Ignore Worry – It Will Go Away

Undoubtedly, we, as normal crazy adults, are built to worry – it appears to be an integral part of our hard-wiring. And, if we can’t find something to worry about, we’ll invent it. I once had a client, who should have known better, telephone me to tell me that he was having sleepless and that he was becoming increasingly worried. When I asked what he was actually worried about, he replied “I’m worried because I’ve nothing to worry about! You know how something this good cannot last!” Another extraordinarily focused client who, like a lot of business people, is finding times slightly challenging at present, told me recently that not only is his wife an inveterate worrier, she tries to drag him into her drama too. “She asked me last night if I was worried. I told her that I wasn’t, that, in reality, we’ve nothing to worry about and that business is picking up. An hour later, over a glass of wine, she said to me ‘I know you, you can’t fool me, I know you’re worried!’”

What’s worry all about? Well, worry is nothing more than the product of the over-active imagination of the normal mind which, research indicates, is predisposed to dwelling on negative thoughts. It is one of the key ways in which the conscious mind wiles away the day – while we’re actually supposed to be doing the productive things that will take us to where we want to go in life (assuming that we want to go anywhere exciting, given our propensity to think the worst!). Worse than that, worry pours our precious mental energy into what we don’t want to happen. And, on the basis that this energetic universe of ours is responsive to where we invest our energy, we’re actually actively working to undermine ourselves. That is what worry is all about.

But that’s not the worst. When it comes to worry, the biggest crime is that we have actually lost that all-important resource that we most need to get on with bettering ourselves in life – our own vital energy. As we’ve already said, worry misdirects our energy. But, worst of all, this diversion means that we don’t have enough energy to even do what we’re supposed to be actually doing in the here and now. In fact, psychology reckons that, when it comes to doing what we’re supposed to be doing right here, right now, we’ve only got about 1% of our mental energy available to us. This is seriously self-damaging because, based on the fact that our universe is, indeed, as responsive as I’ve already said, we’re going to get little out of life if we put so little into actually living it.

Worry is simply an extreme and toxic form of useless thought. Unfortunately, the normal crazy adult mind is plagued by useless thoughts. Many of these whizz past – we’re blissfully (clearly not the right word!) unaware of them. Many more are simply distractive: “Did I remember to turn off the grill before I left home this morning?” But worry is actually self-destructive – we’re destroying our own happiness.

And you will not stop worry by fighting it. Like trying to give up cigarettes (the more you think about not having one, the more you want one), the more you fight worry, the more it will plague you. Instead, you have to stop worry by ignoring it. Ignore it and it will go away! After all, what were you worrying about this day last year – I bet you that you can’t remember! How do you ignore the bad habit of a normal crazy adult lifetime? Throw yourself headlong into the here and now. Come to your senses. Using your five senses to fully experience whatever you’re doing, engross yourself. Start by training yourself to come to your senses – seriously, every day find or make time to spend a few minutes simply seeing, feeling, hearing, smelling and tasting what is actually happening, not, as you would otherwise inevitably do, look at what’s going on against a backdrop of gloom, doom and impending disaster. The actual disaster is only what’s going on in the mind of the worrier. You’ve got to train yourself to realise what’s real – in doing so, you will realise that worry is unreal.

Now is the only time and place in which you can live. Worry is about some other time, some other place. Worry is akin to simply throwing your life away. And, you know what? If you actually do throw yourself wholeheartedly into what you’re actually supposed to be doing now, you might even find that you’ll do it all the better.