Worry is an interesting thing to me. Most of us spend a lot of time doing it, yet it doesn’t change anything.
“Worry is like a rocking chair: it gives you something to do but never gets you anywhere”
-Emma Bombeck
I love this quote, I think it’s brilliant. But it might not help very much. If it’s really so unnecessary, why do we spend so much time doing it? Well, it has to have some evolutionary purpose, right? Forecasting worst case scenarios help us be proactive and change what needs to be changed before something bad happens. That’s awesome. And it doesn’t take very much time. It’s a quick calculation of risks and then deciding to change a course of action based on the forecast.
But spending most of our brain bandwidth fantasizing about terrible things that might happen and not doing anything about it is not so awesome. That’s a waste of life quality and time.
I’ve trained my brain to worry less over the years (doesn’t mean I’m totally free) Meditation has been my greatest tool to work with my worry, because it helps me be the observer of my thoughts so I can notice when I go there and make an active choice whether I want to keep doing it or not.
Also, realizing that worry is just imagination and fantasy has also helped. Because that’s positive words for me and realizing I’m using my vast creativity for bad really was an eye opener for me. Why am I putting so much effort into creating scary future scenarios when I could use the same process creating visions and have beautiful daydreams about something wonderful?
But of course, the main thing is that worry doesn’t live in the now, it lives in the future, and that’s not where you are so when you worry you separate from yourself which is painful in itself. Being with what is, right here and now, 99% of the time, we will realize that we don’t have a problem or worry in the world, in this very moment.
It’s a practice. I practice everyday.
How do you handle your worry? What are the tools that work best for you to worry less? I’d love to hear your take on it.
With all my love,
Helena