Worry has long been a companion in my life. Worry, I imagine accompanies many people day-to-day. The reason for its existence are variable. In my story, I believe it is an emotion that has locked itself into my psyche as a form of self-preservation.
Bad childhood experiences caused worry to breed and manifest, employing itself as my brains form of defence. If I worry, then I am prepared for the inevitable bad things that will happen. That is the only kind of logic I can make of my overactive brain.
The feeling of worry however, is like a bike with stabilizers. Whilst offering us a safety net, it hinders the feeling of complete blissful freedom. Worry puts limits on our capacity to live and love to the fullest. Fretting about tomorrow hinders our ability to enjoy today.
I fret about everything. I fear that bad things could happen to my family and friends. I worry about disappointing people and how my worrying today is going to affect my ability to be happy in the future. Yes, I even worry about worry.
Waking one day I realised how inefficient these thoughts are on my ability to live the best life. The debilitating wasteful feeling had ebbed its way so much into my thoughts, that I simply had no space for productiveness. Constant worrying is exhausting.
Cognitive therapy is a concept that is arousing my interest. Although this interest is in the fledgling stages, my basic understanding of this practice is motivating. CT is the idea of changing one’s train of thought. In its simplest form, the idea is that you can think yourself happy. The therapy involves identifying and eliminating dysfunctional thought processes. Thus in this particular context, the idea is to recognise when worry is irrational and make internal steps to divert from this wasteful thinking.
Worrying about tomorrow takes away your happiness today. We worry about the future. What is the point of the future if we are unhappy today? An amazing thing happened when I decided that I was going to try to be happy this minute, this second, right now. I felt at peace. I learned that worry is a malaise on the brain. There is no such thing as failure as it is never too late to change. So free your mind. It really is that simple.
Image VIA stylemagazine.com.au
