Catastrophizing: Creating Stories In Your Mind

Your brain can turn a minor digital glitch into a full-blown institutional conspiracy in under 60 seconds.

What makes catastrophizing so toxic is that it masquerades as strategic problem-solving. Your brain spots an unexpected hurdle, stops processing cold data, and instantly scripts an elaborate worst-case narrative complete with secret motives, rigged rules, and shifting goalposts.

In this episode of the Living Lucky® Podcast, Jason and Jana dissect a raw, painfully relatable moment from their week. After enduring a sharp 40% drawdown in his options portfolio, Jason hit a technical wall: his platform repeatedly blocked him from executing critical protective trades. Instead of slowing down, his mind connected distant corporate dots, invented a complex story about Class-Action lawsuits and restricted shares, and drove him into a heated, high-stakes meltdown on a phone call with his broker.

In This Episode :

• The Options Pressure-Cooker: Why trading psychology is the ultimate mirror for exposing your hidden psychological flaws and financial coping mechanisms.
• The Conspiracy Habit: How the nervous system manufactures complex corporate villains to avoid confronting an uncomfortable truth.
• The Snoopy "Pig-Pen" Aura: Recognizing the physical symptoms of an anxiety spiral—tunnel vision, heat, and defensive projecting—before you contaminate your relationships.
• The Embarrassingly Simple Fix: The exact click-by-click platform mistake that fueled an eight-week mental delusion (and why it required reading glasses, not a lawyer).
• The Proof Searchlight: How the mind automatically filters out data to protect a pessimistic story it has already committed to believing.

Stop letting your mind turn minor friction into a permanent verdict against your potential. If you are ready to put your automated panic on trial, drop the defense mechanisms, and start looking at data objectively, hit play now.

Listen now, subscribe, and download the tactical blueprint to interrupt your next spiral.

NUGGETS

• Catastrophizing is a highly sophisticated strategy to avoid vulnerability. It feels like preparation, but it is actually just an addictive, pessimistic habit of anxious prediction.
• Markets don't just test your capital; they compress your character. Money acts as an emotional amplifier that pulls your deepest, darkest psychological tendencies directly to the surface.
• What keeps you broke isn't what you don't know—it's what you think you know for sure. Assuming the world has changed the rules midstream prevents you from noticing that you are simply hitting the wrong button.
• Your mouth cannot function as a pen on someone else's ears. Venting your unexamined stress onto a platform broker or a partner makes you look foolish while keeping the real problem completely hidden.
• Friction demands data, not drama. The moment you encounter an obstacle in traffic, markets, or relationships, stop predicting a lawsuit and start examining the baseline settings.
  
  

Questions:

What is cognitive catastrophizing and how does it impact decision making? Catastrophizing is a cognitive distortion where the brain automatically predicts the absolute worst-case scenario following a minor setback or ambiguous piece of data. This habit severely degrades decision-making by replacing objective data with anxious fiction, forcing an individual to act defensively against a manufactured threat rather than solving the real problem.

Why does financial trading trigger severe emotional and psychological reactions? Financial trading triggers intense psychological reactions because money compresses timeframes and acts as an immediate emotional amplifier. When a portfolio encounters a sudden loss, it strips away conscious defense mechanisms, forcing an individual's deep-seated insecurities regarding lack, failure, control, and worthiness directly to the surface.

How does writing down your thoughts help interrupt an anxiety or panic spiral? Writing down your thoughts interrupts a panic spiral by taking unexamined worries out of an internal mental echo chamber and putting them on trial in daylight. Journaling forces the analytical mind to look at the narrative objectively, allowing an individual to easily distinguish between systemic conspiracies and simple, fixable reality.

• The Anatomy of a Spiral: Owning the pessimistic habits you pretend you don't have Jason claims he is the master of optimism, but a single platform alert exposed a deep psychological glitch. Discover how fast a healthy mindset defaults to structural paranoia.
• The Compressed Mirror: Why options trading forces your darkest emotions to the surface You think you have flawless emotional control until you watch 40% of your net worth evaporate in a single session. Learn why markets ruthlessly hunt down your hidden insecurities.
• The 1600-Share Delusion: Constructing corporate conspiracies from a digital glitch How an ambiguous message about stock volume prompted an eight-week mental script involving rogue CFOs, class-action lawsuits, and shifting regulatory goalposts.
• The Pig-Pen Effect: Identifying the fiery physical aura of unexamined frustration When your subconscious feels locked out from its gold, your physical biology alters. Learn to spot the toxic energetic cloud of "it's not fair" before it ruins your team environment.
• The Broker Meltdown: Projecting your internal chaos onto an innocent target Watch a real-time movie of Jason calling customer support demanding the manager while aggressively talking over the solution. Learn the high cost of treating a stranger like your personal journal.
• The Locked Gate Illusion: Why your brain demands that its negative narrative be correct Discover why the nervous system would actually prefer to be a victim of a rigged system than admit it made a basic error. Learn how you create problems to fuel your next "overcomer" story.
• The Blind Spot Reveal: The humiliatingly basic setting that exposed an 8-week lie The corporate conspiracy wasn't real. There was no lawsuit. Access the exact moment Jason realized he was just hitting "to close" instead of "to open" because he refused to wear his reading glasses.
• Putting Thoughts on Trial: The definitive blueprint to prevent future reality failures What keeps you broke is the data you think you know for sure. Learn the exact daily journaling protocol required to test your assumptions, stop your traffic panic, and trade with absolute clarity.
  
  
• overcoming cognitive catastrophizing loops
• trading psychology emotional regulation
• how to stop worst case scenario thinking
• options trading mindset coaching
• breaking subconscious doom loops
• cognitive distortions stress management
• why does my brain invent conspiracies for small mistakes
• how to handle emotional triggers in options trading
• managing financial anxiety and portfolio loss spirals
• separating facts from fiction during high stress situations
• why do people project stress onto customer support calls
• simple mental exercises to stop a panic spiral
• how writing down your thoughts tests reality objectively

Catastrophizing Detox, Trading Psychology Secrets, Breaking Doom Loops, Emotional Regulation Wealth, Overcoming Financial Panic, Cognitive Distortion Fix, Advanced Mindset Coaching, Subconscious Projections, Fact vs Fiction Frameworks, Strategic Journaling Exercises

Transcript

Breaking The Doom Loop

Jana Shelfer 0:00

Are you ready to create a life you crave? Let's spin that doom loop of negativity into an upward success cycle and start Living Lucky®. Good morning. I'm Jana and we are Living Lucky®. You are

What Catastrophizing Looks Like

Jana Shelfer 0:19

too. Have you ever catastrophized?

Jason Shelfer 0:21

Not me. I don't do that.

Jana Shelfer 0:22

Oh stop! That's what we're talking about today. I am calling Jason out.

Jason Shelfer 0:27

Oh, me too.

Jana Shelfer 0:28

He had a situation a couple days ago.

Jason Shelfer 0:31

Situation ship.

Jana Shelfer 0:32

A situation ship. Where he started catastrophizing. Now, if you don't know what this word means, because to be honest with you, it hasn't really come into our vernacular until maybe a few years ago.

Jason Shelfer 0:49

A couple of years. It's one of those things where you just start creating this crazy story in your head.

Jana Shelfer 0:56

You start thinking of worst-case scenarios, and you start going down this rabbit hole and you believe it. You believe it.

Speaker 1:06

But it's it's a very pessimistic habit to

Trading Triggers Hidden Emotions

Speaker 1:12

get into.

Jason Shelfer 1:13

Yeah, and I'm typically Mr. Optimism and what and our the person that was taking us through all the options trading and stock trading curriculum told us that all of your deepest, darkest emotions are going to surface as you go through any trading program.

Jana Shelfer 1:36

If you are a trader in the stock market, whether you're a beginner, an intermediate, or an advanced, your psychological tendencies will come to the surface. And you think, oh no, I totally have control of my emotions. I'm not an emotional trader. I have a plan and I stick with the plan. However, when something goes south, which it will if you're a trader, eventually you're gonna have some really great days. You're also gonna have some days where you think that maybe wasn't the best trade.

Jason Shelfer 2:12

When you lose 40% of your portfolio in a day, that's that changes things.

Jana Shelfer 2:18

Well, that might not have been the best trade to put on. Risk versus reward, right? Yeah.

The Story Snowballs Into Certainty

Jana Shelfer 2:24

Anyway, so Jason had a situation where, and we're gonna try to explain this in layman's terms, but if you have 100 portions of a stock, then you can write one options contract. So one options contract equals 100 of that particular stock. So Jason owns I had 1600 shares. 1600 shares of this one particular stock. And so he goes to write an options contact contract, and he keeps getting this message that he doesn't have an ample amount of stock to write this contract.

Jason Shelfer 3:10

I don't have enough shares in my account to write the contract that I'm or write the trade that I'm trying to write.

Jana Shelfer 3:16

Now, this didn't just happen two days ago. This actually started a couple months ago.

Jason Shelfer 3:23

Well, it's it's been happening for the last two weeks because what happened was two months ago, the company, the CFO and the chief compliance officer got kicked out because they did some shady crap.

Jana Shelfer 3:39

Okay.

Jason Shelfer 3:39

And the stock tanked.

Jana Shelfer 3:42

Okay. Okay. So this gives you an idea of where Jason's head is. This happens in the stock, which is why your trade probably wasn't the best trade and you lost 40% of your portfolio.

Jason Shelfer 3:53

And there's lawsuits going on, and I'm not part of the lawsuit, so I just assumed that okay, well, maybe they've changed the the quality or the type of share that I own now so that they can separate lawsuit shares versus not lawsuit shares. Okay, start making up all these.

Jana Shelfer 4:12

Do you see how Jason scenarios is making up a story in his head? And not only did he make up this story, he started believing it to the core.

Jason Shelfer 4:23

I wrote this story in my mind, none of it true. And then I called.

Jana Shelfer 4:29

Okay, well, wait. So then when he would go to try the next day to do the same trade, it he was still getting this message. You don't have ample amount of stock in order to write this contract. And so then again, Jason starts believing it deeper.

Jason Shelfer 4:48

Oh, yeah. Deeper.

Jana Shelfer 4:49

It's almost like the neuropathways start looking for proof of why this story in Jason's head is correct.

Jason Shelfer 4:59

My story has to be true. It can't be anything else.

Jana Shelfer 5:03

Then two days ago is when this all came to a pop because he literally was at the table. He's frustrated. I I can see I can see the aura around him change. It's almost like the the character from Snoopy Pig Pen. Pig pen. That would always have flies and he'd have like dust all around him. You're like, oh my god, that that kid smells, right? So Jason, I could see the anxiety.

Jason Shelfer 5:32

I gotta get my trades on.

Jana Shelfer 5:33

I could see the frustration. I could see this aura. There was like an orange, somebody's locking red, fiery aura all around you. The money pit. Yes, and you automatically went to this isn't fair. Like this is like deep in your subconscious.

Jason Shelfer 5:50

You're keeping me from my gold.

Jana Shelfer 5:52

Yes. Like life is working against you. So then Jason, because he has this story and he is fuming. He's fuming.

The Broker Call Meltdown

Jason Shelfer 6:03

I gotta call my broker.

Jana Shelfer 6:05

Pickups the phone and he calls the platform that he trades on. He's like, I need to talk to someone.

Jason Shelfer 6:13

And then give me the man in charge or the woman in charge.

Jana Shelfer 6:17

And I was watching all of this like a movie over in the kitchen. I see Jason go through the problem, and then without letting the guy say a beat.

Jason Shelfer 6:30

Let me tell you what's happening.

Jana Shelfer 6:34

Jason starts catastrophizing.

Jason Shelfer 6:36

This has got to be because of the lawsuit. This somebody has done something with my shares. I must have sounded like just such an idiot to that guy.

Jana Shelfer 6:47

I was over there.

Jason Shelfer 6:49

I could literally hear myself telling the story. And I was going, I don't, I don't even know what I'm saying right now.

Jana Shelfer 6:55

I was in the kitchen going, stop projecting, just let him answer. Stop projecting, just let him answer. But you were so in it.

Jason Shelfer 7:03

What's funny is sometimes because I this is one of those things where you don't, I wasn't writing it down. So it wasn't in my journal. It wasn't one of those things where I was like, I wasn't willing to You couldn't see it objectively. Yeah, I wasn't willing to bring it out because I was like, I don't want to face this. This is one of those things where I was like, I don't want to face it. So I wasn't willing to put it on paper. I wasn't willing to talk to you about it because liter literally it was 40% of my portfolio.

Jana Shelfer 7:30

I know, which I feel sometimes you hide those things from me.

Jason Shelfer 7:33

Well, I knew it was coming back.

Jana Shelfer 7:35

Yeah.

Jason Shelfer 7:35

And it came, it's come back with a vengeance. And that's this is why I was like, I need to be, I need to get back in the game right now.

Jana Shelfer 7:43

Yeah.

Jason Shelfer 7:44

This is this is my time to shine.

Jana Shelfer 7:46

Right.

Jason Shelfer 7:47

And now they got the gate locked. What's going on here?

Jana Shelfer 7:50

They're locking Jason out. Only Jason.

Jason Shelfer 7:54

They changed the tickets.

Jana Shelfer 7:55

They've changed the rules midstream.

Jason Shelfer 7:57

That's right. The ball game's on, and they they changed the ticket format. They're moving the goalposts. So this is so all these stories I'd created, and as soon as I allowed it to come out of my mouth, I heard myself, but I couldn't stop the stream. And it was crazy. I heard myself, I also heard you say, stop projecting.

Jana Shelfer 8:24

I go, stop talking.

Jason Shelfer 8:25

I still couldn't stop the flow of traffic.

Jana Shelfer 8:27

I go, stop, stop talking.

Jason Shelfer 8:30

It was so funny. It was like my mouth was the pen writing. And and the and the guy on the other end of the phone was the journal. And I was like, oh man, I wish, I wish it was just my pen and my journal right now, because but this guy doesn't know me.

Jana Shelfer 8:46

Yeah, I mean he doesn't know and he doesn't really care. And he probably gets all sorts of calls. That was probably one of his best calls of the day. But the thing is, is when people when it affects people's money, then they they attach emotion to it.

Jason Shelfer 9:00

And I don't like for me that there was emotion involved, but I wasn't hyper like I didn't get angry or crazy about it.

Jana Shelfer 9:11

No, but you did have

The Embarrassingly Simple Fix

Jana Shelfer 9:12

a a feeling.

Jason Shelfer 9:12

I had a feeling. I had and there was this there was this worry that hey, why am I not able to do the things I wanted to do? And what happened was I was hitting the wrong button. Like I was in the case.

Jana Shelfer 9:27

It was l as simple as that. Instead of to close or to open, you were putting it to close. I mean, it was just one little tiny adjustment.

Jason Shelfer 9:40

And if I would put my dang glasses on in the morning before I started putting my trades on, easy fix.

Jana Shelfer 9:48

Uh-oh. But it just we're we're talking about this. First of all, we're laughing at it. And I'm so glad that you can be self-deprecating about this.

Jason Shelfer 9:59

Well, it was it it was so like I thought it was one of the funniest things in the world because now when I look back, like I had literally been creating this story for over two months. Like I would create this story, and sometimes during the day it would just hit me and I'd be like, oh, they're they're blocking me, they're not letting me in. And I would say, Do I want to get in this lawsuit? And I was like, No, I don't really care to, I don't have time for that nonsense.

Jana Shelfer 10:29

It what there is a saying, uh, what holds us back is what we think we know for sure. Yes. Or something like that.

Jason Shelfer 10:36

So it's it's we don't know what we don't know,

Spot Your Stories And Write Them

Jason Shelfer 10:39

but what really keeps us broke is what we think we know. And that was me thinking I knew for sure what that they were just holding me back or something, and it was that I was I thought I knew for sure that I was hitting the right buttons. And it was because I thought that I'd hit both types of trading options, yes, and I was just hitting the same one over.

Jana Shelfer 11:03

Anyway, think about this in your own life. Where are you catastrophizing when something doesn't quite go your way? Are you creating this whole script scenario plot in the back of your mind of how you're getting the short end of the stick?

Jason Shelfer 11:25

And a lot of us are doing it in traffic, I can tell you that.

Jana Shelfer 11:28

Well, that's one of your that's probably your I think I've gotten a lot better. You go through phases.

Jason Shelfer 11:34

I do go through phases, but I've gotten a lot better.

Jana Shelfer 11:38

Okay. I'll let I'll celebrate that with you.

Jason Shelfer 11:41

That's right.

Jana Shelfer 11:42

Where are you catastrophizing? And once you're aware of the term, just kind of apply it to your own life. Where am I automatically thinking worst case scenario? And I'm starting to create a whole story behind it.

Jason Shelfer 11:59

And a lot of times you will recognize your story if you just start writing things down during the day. Writing things down at the end of the day or in the beginning of the day.

Jana Shelfer 12:09

Thanks for joining us. Keep Living Lucky®. Bye-bye. If the idea of Living Lucky® appeals to you, visit us at LivingLucky.com.