Worry. It's the one thing that just about all of us do, more so than we like to admit. What percentage of your week do you spend in the mindset of worry? You might be shocked to know what the real number is. Get this; It is said that we spend an average of 14.31 hours worrying each and every week. That's 744 hours doing nothing but worrying every year, which is 45,243 hours of worry over a lifetime. Over five years of our lives are spent doing nothing but worrying. Yikes! The interesting thing is that worry decreases as we get older.
So how is it that we worry less as we get older? It might be that as we age, we tend to calm down a bit and take more of life as it comes. Is this because the older we are, the wiser we get? Maybe yes, maybe no. If you asked me I would tell you that I fully believe that worry is a mindset. It's a state, it's an emotion. But does worry just 'happen' to us or do we actually have the power to turn worry on and off? If you are thinking that the latter rather than the former is correct...BINGO!!!!!
Worry is a state of mind and I firmly believe that it is also a choice that we make. Here's a case in point; My father's mother spent at least 90% of her day worrying. She would worry about her three children and when she's leave that alone for a few moments, she'd move on to worrying about her grand kids. Then she'd leave that alone for a few moments and move on to worrying about what she just read in the paper or heard on the news about international political events. The economy, the threat of war, the weather...oh vey...it was a never ending parade of heavy negativity that not only effected her health, but it became a major part of her personality. There must really be a worry gene because all of this crap got passed to my father who, particularly in his later years, sat in front of the television at all hours of the day worrying about the horrific and overly negative reports he constantly exposed himself to. Guess who got all of that passed on to him? Yup! But it's something I'm profoundly aware of so the buck will indeed stop here.
How safe and joyous in life can you really be if you constantly allow outside stuff effect your true state of being? Worry is indeed a choice. How so? When you see a report on television in which some financial expert swears that within the next few weeks, the financial world will totally collapse beyond repair, how do you react? Let me re-phrase that; how do you choose to react? If worry is the first thing you feel after seeing such a report, then could it be that you are letting outside influences take over how you might be really feeling within you? Is the worry you are feeling really you or is it something you let in from outside of you that really has nothing to do with who and what you really are?
If you took the time, right after hearing this report on television, to go within and say, "OK, I just heard all of that so how do I feel now? And if I feel a little concerned, do I know that even if some bad stuff does occur, I'm really going to be OK no matter what happens?" That's choosing to honor your feelings as opposed to someone else's when the mindset of worry has the opportunity to be activated in your life.
So here's what to do the next time you feel the flames of worry start to dance around within your mind;
1. Acknowledge that you heard what you heard or saw what you saw. Don't be in denial about it as if you never heard or saw it
2. Ask yourself what the healthiest way to react to what you heard or saw would be right now. Let it come from within you, not from without. How do you really feel deep inside about what you saw or heard?
3. Know, without a doubt, that everything is going to be OK, no matter what happens
4. If you do start worrying about it, let it happen. Play it out and then, here's the important part, move on. Don't get attached to what you could be worrying about because then you'll become exactly what you fear. If you look at it as if it's on display in a museum, you won't attach yourself to it and then you'll find it so much easier to move on and let it go. You can't be open to the next event in your life if you are still carrying worry with you
It's when we attach ourselves to the emotion of worry that we become the energy of worry itself. Aren't you more than that? Are you any of that? Is worry something that you really do have control over? Yes, no and, heck yes!!!!
The key here is that you have more power than what it is you might choose to be worrying about. You are so much more than that. Worry is a temporary cloud that can end up blocking the sun of your clear blue sky. Who puts the cloud in front of the sun? You do! When you see the cloud, acknowledge that it's there. Don't get attached to it and it, like all clouds do, will move on its merry way...so much sooner than later.
To worry or not to worry. That is the choice you make each and every day.
