How to worry less

I’ve had a bit of a realisation about the mechanism of worry.

As some of you know, I’m moving continents in a couple of months.

The Move has been the source of lots of tears, worry, you know, ahngsht.

In my notes for a talk I’m planning about the not-freaking-out, there are three things it helps to be less certain about:

Conclusions

Intentions

Predictions

I’ve talked about the other two before.

The third, not so much.

I realised that all my anxiety was coming from predictions: we’re going to get stuck in England, we’re not going to make enough money to live, we’re going to need to get shitty jobs, I’m going to fight with my Mother-in-law, we’re going to be lonely….

Worry comes from predictions

Think about something you’re worried about.

What are you worried about?

See! Prediction.

Our worry comes, often, I reckon, from forgetting that predictions are just thoughts. We forget, especially because they come with such a punch, and then the more we think about them, the more we feel anxious.

And, yes, in theory we know there are other outcomes but what if the thing we are worried about does happen…

I think it may be a survival thing

Here’s my amateur evolutionary-pop-psychology explanation.

We have had to, as animals, take a small amount of data and rapidly extrapolate the future from it.

Sometimes that will have been in survival situations (Oooh, it’s running at ME) where presumably if it has evolutionary benefits, that’s where it got selected.

Other times in longer term situations (No rain, no crops… hmmm…)

That mechanism seems, at least in me, to be overactive, extremely sensitive.

It takes a tiny amount of data, a look, a word in an email, even just a thought, and it extrapolates a painful future, often so invisibly that I don’t realise the process has happens.

Bang – lost performative.

I really really realised this this week when I was thinking about The Move.

I finally remembered to do Find Five on it.

1. One great outcome.

2. One kind of good outcome.

3. One kind of bad outcome.

4. One disastrous outcome.

5. One just-left-field-out-there outcome.

(It seems to work well if all of them are possible from your perspective, but not necessarily probable.)

Suddenly, I realised that, er, I’m not omniscient, the future hasn’t happened yet, and maybe I can be a bit humble and open to possibilities.

Two things please-please:

1) This is not positive thinking. That would mean just. focusing. on. the. best. outcome. It seems to me that that kind of thing is motivated by fear, and grasping, and not a little self-delusion, plus guilt if you dare to think a ‘bad’ thought. Find Five is about possibilities, about reminding your consciousness that anything apart from what you can see and hear and touch and sense is a thought or a feeling. Being less certain can be a key to peace.

2) I’m not saying don’t plan. Duh. Of course you’re going to think through contingencies, and make some kind of plans for them. At times, anyway. What I’m saying is if you can remember they are just finger-in-the-wind puh-and-it-blows-away thoughts, you might have less stress in the present moment.

Short version: being less certain about your predictions can free you from unnecessary worry.

***
Comments comments comments – comments are my favourite! Got one?

You know the comments-drill: only half-baked thoughts allowed in the comments, dogma/advice no thank you!

If you liked this, you might like some of these too...

Recognising emotions as emotions

What if anger isn’t anger

Freakus Interruptus Tool Numero Uno