Worry The Right Way
I am a worrier. I mean I LOVE to worry! I spend minutes, hours, days and weeks worrying about what might happen and how that could impact my life. Some of them have happened but the majority haven’t, and if they did it was never as big a deal as I worried it would be – sound familiar?
Let’s assume you said yes, the simple thing I could say is ‘stop worrying!’ Heard that before right?! If only it was that simple! The logical part of our brain says ‘yeah that makes sense, what’s the point of worrying about something that either hasn’t happened, or I have no control of’. But the illogical side of the brain butts in and says ‘yeah but what if…’
The problem with just saying ‘stop worrying’ is that it only addresses the symptoms of worry not the cause, which means its unlikely to do anything significant in the long run.
If you are a chronic worrier (and lets be honest most of us are) then you need to get to the root of the issue….its time to tackle this worry head on. So why do we worry?
We think it helps: It helps us feel in control in an otherwise uncontrollable situation
We feel empowered: It gives us a sense of self satisfaction
Its our self defence: We hope if we worry about something we will save our future self-hurt and pain.
So what we must learn to do is address how we can deal with our control in an uncertain world, embrace the fear we are worrying about and be comfortable allowing ourselves to be open enough to get hurt. Easy right?
It actually is very simple, you just have to learn to embrace fear; fear of not being in control, fear of getting hurt and fear of the unknown. You learn to sit with it; to sit with a temporary (often very) uncomfortable set of emotions, learn to realise they don’t last forever and learn that fear is actually the best thing for you!
I am by no means an expert but I am learning my way through with meditation, affirmations and self-love. It's about training your mind and to get anything strong, whether physically or mentally, it takes time, dedication, hard work and patience.