The Antidote to Worry
/I was halfway through a walk at the park when I looked up an noticed dark clouds above my head.
If this was a few years ago, I would have immediately felt a jolt of anxiety. There have been many times in the past where I'd let dark clouds scare me into quickening my pace and spiraling my thoughts into the cul-de-sacs of concern. As a former dog owner, I'm sad to say that at times I would even let light grey clouds deter me from going on a walk at all.
But this time, instead of jumping on the worry train, I noticed that my normal worry patterns weren't happening at all.
Sure, I had the conscious thought that rain might happen. But I've been training my brain to work with worry instead of work against it.
Whenever I start to sense worry coming on, I shift my focus to this question:
What is the worst thing that could happen?
Then, I let myself play out the scenario, considering what I'd do in response to the worst thing that could happen.
In this case, I let myself imagine it starting to rain. I saw myself putting my ear buds away and maybe walking a bit faster, running if it got real bad. I envisioned myself returning to the car soaking wet and grabbing the towel I knew I had in there and then driving home. I'd then change my clothes and would be just fine.
Then I asked myself if it could get worse.
Maybe I'd get so wet that it would ruin my phone in my pocket. So I'd get it replaced. What if it got so wet and slippery that I fell in the mud? Once again, I'd still get myself home and clean myself up.
I let myself exhaust all the possibilities for how bad it could get and found something incredible.
Even in my worst-case scenarios, they really weren't that bad.
What's more is that when I really thought about the likelihood of any of them happening the chances were pretty low.
Letting myself run through all this in my head helped me to quell the waves of worry that were attempting to pop up. Plus, I already had a game plan for what I'd do should anything bad occur so I felt more prepared.
When most of us worry, we tend to let it remain in the abstract, fearful of what could happen without actually considering the details of how bad it could get AND what we would do to handle it. In most scenarios, our fear is greater than the reality of what could happen.
By actually letting yourself wonder about what exactly could go wrong, what you would do to handle it, and the actual possibility that it will occur at all, you start to gain power over your emotions instead of letting them rule you and your experience.
So on my walk under the dark grey clouds here's what actually happened:
During the last quarter mile, I did start to feel a few drops. Instead of letting that spark the thoughts of "oh here we go, it's about to go down!" I let myself notice the sensation of the drops on my body. On their own, they felt quite nice.
The rain never got any heavier than that.
What's even cooler is that when I was ending the walk I passed by three newly planted trees on the path that I had seen when I first started out. I realized that what I was fearing (the rain) would actually be quite a blessing for these trees who will need some extra water.
So sometimes, what we are afraid of happening is actually exactly what something else needs.
It reminded me that I'm here to share the world with other living things. If what the new trees need means me getting a little wet on my walk, I'm not only okay with that, I'm happy to walk in the rain.
Your turn:
What’s something that you tend to worry about?
What is the worst-case scenario for that worry? What would do you about it if it actually happened?
