Always
Worry and how to eliminate it.
Do you worry? Most people I meet in my practice report worries of various kinds, including health, relationships, family issues, money, job/work insecurities, and much more. Sometimes the daily worries, such as being late for work, or for an appointment, or not meeting a deadline are subjects people find to worry about; they even worry if they are liked or not, or if they are good enough. It’s amazing how much creativity can be used to conjure up the stress that worry produces.
What is worry? I’ll define it clearly for you soon.
For sure worry is a killer. NO, I’m not exaggerating. It’s one of the most common and most nerve-wracking aggravating and health damaging states of mind and emotions… a negative stressor of extreme proportions. The fact that negative stress is dangerous to our health is well-known, or ought to be. Stress depletes the immune system, causes inflammation and causes much more damaging effects on the body than I can list here. The mind-body relationship is well demonstrated when you worry, for what you do in your mind is impacting your emotions and your body. Just think about it, what do you feel when you worry? Anxiety, agitation, thoughts and visions of the most terrible things come to mind; you become nervous, even feel desperate at times. You feel your heart rate increase and blood pressure rise, you feel flushed, your stomach may churn and you could feel nauseous.
I am always reminding people that what they do in their heads is more important and powerful than you could possibly imagine. It’s because in many respects our bodies are like mirrors of our minds. I prove this when I demonstrate with bio feedback the instantaneous impact thoughts have in the body. In a nano second a thought, one with even the mildest negative content is shown on the GSR, (galvanic skin response monitor) as the needles indicating stress, instantly literally go into the red zone. It could be a response to my asking the subject if he or she minds if I ask an embarrassing question, or if he or she can add up a few numbers; even before the responding thought is consciously completed the instrument measures the changes in the electro-conductivity of the skin, which is based on the amount of perspiration being produced. The sweaty palms of an individual are sure signs he or she is stressed, consciously or subconsciously.
In my Mind Mastery course I teach people how not to worry. In fact I give them what the have come to call the “worry pill.” It’s part of one of the 29 links in the chain of command that I give my students to gain control of their minds.
Since we all have concerns, indeed no life can be lived without them, we must learn to deal with them rationally and objectively, or we allow ourselves to be caught up in the mental and emotional torment and health destroying whirlwind of worry.
How would you describe worry as you have experienced it?
I can imagine. All the what ifs, all the terrible possibilities you can think of crowd out your logic and you become anxious, fearful, and helpless and yet you try desperately to think of a way to avoid or prevent the awful outcomes you anticipate. For example if someone is due home at six and by six fifteen they have not arrived, do you first think of all the things that could have detained them? If you’ve tried to reach them by phone or not had a call to explain the lateness, by six thirty you begin to imagine to worse case scenarios. By 7:30 you may even call the local hospitals or police stations to find out if there has been an accident.
Am I right?
Cell phones have to some extent eliminated a lot of worry, because people can maintain constant contact if they want and need to. Though these devices often cause other stresses and create greater risks when people use them while driving. That’s a serious and legitimate concern because many accidents are caused by texting and cell phone use while people are at the wheel.
And what good does it all do?
In the end when that person walks trough the door, safe and sound you experience a mix of relief and anger: Right? You demand an explanation and then vent your frustration by blaming that person for causing you to worry. Am I right again?
Yet you are the one who created the stress, no explanation ,no matter how true, reasonable or believable can take it away. You are now suffering from the consequences of what you did within yourself to cause your heart rate and blood pressure to rise, to pace the floor, sweat profusely, and wring your hands while prognosticating death and disaster. Actually while you are worrying you are living the psychological bIo-physiological hell that you would have been going through had your worse fears been actualized. Even when it’s over, it’s hard to get over the stress reactions in your mind and body. And none of this is necessary.
So many people have a rationale for worry. They say things like, “It prepares me for the worst.” Or, as one woman explained to me, “I’ve learned that my worse worries never happen, so I’m a successful worrier!” She and others who share this view have a superstitious notion they are warding off disasters by worrying. It is true that the things people worry about rarely happen, but that isn’t because they worried.
My Mother, rest her soul ,used to worry if she didn’t worry. She would think something was amiss within her. I think a lot of it had to do with the notion that if you didn’t worry perhaps you didn’t care. I know many people have asked me, because they have noted my calm in situations where they would be overwrought with worry, ” How come you aren’t worried. Don’t you care?”
Indeed there have always been so many reports of terrible things happening to people out there, thereby seeming to threaten everyone who went out into the world, so no one could venture forth without facing dangers known and unknown, leaving behind others to worry and wonder if they are safe.
Those who go out there are given directives to call if late, to watch out for the dangers, reminding them that the world is an unsafe place; and they admonished if they fail to inform of a delay or change of plans. It’s a way of trying to control people while trying to have the upper hand on fate.
Of course there are concerns about safety in every aspect of life. No one can deny that. People have accidents, and yes bad things do happen. However we cannot and ought not to attempt to control others to prevent ourselves from worry by demanding they adhere to strict rules that keep them in service to your emotional needs for assurances of their safety.
So what is worry?
It is the fear of not being in control.
Think about that for a minute. It’s true isn’t it? You only worry when you fear you cannot influence an outcome, when you are not in control of a person or situation or an outcome. Fear is a stressor of major proportions. Fear can certainly be helpful in some situations for it causes us to be cautious and careful and be ready to deal with a threat. However if the threat is imagined, it serves no good purpose.
So how do you prevent yourself from worrying?
First of all recognize that you cannot control everything and everyone. I know you know this rationally. And worrying does not provide for any control of externals. In fact when you are worrying you are not ion control. Your imagination is. You can control your imagination though.
I’ll share with you one of my personal philosophies that has helped me eliminate worry, it’s simply “Accept and Compensate.” It has enabled me to deal with many life situations effectively and more healthfully than I would have without it. “I accept what I cannot change and /or control and I compensate by being in control of the way I deal with things within my self and in my behaviors.”
This is not the worry pill in Mind Mastery, although it is an addition to it.
I’m going to give you a version of the worry pill. You are getting it free, by the way, but it has the same value as for those who pay for the Mind Mastery course.. It employs logic, which is the enemy of worry. It also helps you to put things in a realistic perspective. As simplistic as it seems, when used before worry gets you too wound up, it works, at least for the majority of people the majority of the time. Some people will need more help to stop being a chronic worrier though. Often worry becomes an automatic reaction to an unknown when there has been many traumas and strife and what is referred to “‘ad luck” in a person’s life. They tend to be on acute alert at all times, which in itself is stressful.
Keep in mind worry is a destructive emotion that spreads throughout your body like a disease, resulting in all the diseases that stress can produce.
The worry pill is only one the many ways Mind Mastery gives you control of what you do in your head, and then you have control of what you experience in your body, your emotions and therefore your behaviors.
Answer these questions after careful thought.
What is my worry? What is the reason it worries me? What makes it important?
What is the worse thing that could happen to me…To someone else…Or in this situation?
What are the probabilities of this happening? …Very great, or small?
What is the next worse thing? Will that probably happen?
What can I do about this situation?
Will worry help?
Is there is something I can do, if so , is it very little ? … several things?
If so what are they?
You can learn to let go of worry, not just by asking yourself those all important questions, also by relaxing and getting in touch with your power base, you subconscious, and teaching it to use your mind space , your psychic energy and time for only the most positive purposes; and never use those resources for worry.
Keep in mind that you cannot think clearly and feel or be emotional at the same time. So going through this thought process calms your emotions and you can the get in control of them by enabling your mind/brain to do better processing.
Always remember there is a vast difference between possibilities, which are endless and probabilities which are in reality quite limited.
When you answer those questions, it’s most likely you will have put your logical rational mind to work and killed worry before it can kill you.
Of course the more control you have of what you are doing in your head, the more control you have of what goes on in your emotions and your body and your life. You can learn to control your own thoughts and not be hindered or troubled by them – not be a victim of the negative mind processes. I can’t wish you control for yourself. I can only tell you that you can achieve it if you learn how.
TTFN and all the best, always, from Elaine Kissel