Worry really is a pointless emotion. Yet constantly worrying about what might go wrong has become a very common affliction. Many people feel anxious even when there is nothing specific or tangible to feel anxious about. People say to me that they feel ‘sick’ all the time with worry. The inability to manage our thoughts is the principal cause of worry. You must learn to stop, or at least ignore, the ceaseless chatter of disturbing thoughts through the wisdom of knowing that although you can make efforts to manage and affect your future you cannot ultimately control that future.
What a tragedy it is that people’s quality of life and equilibrium are ruined by this pointless but potentially obsessive emotion. And remember that all the time you are worrying you are making deposits in your negative energy account.
You must learn to do your best to plan for your future, manage risk, but let go of the outcomes. You must know and understand that usually in life the adverse things that happen are not the things that we foresee and worry about but instead tend to be unexpected and unforeseen events that occur at random. So worrying about what may happen is entirely pointless and arguably may cause illness and self fulfilling prophecies due to our own behaviour attracting the very things that we dread. Living is like climbing a ladder – don’t look down as this can cause fear and freezing. A healthy and confident acceptance of yourself and the outside world, really knowing that things are as they are, is the way to achieve a positive optimistic outlook.
After socialising with a friend or relative we can sometimes spend time worrying whether we have said the wrong thing. Well don’t! If you have tried your best to be pleasant, loving, and friendly then leave it at that. Nobody is able to express themselves perfectly all the time and it is inevitable that after any bout of socialising there will be one or two things that you may wish you had put differently or perhaps not mentioned at all. It’s life. The most likely situation is that the other person will not have noticed or remember.
Why does the mind left unchecked have such a strong predisposition to worry? Human beings have evolved to be worriers, and to look for the worst case scenarios and interpretations as this has conveyed survival advantage. The people who survived were the ones who attended the most to potential dangers of hostile invaders, predators or adverse weather and made the best provisions to protect against these risks. Our default mode tends to be to look for possible threats and concentrate on what is wrong rather than what is right. The problem is that this has evolved in the modern world to carrying worry in our minds that is no longer necessary and constantly compromises our peace of mind.
Affirmation