Reflection & Prayer Prompts: Catastrophizing

For personal processing during or after the session, or for individual use.

Personal Reflection Questions

Take your time with these questions. You don't need to answer all of them — choose the ones that draw you in.

Understanding Your Pattern

1. When do you most often find yourself going to worst-case scenarios? Is it in relationships, at work, with your children, around finances, about your health? What tends to trigger your catastrophizing?

2. What's your typical "what if" thought? Write down 2-3 "what if" statements that regularly run through your mind. As you look at them, what do they have in common?

3. Think about a recent time you catastrophized. What did you fear would happen — and what actually happened? What do you notice about the gap between your fear and reality?

Looking Back

4. Without needing to tell the whole story, can you remember a time in childhood when the emotional "lights really did go out"? A time when someone's love, approval, or presence felt withdrawn? When uncertainty felt genuinely unsafe? You don't need to analyze it — just notice if something comes to mind.

5. What were the signals that told young-you that things were about to go bad? A mood, a tone of voice, a look, chaos, silence? Do you still react to those same signals today, even when the actual danger has passed?

6. How do you feel toward the younger version of yourself who learned to watch for danger? Compassion? Frustration? Sadness? Something else?

Exploring the Cost

7. What does catastrophizing steal from you? Peace? Sleep? Joy in the moment? Connection with others? Your sense of competence? What does it cost you to live as if the worst is always coming?

8. When you're in a catastrophizing spiral, how do you lose access to your "adult power"? What options, resources, or abilities do you forget you have?

Guided Prayer Language

These are offered as starting points. Adapt them freely or use them as prompts for your own words.

A Prayer of Honest Acknowledgment

God, I see it now — how my mind races to the worst place, how quickly I can feel like everything is falling apart. I've been living this way for a long time, and I came by it honestly. Somewhere along the way, I learned that the lights could go out at any moment.

Thank you for helping me see the pattern. Give me compassion for the part of me that learned to be so afraid. And give me the courage to let something new grow in its place.

I don't want to keep adding catastrophe to difficulty. Help me learn to see the longer story — to trust that one scene isn't the whole movie, and that you're present even in the hard chapters.

Amen.

A Prayer for Narrative Perspective

Father, you see the whole story. You see the beginning and the end. You see things I can't see and hold purposes I don't understand.

When I'm stuck in the crisis scene, help me remember that it's not the whole movie. When I feel like the lights are going out, remind me that I'm not that child anymore — I'm an adult with choices, resources, and people who care.

I want to trust that Romans 8:28 is true even when I can't feel it — that you're able to work in all of it, even the hard parts. Grow my capacity to hold that truth when my emotions are screaming otherwise.

Amen.

A Prayer for Freedom

Lord, I'm tired of living on edge. I'm tired of the "what ifs" and the dread and the nights spent rehearsing disasters that probably won't happen.

I want to be free from this. Not free from ever feeling fear — but free from being controlled by it. Free from letting catastrophizing steal my peace, my presence, my life.

Show me the next step. Lead me to the people, the resources, the healing that will help me grow. And be patient with me, God — this pattern is deep, and it's going to take time.

Thank you for not giving up on me. Thank you that growth is possible. Thank you that the story isn't over.

Amen.

Optional Journaling Prompts

Use these as invitations for written reflection. There are no right answers.

1. Write about a time when something you thought would be catastrophic turned out okay — or even good. What did you learn? What did you feel when you realized the feared outcome hadn't happened?

2. If the lights haven't really "gone out" in your adult life the way they did in childhood, what's still making your alarm system go off? What is your body and mind still preparing for that may not actually be coming?

3. Describe the version of yourself who doesn't catastrophize. What does that person think when something goes wrong? How do they feel? What do they do differently? Try to picture them in a specific situation where you'd normally spiral — what does it look like to respond with adult perspective?

4. Write a letter to your younger self — the one who first learned that things could fall apart at any moment. What do you want them to know? What would help them feel safer?

5. What's one thing in your life right now that you've been interpreting catastrophically — that's probably just a painful challenge rather than the end of everything? What changes if you see it as a chapter, not the final page?

A Closing Word

Catastrophizing is exhausting. It steals your peace, hijacks your mind, and makes you feel smaller than you are.

But here's what's true: you're not stuck with it. The brain that learned to fear the worst can learn something new. The alarm system that got set too sensitive can be recalibrated. The child who believed the lights were about to go out can become an adult who knows — really knows — that they have options, resources, and a story that isn't over.

This takes time. It takes patience with yourself. It takes safe people and probably some help along the way. But it's possible.

You came by your catastrophizing honestly. And you can grow beyond it honestly too.

The lights aren't going out. The movie isn't ending. Take a breath. You're still in the story — and there's more coming.