How can we possibly get rid of our worries?
Worrying is a very common thing, and depending on our personality we can be more or less of a worrier, but most people do worry about many different things, whether they admit it or not.
Our worries can be big or small, and they can take up some of our time and attention or they can take up a lot of it. People worry about things like not having enough money to pay bills, getting sick, their kids not doing well in school, loosing their jobs, etc… There are a million things we can worry about on a daily basis.
But worrying is always about our mind projecting into the future, imagining things, it always involves fear of the future, fear of being in a place or a situation that we consider negative, scary. But if we look closely at the things we worry about, in many cases they are unrealistic projections that may never happen. Or even if they are realistic, we often blow them out of proportion.
“I have been through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.”
Mark Twain
Indeed, our minds are so incredibly powerful, that their projections can make us experience tremendous fear that can take us away from what is real, from what we have, from the people we love, from the good things around us… If our mind is consumed in fear and anxiety, we are NOT present, we are not living fully and we are missing important things.
So, the key to stop worrying is to learn to quiet our mind, so that eventually we can successfully shut it off when it starts going into all sorts of negative projections; and come back to the present, to what is real, to what we need to deal with.
This became really true for me, about a month ago, when I suffered from a heart attack. I feel God gave me the opportunity to see what I have really learned, because it is easy to stay calm when things are going well in our lives, but when things get rocky, that is when we really know how far we have come.
After all these years of working on my fears, meditating, doing yoga, trying to quiet my mind, be present, live in the moment, etc. I was suddenly in a situation of great fear: fear for my health, for my life, for my kids, for the future, etc…
As I was in the hospital, dealing with all the unpleasant tests and waiting for the Doctors to come to a diagnosis, I realized that I could easily sunk into deep fear and anxiety, or simply BE, deal with the moment, without projecting anything in the future. I noticed for example that as soon as I started thinking of my small children, I would start crying and feeling totally powerless and scared, so, as soon as their little faces or voices came to my mind, I just banished the thought and immediately I felt calmer.
Also, I had always been incredibly afraid of needles, and any sort of intrusive medical procedures, so when they told me they were going to do a cardiac cath, I felt my stomach contracting, I felt totally anxious, but again, I was able to shut off my fear inducing thoughts and just BE in the moment, calm.
As I was recently reading about what happened to me, called a SCAD (Spontaneous Coronary Artery Dissection), which is a very rare type of heart attack, for which medicine has no answers yet, Doctors have no idea what causes it, how it can be prevented and if it could happen again. I realized I could worry about this all my life, wondering if it could happen again, or, I could just live my life, at peace, since nobody knows what can happen tomorrow, what is the point of worrying after all… So, I stopped reading about it, thinking about it, and I was able to let go of that worry.
Thanks to this experience, I have realized that all these years of personal work have paid off, I am gaining some control of my mind, at least now I know for a fact that our worries are nothing but the workings of our mind projections, AND we can control our minds. If I can do it, anybody can do it!
Of course, we cannot suddenly shut off our thoughts, but the first step is to realize that our thoughts are responsible for most of our fear and worries, and that our mind projections are not real, they are just projections and, we can learn to control our minds. Realizing this is huge!
The next step, for which we really need commitment, is to learn how to quiet our minds, how to clean our minds from the incessant stream of thought and external stimulation, so that in time our thoughts are less controlling, sparse and healthier.
One of my favorite authors: Eckart Tolle says that the longer the time between a perception and a thought the greater the presence, in other words, if our minds do not start thinking immediately about what our senses perceive, but we just experience the perception without any thoughts about it (judgment, labeling, projecting) the more we are present, and presence is real, it is all there is!
So, if you are a serious worrier, stop justifying your worries, instead, consider accepting the fact that you make up the projections that feed your fear, and you can get rid of them if you make some shifts in your life by changing your perception and working on quieting your mind. It takes conviction and commitment, but it is possible, it will transform your life for the better, and, it is never too late to start!
Have a good week!
Related posts:
Fear: the source of all negativity
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