“Worry does not take away tomorrows troubles, but destroys todays peace”
Anon
What it means to be worried
We often talk about worry, but what does this really mean? Worry is a thought process that involves thinking about problems that might happen in a way that can leave us feeling anxious or very apprehensive. The opposite of living in the now and letting go.
Have you ever organised a special event and spent the whole time worrying about how it’s going to go? So much so that you haven’t been able to fully enjoy the actual event, and it’s over so quickly that it felt like a lot of effort for very little reward or enjoyment.
What if this event was our actual lives? What if we are spending more time worrying about what could go wrong, so much so that we have very little time to enjoy what’s going ‘right’? We could live our whole life like this. Imagine getting to the end of our lives and regretting spending 80% of it worrying – how tragic would that be!
There will always be challenges
Isn’t it funny when someone says just stop worrying! How easy is it to do that? There is so much we could be worrying about – mounting bills, the rising cost of living, ill health, stress and anxiety caused by internal and external events. It’s nearly impossible to stop worrying about all this! But we need to learn how to worry less.
What if I showed you some techniques to help ease the worrying? Imagine what life would be like with fewer worries or even a way of learning to cope with all the worries and not let them impact you so much. What if we could distinguish our real worries from our imagined or hypothetical worries and spend less time on things that either don’t really matter or will never happen?
Have you ever worried so much about something like a job interview, a presentation, public speaking event and your worry has never happened? Maybe you’re worried about falling flat on your face in front of everyone, forgetting your words, or failing in some way. What happened – did it go better than expected? Did you not get the job but got something better? Did you learn from the experience and it helped you in some way?
Why spend all that time worrying, when we can spend all that time enjoying or being fully present in the experience?
“Change the way you look at things, and the things you look at change”
Wayne Dyer
What if we changed our thought process and how we label worrying?
Did you know that not all worrying is problematic? If we can foresee potential problems in our lives, then we can navigate the obstacles and spend time thinking about effective solutions. What if we saw this type of healthy worry as a sign that we cared?
How to worry less – focus on what you can control
There are conditions such as generalised anxiety disorder which can lead to excessive worrying and even worrying about worrying. However, for a lot of people without GAD, just focusing on what is worth worrying about can be helpful.
Think about a situation that you might be faced with that has caused a level of concern for you. Have you noticed that worrying has started to occur? If so, this is great, as the first step to managing worry is to actually notice when you are doing it!
When you have recognised this, try categorising your worries into those that are worth worrying about (real) and those that are just hypothetical. Devise a plan and act on the real worries and try to use techniques such as mindfulness to let go of the not-so-real ones. It takes practice but is so effective when this becomes a daily habit.
Worry can take over our whole day. Why not also try setting aside worry time – say 5 pm in the afternoon; giving yourself just 30 minutes to worry? Try it out! I find when this becomes a regular practice, we often forget what our worry was, or find that we don’t use all this time to worry – it can really change our day as it gives the rest of the day to be enjoyed to the fullest!
Mindfulness, worry and children
Imagine as a child not having to worry so much about fitting in, what other people think about us or how we will make the transition to a new school or year group. What difference would this make?
There are various meditations online that can help with worry and remaining present, as opposed to drifting off into what the future might hold and becoming anxious about this.
As well as the mindfulness meditations around managing unhelpful thinking, which is linked to worrying. In the case of worrying, I would also highly recommend some form of cognitive therapy, whether this is cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) or cognitive behavioural hypnotherapy (CBH), as there is a lot that a therapist can help with by helping to manage/change certain behaviours associated with worrying and preventing the vicious cycle from reoccurring.
Wishing you a wonderful day
Sarah x
A bit about the author…
Sarah Makinde is a Business Psychologist, Mindfulness Teacher and Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapist. She has over 20 years of experience in the corporate environment and after going through her own journey with stress, anxiety and overwhelm, is passionate about helping her clients with similar issues.
