Your Need To Know

Whoever coined the phrase “Life is too short” certainly knew what he or she was talking about. It really is much too short. Too short to spend our valuable time worrying. No one is free of problems as they are a part of life, but we spend much too much time worrying about the wrong problems.

We need to learn to separate the real from the unnecessary. We need to learn to worry less.

Here is an estimate of the things most people worry about:

40% - Things that will never happen
30% - things in the past that can never be changed
12% - Needless worries about our health
10% - Petty, miscellaneous worries
8% - Real and legitimate worries

So, 92% of the things we worry about just take up valuable time. They cause stress and mental anguish, not to mention physical ailments due to the stress, and they are absolutely unnecessary. Of the 8% of legitimate worries, there are two kinds: those we can do something about and those we can’t. Most of these will fall into the first category and these are the ones we can solve if we just learn how.

Worry is defined by Webster as “a mental distress or agitation resulting from concern, usually for something impending or anticipated.” This is an excellent description, and it tells us that:

1. Worry is a mental activity, both conscious and subconscious.
2. Worry is usually about something that might or might not happen in the future.

Usually, when we worry, we have conversations with ourselves about distressing things we anticipate are going to happen. The key word here is “anticipate.” The worry is about something that hasn’t happened and may or may not happen. Worry is always about something imaginary. Something that doesn’t yet exist. Worry, in fact, is the process of becoming distressed about the nonexistent. Put in that perspective, it seems rather silly and useless.

Worry involves a great deal of self-talk. We all have these ongoing internal dialogues with ourselves about our concerns, hopes, plans, and decisions. We can easily observe what we’re saying to ourselves, how we’re saying it, when we’re saying it and what are our perspectives, intentions and directions. Controlling worry can be easily accomplished by intentionally intervening in that internal dialogue.

Remember, self-talk is simply an internal dialogue; conversations we have with ourselves. This type of conscious activity is quickest to yield to control. By controlling our conscious worry, we can affect the reservoir of anxiety that our worry has left behind in our subconscious.

We can intervene in these self-destructive internal dialogues as if we were an outside, objective mediator. We can transform these dialogues into useful and productive activities that allay our fears and break the worry cycle.
Here’s how:

Stop that Thought!

Simply say “Stop” in your mind. Mentally shout it, if necessary. If I am alone, I even say it out loud. Whenever you find yourself worrying, stop the dialogue this way immediately. This may sound too easy, but it really works!

Next, replace the worry dialogue with a practical dialogue. The events you are anticipating really might occur and you can’t waste your time stuck in the worry cycle. You have to plan your most effective responses to the most probable future events. You have to determine if there is anything you can do right now to prevent or modify those events. Talk to yourself about what probably will happen. What can you do about it now and then?

You have to do now what you can do now to prepare for, modify or prevent those events. The only alternative is worry. What would you rather do, worry or take what control that is available?

Change the Channel!

Self-directed imagery is extremely effective in curing worry.
Imagery is the making of mental pictures. It is visual thinking. Whenever we’re having an internal dialogue, we’re usually making up images of whatever it is we’re talking about. For example, if you are talking to yourself about a meeting with your boss, you are making pictures in your head of your boss, his office, his actions and reactions, yourself, your actions, and your reactions. If you are worried about the meeting, the pictures are going to be distressing ones since worry will be about unpleasant and undesirable happenings.

If you have trouble changing your internal dialogue, you may find changing the pictures in your head to be an easier and more powerful tool. Then, that change will cause changes in your self-talk. Make up pictures that represent what you want to happen and that oppose the pictures of what you fear will happen. You want to choose the pictures that best counteract the worried images.

In the example of the meeting with your boss, make up and “see” mental pictures of a relaxed and productive meeting. See your boss very impressed and reacting favorably toward you. See mental pictures of yourself feeling good about your presentation or whatever it is that you want to happen. Or, if you are dealing with a probable outcome that is unpleasant or undesirable, and probably unavoidable, make pictures of your desired responses to counteract the feared responses.

Make your internal dialogue and your imagery about what you can do now. Then, use your internal dialogue and imagery to do what you can do now.

Basically, when we worry, we are worried about nothing. These events are in our mind, not in our real, physical world.
And we can do nothing about nothing.

Gina