Don't Feed the Monkey Mind – How to Stop the Cycle of Anxiety, Fear, and Worry

Don't Feed the Monkey Mind
200 Pages
ISBN 978-1626255067

The very things we do to control anxiety can make anxiety worse. This unique guide offers a cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)-based approach to help you recognize the constant chatter of your anxious “monkey mind,” stop feeding anxious thoughts and find the personal peace you crave.

Ancient sages compared the human mind to a monkey: constantly chattering, hopping from branch to branch—endlessly moving from fear to safety. If you are one of the millions of people whose life is affected by anxiety, you are familiar with this process. Unfortunately, you can’t switch off the “monkey mind,” but you can stop feeding the monkey—or stop rewarding it by avoiding the things you fear.

Written by psychotherapist Jennifer Shannon, this book shows you how to stop anxious thoughts from taking over using proven-effective cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), and mindfulness techniques, as well as fun illustrations. By following the exercises in this book, you’ll learn to identify your own anxious thoughts, question those thoughts, and uncover the core fears at play.

Once you stop feeding the monkey, there are no limits to how expansive your life can feel. This book will show you how anxiety can only continue as long as you try to avoid it. And, paradoxically, only by seeking out and confronting the things that make you anxious can you reverse the cycle that keeps your fears alive.

Jennifer Shannon, LMFT

About Jennifer Shannon, LMFT (Santa Rosa, California Author)

Jennifer Shannon, LMFT

Jennifer Shannon is a licensed psychotherapist specializing in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for anxiety. She has worked with children, teens and adults since 1985. Originally trained as a psychodynamic or “talk” therapist, she noted that while her clients felt better, she still sought more lasting and permanent change for them. Then she attended a UC Berkeley course taught by her first mentor, Michael Tompkins Ph.D. on evidence based treatment.

What this means is treatment that has been found by scientific studies to be the most effective for specific mental health problems. Consistently Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy, or CBT was found to be the most effective treatment for the most common disorders such as anxiety and depression. Jennifer began to avidly study CBT going to workshops, reading books and consulting with masters in the field, including Michael Tompkins, PhD, Christine Padesky, Ph.D. and Jacqueline Persons, Ph.D. Practicing CBT has been the most rewarding work Jennifer has ever done professionally.

Currently she works with adults, children and teens specializing in Anxiety Disorders, including Social Anxiety or extreme shyness, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), Separation Anxiety, Panic Disorder, Phobias, Generalized Anxiety Disorder and some types of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder. She also treats insomnia and depression.