Be Worry Free!

Worry- the definitions itself says quite a lot:

Verb -To torment oneself with or suffer from disturbing thoughts
        -Give way to anxiety or unease; allow one's mind to dwell on difficulty or troubles
Noun -A cause of uneasiness or anxiety; trouble.
         -A State of anxiety and uncertainty over actual or potential problems

That's right, we torment ourselves with disturbing thoughts. We lead the way to our own negativity, uneasiness, and anxiety. We continue to dwell on our "troubles"- allowing ourselves to suffer. We also let the uncertainty of events, emotions, and thoughts overwhelm us- regardless of the problems being actual or potential.

"If I had to live my life over, I would perhaps have more actual troubles but I'd have fewer imaginary ones." - Don Herold

Worrying is something we all tend to do far too often. Sometimes, worrying can even lead to positive results. In most cases however, we end up investing negative emotions and thoughts into circumstances and events, and it eventually leads to negative outcomes.

We hope to change and control our future, but our negative thinking and emotions can too often cloud our judgement and blind us- leading to undesired outcomes. The outcome of these events then conditions us to be even more negative, and it seems to become a repetitive cycle. Those who break the cycle are those who break their worries. But naturally, most of us require a lot of time and experience to figure this out- most of us have to learn it the hard way.

Fortunately, our world is filled with wisdom provided by those who have amassed and solved worries in their time. These teachers have built systems that are now time-tested techniques. They shared them for a reason- and we ought to look at some of these seemingly simple, yet amazing techniques.

The techniques below were taken from Dale Carnegie’s “How to Stop Worrying and Start Living.”

Willis Carrier, the man had who invented the modern day air conditioning and the Carriers Corporation, used an anti-stress technique for decades:

“Step 1- What is the worst that could happen? Analyze the situations without fear and with all honesty. Figure out what was the worst that could happen as a result of failure.”

Acceptance

“Acceptance simply means acknowledging reality as it is right now. When we accept something, we are simply acknowledging that it exists. We don’t judge it as good or bad, pleasant or unpleasant, desirable or undesirable; we simply acknowledge it as being present.” – Greg Dorter (Psychotherapist)

Acceptance is an important concept in several religions and psychology, in which both suggest that a path of acceptance to be taken in a situation of dissent. Often, these situations are negative, uncomfortable, out of our control, unchangeable, or can only be changed at the cost of great risk or sacrifice.

Acceptance is prominent in Buddhist teachings, and Christianity tends to characterize acceptance as forgiveness.

Many times throughout my life, I’ve had difficulty accepting things as they are. I didn’t like the situation, I wished it could be different, and I was unhappy with the result. But I’ve come to realize that the origin of our unhappiness comes not from our desire for change, but rather our perceptual language (Search: Green Psychology Perceptual Language). Our perceptual language allows ourselves to live in the present moment, reminding us that we make meaning of all that we experience, and that we possess the power of this choice.  The origin of my unhappiness came from my choice to not accept that the negative and uncomfortable situations were out of my control. In most cases, even if such a situation was changeable, my own cost-benefit analysis certainly did not look healthy. I certain did not want to be vulnerable and I desired to be in control.

“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” - Shakespeare