worry

There are few things in life that I succeed at like worry. In fact, I come by it naturally as I am from a long line of worrying women.

I sometimes think that God has a special hotline for me. Not like the red phone that Batman uses because it is important. Instead my hotline is mostly ignored because God knows I just repeat the same things to him over and over throughout the day. He has already dealt with it. I'm the one that won't let us go. You know the drill; Keep us safe. Pay the bills. Let me get there on time. The thousand time honored little prayers that we whisper throughout the day to God or the universe.

I have a belief about guilt that it is not something we come by naturally. Instead, I believe it is a social tool that we are taught to manipulate us, and then we use it to manipulate ourselves. There is a problem with guilt, however. It accomplishes nothing; but worse than that, it keeps us from accomplishing anything. We beat ourselves up mentally as an excuse not to do something to make the situation better; to apologize or somehow fix whatever is making us "feel guilty".

It is because I understand that about guilt that it is amazing that I allowed myself to continue to worry as I have. In his book, Erroneous Zones, Dr. Wayne Dyer writes about guilt. He says, "Such is guilt in our culture - a convenient tool for manipulating others and a futile waste of time. Worry, the other side of the coin, is diagnostically identical to guilt, but focuses exclusively on the future and all the terrible things that might happen."

I began to think about my own life and the things that I have worried about. I realized that all of my worry had never accomplished one thing. It never changed a situation, and sometimes it generated so much fear that when I did act I didn't make the best decisions. When I say worry accomplishes nothing, I mean it literally. When you are worrying, you aren't doing something to make the situation better. So, the antithesis of worry is action.

Quite often when we worry it is over things we cannot control. Because we cannot take action (because we don't control the circumstances), we worry. That makes us feel like we are doing something, and have some measure of control. The truth is, however, that nothing will ever change just because you worried.

I have mentioned before that when I was a child my mother gave me the wonderful gift of teaching me to ask myself, "What is the worst thing that could happen if the thing I am worried about comes about." You keep asking it until you get a resolution. For example, "what is the worst thing that can happen if I don't pay this bill?" Answer? They will take away my account and send me to collection. What is the worst thing that would happen if they took me to collection? There would be a bad mark on my credit. What would be the worst thing that could happen if there was a bad mark on my credit? I wouldn't be able to get more credit until I cleared that debt up. As you push yourself along that track of thinking, you won't necessarily come up with a pleasant scenario (no one wants bad credit, for example) but you will realize that you could handle whatever the final outcome is, and in most situations it won't ever come to the worst possible scenario.

I started to think about several situations in my life that have been going on for a while. I realized that all the time I spent worrying about them had not changed one thing about the situation. I had just wasted my time and made myself miserable.

Although I may not be able to control every circumstance in my life, I can control the way I react to them. I choose whether I get upset, or whether I let it flow over my back. I control whether to look at the situation as a glass half full or half empty. In the end, whatever comes our way; we will be able to handle it. Instead of wasting our time by creating gloom and doom scenarios in our head, give your problem up to God or the universe (or whatever you believe) and move on with the knowledge that you can handle whatever life brings you.

home | articles | the workshop