Put a stop to worry now!

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Personal Development & Growth Self Awareness Spirituality

Put a stop to worry now!

We are all familiar with worry and we have all most probably felt it. In childhood we witnessed our parents worry about several things and I am quite sure that in adolescence what our parents worried about was us.

“Why were you late coming home from school? You had me worried.” or

“With those poor grades you get, I worry about your future” etc.

So, when someone tells us not to worry, we usually say “Easier said than done” or “How can I not worry? There are so many things that could go wrong, there are so many dangers”, or even “How can I not worry about my child, my husband, my mother etc. I love them and I care!”

A new understanding

I too used to worry about everything. People who knew me and my life saw a warrior in me but what I really was on the inside was a worrier; without even knowing it… It was thanks to Reiki that I initially managed to get to know myself and see me for who I truly was. The self discovery and healing journey continues with the help of a lot of other disciplines and trainings.

Anyway, once I realized what worry was, how it manifested and the havoc it wreaked in people’s lives (mine included), I started to observe it to try and make sense of it, its roots and its consequences on the self and on others.

Here’s what I found.

The 2 basic misconceptions

There is a lot of confusion when it comes to worry and two basic misconceptions.

The first misconception is that we confuse worry with thinking ahead, planning and getting organized. We think that it helps us control situations and stop (bad) things from happening.

The second is that we confuse worry with care and we think that worry is an expression of love. We think that it is a selfless proof of our care and concern when, in fact, it is a selfish and manipulative attempt on our part to control other people’s lives and have them live or behave the way we want them to.

1. Worry vs. planning

Many of us think that worrying is the same as planning. They think that if they worry about things, they will be better prepared when these things actually happen. However, the truth of the matter is that worrying is the exact opposite of planning. Planning goes hand in hand with taking action; making a phone call, a reservation, taking a precaution etc. Worrying is total inaction. When we worry, we are in our heads; thinking, hypothesizing and or imagining scenarios. And you can say, this is good. This helps us prepare for the worst. Well, it is only good if you do plan and prepare with a clear head and a courageous heart. If this is the case, then, you do not worry. You plan and prepare. If, on the other hand, the scenarios fill you with paralyzing fear that things might go wrong, then this is worry.

How can we overcome this type of worry?

By the (painful) admission that we cannot control everything. We would like to be able to and sometimes we think we can but in reality there is always something outside our control, such as a natural phenomenon, an unexpected event, the behavior of third parties or even our own body! We can have everything perfectly planned, we can have considered everything and at the last moment, something can come up and completely change our plans. How can we control everything?

The truth is that we cannot…

Hence, what good does it do to worry, waste our energy and destroy our health? Absolutely none!

If you find yourself lost in your worrying thoughts about the future and what can go wrong, I am inviting you to click on the link to read about the “What happens next?” method. It will clears your head and prompt you to action.

2. Worry vs. love and care

A lot of people think that worry is proof that we love or care about someone. Nonetheless, love and care can take a thousand forms, none of which is worry.

As a matter of fact, this type of worry is a selfish and manipulative attempt on our part to control our loved ones’ lives and do what we want them to do.

Worry DOES NOT help our loved ones. It weakens them. It sucks their energy and deprives them of their free will! We “worry” about them because WE want them to do something that will help US feel better.

“Don’t come home late or you will have me worry.” or “Do you eat well? I worry about you.” Another popular one would be “Why didn’t you call me? I was worried sick thinking that something bad happened to you.”

All these questions are aimed at making sure that US feel better. With these demands we burden your loved ones with the task of helping us feel safe.

As a result, our loved ones waste part of their energy thinking of how to reassure us, to help us feel better, or how to avoid the nagging that comes with the “worry” (“Why didn’t you call me?” etc.), instead of concentrating on their own task, work or whatever they want to do.

How can we get over this type of worry?

We can care for your loved ones, take care of them and offer them our love, our help and our support.

What do we offer them with our worry? Nothing! How can we protect them by worrying? We cannot!

The only real care, protection and support comes from our positive thoughts; from the love we have for them and we express to them, from the faith we have in them and in their abilities. That is how we can help and protect others.

Worry makes our loved ones weaker.

Where does worry stem from?

Why do we worry about things and our loved ones so much? The answer is simple. It is our desire for control situations and people!

We want to control everything; we want everything to happen exactly how we think it should happen. As we have already pointed out, it is impossible to control everything. Sooner or later, things will happen that are beyond our control. But this could be a good thing. What happens is that instead of using our energy to calmly analyze the new situation, which we often discover is better than we had planned; we lose sight of everything with worry. Have you read the story “Whatever happens is for your own good”?

Which part of us does all the worrying? Our heart? NO. Our heart is full of love and trust. It is our mind that worries…

“The mind is an excellent servant but a terrible master!”

Worry is a problem of the mind that always wants to be busy with something to feel useful. Worry stems from and, at the same time, leads to inaction. The only way to stop worrying is to give our mind something else to do, to keep it busy with ACTION.

If we let the mind be the master, we are in for a lot of worry. This is what the mind knows how to do best. On the contrary, if we take the reins in our hands, we should give the mind something to do, keep it occupied. We should take action and start planning things instead of leaving room for worry! We will slowly notice that not only will our health (mental and physical) improve, but we will also become more efficient at what we are doing as all our energy will be focused on our task, and not on incapacitating thoughts of what could go wrong.

Trust is the key

We have to learn how to trust ourselves and other! All we need is to have faith that all things happen for a reason and according to a plan. We might not have knowledge of of the plan but it is always aimed at our greater good.

Though we know the meaning of the word, trust and faith, for many of us they are only theoretical concepts. However, whether we know it or not, we have all felt them at some point. But we did it because we were forced to by the circumstances; because nothing worked the way we had planned and the only thing left to do was to resign ourselves to situation…

Do you remember how many times you found out that when you stopped resisting to change and went with the flow things turned out to be better than in your most optimistic plans? Do you remember the relief you felt?

If a problem has a solution, why worry? And if a problem does not have a solution, why worry?

Train your mind; check your thoughts, discover their patterns and take control over them! Have faith in yourself and in life!

With this faith, we can live in the “here and now” (click here to read the article) and accomplish the first of our missions on this planet, which is LIVE.

Otherwise, worry automatically causes anger and with it illnesses and other problems…

Feel free to contact me for a 20-minute complimentary session.

or email me at:

evdoxia@i-kicoaching.com

Comments (2)

  1. […] The answer is simple. When we think that situations are out of (our) control, we feel in danger and, as a consequence, we feel intense fear. We are afraid that we will lose everything, we think our survival is at risk, we are overcome with the fear of “death”. (for more on control check out my article “Put a stop to worry now!”). […]

  2. […] approach is entirely valid, but we can go even further. Having put a stop to worry, having learned to transform our anger into positive action, having followed steps 1 (acceptance), […]

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