I set out to actively lead a life that truly feels good in the Spring of 2008 after a series of setbacks in my personal life. My aim is to spread whatever I learn about feeling good to others through this blog.
You Should Never Worry About Anything - Ever!
In today’s post I want to talk about the emotion of worry. This is an emotion that I feel is not only completely and utterly useless but one of the most damaging emotions we indulge in. The worst thing is, so many people seem to spend most of their lives in worry!
Why Worrying Is So Damn Pointless!
Wayne Dyer has a wonderful way of explaining this. I am paraphrasing of course but he says that we whatever it is that we worry about will fall into one of two categories. Either we worry about something we have no control over such as the weather, the economy, the result of some political election, the behaviour of somebody other than yourself etc, or we worry about something we do have control over.
I think a lot of people worry about things over which they have no control and if you stop and think about this for a moment you’ll realise that there is really no point - if you have no control over the outcome then worrying about will do nothing to affect that outcome so it’s pointless. Now if the object of your worrying is something you can control to some degree then your energy is far better served in actually doing something about the situation rather than worrying about it!
No matter what you are worrying about - it’s always pointless, every time! I challenge you to find any situation where worrying about something can be beneficial!
Worrying is Not Problem Solving
Some people get confused over the definition of the word ‘worry’. The feel as though as long as they are facing some challenge that they need to keep their focus on it in order to find a solution to it. Focusing on a solution is a good thing but this is not the same as worrying about it. Worrying means to catastrophise, to think the worst, to agonise over the what if. What if the thing you are worrying about actually happens?
It can be useful to ask this question once or twice but not in that whimsical sense but to really and deeply ask yourself the question - if this thing I am worrying about actually happened, what would I do? For example, right now I want to buy my own own but I don’t yet earn a high enough monthly income to afford the living expenses. As a precaution I am going to keep back a large chunk of the equity from my previous home as savings so that I can live off it when my income is lacking. I’ll have enough to last me almost 2 years.
However every now and then I notice a little worrying thought pop into my head. It asks “what if I never earn enough and I eventually run out of money?” After I had noticed this thought pop up a few times I decided to really answer it. Ok what if I do run out of money? Simple - I’ll sell my house and go back to living with family like I am right now. Sure it will suck but I will survive. The chances of this happening are very slim but if it does happens then I’ll just deal with it so that’s it now - subject closed, no more worrying.
7 Years of Worrying Over Something That Never Happened
I have personally had a very profound experience with the futility of worry that I have already talked about recently. In the last of my story posts I talked about my experience at University and how I found a job after I graduated.
The period of time between me throwing away my career due to my own stupidity and my re-launching my career with my new job was seven years. Here was my worry - how on earth would I explain the fact that I was fired from my job for gross misconduct when going for a new job? What would I say? I didn’t want to discuss the details of what I had done but surely I would have to? How could I show that I was a changed person?
In those seven years I must have lived through that job interview in my head thousands of times and let me tell you, this was absolutely torturous! I tormented myself day after day for several years worrying about this stuff. The tragedy of it, (well its a good thing!) is that the thing I worried so much about never even happened!
As I said in my post, my University lecturer lined up the job interview for me, and did all the talking on my behalf. I never even had to talk about it - not once! I was so relieved when I was offered the job but in that moment I also lamented all those years of worrying and from that point on I vowed that I would never worry again!
But What If It DOES Happen?
So bloody what? Seriously! So what? Do what I did - face it. Face your very worst fear and ask yourself what would you do if your fear actually transpired. You might decide that life would suck but do you really want to waste your present moment living that fear?
Even if the thing you are worried about does come about you’ll have plenty of opportunity to deal with it at the time but there is no reason to ruin your present moment and this is what so many people do. They go through their whole lives worrying and it really doesn’t matter if the things they are worrying about come to pass or not because in their minds they are living out their fears every day anyway! This is nothing short of torture - don’t do it to yourself!
In my case I had a good dose of guilt thrown into the mix as well but once I got my new job I was able to let go of that guilt too.
Why Worry is So Damaging
Worry is a negative emotion and the state of mind that it promotes never produces solutions. You tend to over-dramatise the event and make it seem much worse. There is a big difference between making some kind of contingency plan and worrying. If I can’t afford my monthly expenses then I will be in trouble but I have made a contingency plan to deal with it. Of course I had to think about the problem to come up with the plan but that is not the same as worrying. Worry just asks endless questions and never produces answers.
If you are a believer in the Law of Attraction then I’m sure you can also see what kind of vibration worrying gives out. If you look at a problem over and over again and imagine the worst possible outcome then that is what you are going to manifest! In the four years before starting University all I did was worry - I couldn’t see any way out of my job situation and I stayed right where I was in agony. It was only when I started to see a way out of it that I was able to begin shifting my vibration.
Rather than spend every day imagining myself in that dreaded interview situation I just imagined myself in my new job. Of course, back then I didn’t know about the Law of Attraction so I did a fair bit of both but luckily you don’t need to stay positive all the time in order to manifest what you want - as long as your dominating thoughts are on what you want rather than what you don’t want you should be moving towards what you want, even if its slowly.
When you worry your mind is focused directly on the thing you don’t want! Even if you are not convinced about the Law of Attraction I can tell you from experience that worrying feels decidedly BAD and seeing as life should feel good, do yourself a favour and ditch the worrying and think about something that feels better - like chocolate or strawberries, preferably the latter dipped in the former :-)
Stumble it!
Paddy Bloggit
August 26, 2008
Worrying is all part of a person’s make up.
If your personality is to worry then I reckon you worry.
I’d be a worrier ….. but I do find that as I get older my ‘worry’ attitude is giving away more and more to ‘don’t give a shit attitude’ …. I’m not saying I get careless it’s that I have an attitude now that I do my best … I can do no more …
PB