Okay, so what do you worry about?
Me, I mostly worry about my kids, or as I fondly call them, Thing #1 and Thing #2. If they’re careful at parties. If my son treats girls well. If my daughter is circumspect about boys. If they’ll ever get off the family payroll.
Which brings me to my next main worry: money. Especially when Thing #2 blows through the green stuff faster than the speed of light. When will they graduate and get JOBS, already???
If I have some time left over after obsessing about the above, rest assured that I’m quite creative and can find other things to worry about, like if my husband will keep me up with his snoring, or whether people see my muffin top through my new white blouse. The muffin top thing sets off a domino effect of a whole ‘nother set of worries that eventually and startlingly easily lead to worrying about my early demise and how I may potentially shock my loved ones when they hear Amazing Grace followed by Barry Manilow at my Jewish funeral. Which makes me worry about funeral costs and whether or not it makes more sense to just be cremated and have a party.
I find I can be quite busy all day just worrying. It’s exhausting, it doesn’t solve anything, and it doesn’t even burn any calories. Seriously???
This is why I am starting a worry-free cleanse.
Because, duh. And because:
Worrying is a tempting addiction. Indulging in worry is like an alcoholic convincing themselves they can handle just one drink. Allow one little anxious moment to stand unchallenged, and before you know it, you’ve chugged the red plastic cup of worry and are now sucking worry straight from the bottle. Like an alcoholic, you may not even recognize how worry is interfering with the quality of your life. And, by the way, you look like hell.
Worrying is not the same as caring. We think that if we worry, it means that we care. What parent hasn’t, for example, worried when their child drives away from home the very first time after getting his/her driver’s license? While some of us can allow a stray fear to cross our minds and then get on with our day, chronic worriers are like binge eaters, going from nibbling on the worry over a minor fender-bender to gorging on visions of blind driveways and skid marks and emergency lights flashing in the rain. There’s a certain cover-your-ass mentality about it, isn’t there? As long as I worry, I won’t be the one who let the team down!
Worrying does absolutely nothing productive and doesn’t magically keep anyone safe. Nothing can prepare you for when something bad happens, whether it’s an everyday disappointment like not getting a job you thought you had a lock on, or something more serious, like your head suddenly coming off. Instead of allowing your mind to gambol down the destructive path of worry, trust that you can and will handle whatever comes your way. Well. Except maybe your head falling off. That’s probably pretty unfixable.
Worry distracts us from what’s truly important. When we’re obsessed with what happened yesterday or, more likely, with what MIGHT happen at some point in the future, we can’t be present with ourselves or anyone else, for that matter. That means we won’t have the time or attention to make progress on getting anything we actually want. More importantly, worry sucks the joy out of anything and everything in its path, including you.
What would you do if you were no longer allowed to worry?
Want to join me on my worry-free cleanse? Private message me on Facebook to be invited to the Worry-Free Cleanse group.
