6 Things You Should Know About Worry Before You Begin Worrying
Do you remember the last time that you worried about someone or something?
Were you worried about someone close to you, a challenging event coming up, or the outcome of something else going on for you?
Do you remember the way your body felt and the thoughts that raced through your head?
Well, now you remember the intense feeling of self harassment.
Don’t waste your time!
Your worry serves no purpose to calm or mollify you. Worrying wastes your energy and distorts your logical thinking.
It’s almost like worrying is like a poisonous potion that disguises as an emotional relief elixir.
When thinking about something challenging, it may feel like worrying will help you get through it. But as it turns out, the task of worrying shows no positive benefits for you.
When you worry, you’ve made a choice. In his mind-blowing book, The Gift of Fear, author Gavin de Becker talks about the toxic misconceptions of worry.
He talks about how your worry is a manifestation of your fear, and most of the time what you fear is not actually happening to you, it’s a product of your imagination.
Fear distorts your thinking and causes your brain to shift into survival mode (fight, flight or freeze) as a result of your stress response.
Actually, according to de Becker, worrying is your creative thinking gone wrong.
So to worry is to choose to drink your bogus elixir as a result of your brain making distorted connections.
What to know about worry before you begin worrying
1 -> Worry is a fear we manufacture — it’s not authentic. Worry does not bring you solutions and often distracts you from finding them.
2 -> You may think worry is a tool to magically ward off danger. Some believe that worrying about something will somehow stop it from happening.
3 -> Worry is a way for you to avoid change, and not focus on behavior to create change.
4 -> Worry is a way to avoid admitting powerlessness over something, since worry feels like you are doing something.
5 -> Worry is a cloying way to have connection with others, the idea being that to worry about someone shows that you love them.
The other side of this is the belief that not worrying about someone means you don’t care about them. Worry is a poor substitute for love or for taking loving action.
6 -> Worry is a protection against future disappointment. After taking an important test, for example, you may worry about whether you failed. If you can experience the failure now, kind of like rehearsing it, by worrying about it, then failing won’t feel as bad when it happens.
There’s an interesting trade-off to this one for you: since you can’t do anything about it at this point anyway, would you rather spend two days worrying and then learning that you failed, or spend the same two days not worrying, and then learn that you failed? Most importantly. when you pass the test, why spend two days of anxiety for nothing?
To worry is to promote suffering!
De Becker uses an analogy between real fear and worry and the relationship between pain and suffering.
Pain and fear are necessary and valuable components for you, while worry and suffering are destructive and unnecessary.
It’s your worrisome thoughts that’s causing your suffering.
Where’s your Emotional Intelligence?
In his groundbreaking book, Emotional Intelligence, author Daniel Goleman concludes that you may feel that worrying is a sort of “magical amulet” that you may feel wards off danger.
You may believe that worrying about something will stop it from happening. Goleman states that most of what you worry about has a low probability of occuring, because you tend to take action about things that are likely to occur.
This means that the mere fact that you are worrying about something is a predictor that it isn’t likely going to happen!
Worry hurts you you much more than it helps, because it interrupts and prevents clear thinking, wastes time and shortens life.
So what do you do instead of worrying? It can be best to develop a personal stress plan for when you begin worrying about someone or something.
You have the power to not manufacture fear. When you begin to feel yourself worrying, explore your worry and find out what may be causing it.
Brain Strength Coach Marty Wolner is a certified and licensed stress and trauma educator, executive coach, and peak performance specialist, empowering those who want to manage their stress more effectively.
Change your stress, change your life!
As a former president of a multi-million dollar company, owner of several cutting edge small businesses, and former award-winning Associated Press News journalist, I know the way stress can prevent executives and professionals from getting what they want and being who they want to be.
Combining my executive and entrepreneurial experience with trauma informed neuroscience, I’m on a mission to empower those who are not living their best life because of stress. I work with leaders from medium to large corporations who may understand the impact of stress, but need simple tools and strategies to be happier and more productive.
Through trainings (both live and online) and executive coaching, I have empowered thousands of executives, professionals, teachers, counselors, social workers, clinicians, psychologists, legislators and law enforcement to re-think their stress, improving their health and happiness. You can actually change your brain wiring and your stress response by thinking about your stress differently.
Let’s talk — Marty@mybrain.tools
