case scenario for most of our worries is far from catastrophic.

You can also use this technique to help the other chronic worriers in your life. ?So what if you don?t get the job, another will come up, maybe even something better.?

I hope you enjoyed this article and ?so what if you didn?t, you are really going to like this month?s guest column by Dr. Brian Walsh!?

Today?s quote: ?You are responsible for the thoughts you have in your head at any given time. You have the capacity to think whatever you choose, and virtually all your self-defeating attitudes and behaviors originate in the way that you choose to think.? Dr. Wayne Dyer.

This month?s Guest Column is authored by Dr. Brian Walsh, best-selling author, international speaker, hypnotherapist and acupuncturist. His contribution to this month?s edition is entitled How Emotions and Feelings Shape Learning.

This article is geared not only for students, parents and teachers. Wouldn't it be fair to say that hypnosis itself is really a way of increasing mental flexibility so that we can learn to overcome problem habits and achieve desired goals more easily? Read, learn and enjoy!