Realising the nature of thought can set you free from your worry and strife.
Over excessive worrying leads to anxiety
Are you a worry expert? I know I was because as a child my mum called me a born worrier. However, most adults when asked what they worried about over the past week find it difficult to remember.
There are two types of worries.
- worry about current problems, such as an argument with a loved one or not having enough money to pay the bills.
- Worries about what might happen, perhaps the plane will crash, or I might get a serious illness.
Whilst you can do something to help the first type of worry. You have no control over the second type of worry, so there is nothing you can do to change the situation. For example you can’t control how the flight will go and you cant ensure you will stay healthy no matter how healthy your diet.
What can help though, is having a conscious awareness of the type of worry, the type of thoughts and beliefs you are paying attention to. By taking some time to write down your worries down you can gain insight into your habits of thinking and begin to upgrade your thought patterns and even being to build new neural pathways.
Helpful ways of creating a change in your worrying habit are:
- Learning to calm the physical symptoms by slowing down your breathing.
- Relaxing the body by tensing and then relaxing muscles.
- Learn to be comfortable with uncertainty. Trying to have 100% certainty is what you are trying to accomplish when you worry, but you already know this isn’t successful, if it were, you wouldn’t have a problem with worry.
Some ways of getting comfortable with uncertainty are to change the way you do things in life, It can be surprising how challenging this can appear. Like sending emails without re-reading them, going to a restaurant without first researching the reviews. Delegating jobs to others and not checking on them.
A lot of people who worry think that worry is useful or helpful. For example I used to think worrying about my kids was a sign of being a good mum, how daft!
We unknowingly teach our children, a misunderstanding of how life really works. We literally worry ourselves to death until we learn to think and pay attention to our thoughts in new ways and we teach our children unwittingly how to worry.
Some of the misunderstandings around worry are:
- It shows I am a caring person
- Helps us to be alert and on the ball at work so I am prepared.
- Motivates us to get stuff done
- Prevents bad things happening (if we think about them and worry about them, we can somehow stop these things from happening)
Sydney Banks penned these wise words around worrying, via the principles of mind, thought and consciousness
How to think in new ways around worries:
By reframing your beliefs:
You could ask yourself: Do I know caring people who don’t worry as much as I do? How else do you show you care?
Do you know people who are alert and prepared who don’t worry so much?
Are you really more motivated when you worry? I know I’m not, worry can often stop us doing the things we want to do.
When you look back at bad things that happened, did you really feel more prepared to deal with it because you worried about it?
How much time effort and energy have you spent worrying? Was it worth it. How has it affected you physically? Are you tired all the time? Do you have trouble sleeping because of your worries?
Dr Bill Petitt is a well respected psychiatrist who himself suffered with severe bouts of depression before meeting Sydney Banks many years ago. Bill still works as a psychiatrist and incorporates the wisdom of Syd Banks into every patient he works with.
When Bill’s first wife died he was naturally upset and took some time adjusting to life without his partner and looking after their daughters. One day he met somebody who in a well meaning way stated to Bill, ‘You must be worrying yourself sick over those daughters of yours’, to which Bill replied, ‘NO, I love them too much to worry about them.’
“Mental Stress and distressis to mental illness as damp and dark is to fungus (it makes it grow)
On the other hand, love and lightheartedness, is to mental illness as sunlight and dry is to fungus (it eradicates it, it makes it disappear)”
Below is a youtube link to one of Dr Bill Pettit’s videos that might help you gain some insight into your worrying ways:
If you resonate with this post, or looking for freedom from your worrying and stressful thoughts, take a look at my most popular online coaching offer via this link.
Or if you would like to have a chat about how I can help you move forward into a more enjoyable life, just send a message to:
angela@angelafarlam.com
and I will connect with you and arrange a convenient time to have an informal chat as an opportunity to allow you to have an experience of how I work to help you.
Ange x