IT IS NOT EVEN HAPPENING
Did you know that forty per cent of your worries will never happen? It’s like putting a 40% down payment on a house you will never own… You ask yourself: “What if I can’t make it on time to pick up my son from soccer practice?” “What if no-one comes to my event?”. What if my competitor steals my stuff?” What if my business gets too busy?”. “What if I don’t have enough money to pay my bills?” You may worry about all the stuff you have to do, etc. There is absolutely no need to worry about this now. And yet, these types of worries can be quite consuming.
You can easily free up forty per cent of your brain power if you just stopped worrying about the things that are never going to happen. Realize that they are preventing you from having what you want. As mentioned very often in my articles, our brain does this to protect us. Thank your brain for the kind gesture, being aware of what could happen and planning ahead is a great skill. Worrying about it and being consumed and overwhelmed is not.
If you catch yourself worrying about something like this, take a deep breath and ask yourself: “Is it real? Is it true? Is it happening and is it happening to me? Then, repeat out loud: “This is not happening yet, and most likely, it will never happen anyways.” I will deal with this in time, or never.
IT’S OVER
Thirty per cent of what we worry about has already happened. We just choose to replay the movie in our heads over and over again. We waste so much time reliving the idiot that cut us off on the highway or the comment that someone said that hurt our feelings. More likely, the person giving the nasty comment has a problem. It’s not about you. They were having a bad day and took it out on you. They have a problem. You don’t. When you repeat a memory in your head, your brain doesn’t know that it’s not happening again. It resends all the negative chemicals and hormones that it sent in the first place. Let it go. It’s over. It’s done. Find positive learning. What have you learned and what will you avoid or do differently next time? You will discover with this technique that in most situations, you don’t even have anything you would do differently because it was not even your fault or in some cases, not anything to do with you. If it was your fault or if it is something that you agree with, like the nasty comment example above, it means that you agree with it and that you give it power. You still need to let it go. If someone is angry with you for being late, for example, make sure you arrive on time in the future.
We also tell people about it. Their brain doesn’t know that it’s not happening to them. Their brain gets stressed out too. That is why we cry when we watch “This is Us”. Because our brain doesn’t know that it’s not happening to us. Next time you feel like telling someone a bad story, be aware that you are polluting them.
As you can see, most of what we worry about is for nothing at all! We spend so much time dwelling on our problems that it becomes a habit to do so. Spend time focusing on what you want instead. Make your worries disappear to allow space to live a full life and direct your energy into what you want.