Worrying: The Mental Trap That Steals Your Peace

This talk on worry takes a look at how we all seem to know how to worry but we seldom take a look at the process and what it includes. We explore how we can release the act of worrying and replace it with peace and a trust in ourselves.

Transcript

Hello,

My name's Kiran and I'm an artist,

Writer and creative mentor.

And in today's talk,

I wanted to discuss the topic of worrying.

And an interesting perspective in worrying is that we all know how to do it.

We all have a guide and a manual in knowing how to do it,

But that's not something we really focus on.

We delve into worrying,

But we never really take a look at the fact that we've learned how to do it.

So if I was to ask you,

How do I worry?

If I was an alien put upon this planet and I'd never known the concept of worrying,

How would you guide me into making sure I was doing the worry thing correctly?

And it would go along the lines of,

Think of a topic that you're invested in,

Or someone that you love and care about,

Or a situation where you want a specific outcome.

Now think of the worst case scenarios.

Think of everything that could go wrong.

Think of all these horrible conversations that might take place with somebody.

Imagine all the ways you could circumvent,

Try to stop it from happening.

Put it on a loop and replay everything over and over and over again.

Pretend you're so powerful,

All powerful,

All seeing that you can predict the future.

You can predict other people's thoughts and processes.

You can predict what they're going to do,

And you can prevent that all from happening just by sitting down in a chair and thinking about these areas and topics over and over again.

And somehow you feel like everything you are thinking is the truth and predictive in nature.

They're some of the insights you'd give to somebody to say,

This is how I worry.

These are the guidelines to follow.

Follow them and you can guarantee that you'll be worrying in the right way.

And we all have our own flavors of worry.

We might worry visually with scary images that we feed ourselves.

We might worry by overthinking topics.

We might have imagined conversations with people if we're worried about something coming up,

A meeting or an interview.

We all have our own flavor of worrying,

But the guidelines tend to be quite similar.

There's always a repetition involved.

There's always a looped circle of thinking.

There's always a worst case catastrophic style of thinking.

It's always in the negative,

Never in the positive.

And it's got a cynical view point.

And also underneath it,

There's a sense of being responsible.

We think we're being responsible.

We think we're being adults by thinking of all the possible outcomes and then doing something about them mentally so as to prepare ourselves if they ever did occur,

Which they very rarely do in the way we think they're going to.

Life has a way of giving us curve balls and blindsiding us.

So in the end,

We always end up in predicaments where we have to think on our feet.

And with worrying,

We tend to ignore the fact that we are created to think on our feet,

We're creative beings,

That in the moment we're in,

All our life experiences can show up and guide us into responding in the most effective way to anything that shows up in our lives,

But we think less of ourselves.

We don't give ourselves that credit.

We don't trust ourselves enough.

So we steer towards worrying as a form of being cautious,

Keeping ourselves safe and thinking it's the responsible thing to do without taking into account that we have got through life up until now and we managed to get through life every single day,

No matter what shows up in our day,

We make it through and we're ignoring our aptitude for being responsive in the moment,

For having the knowledge we need to have in the moment and for doing the best that we know how to do in that moment.

So I think one thing we can do for ourselves if we are prone to worrying or if we delve into a lot of worrisome thinking is to stay present in the moment and when a worrying thought occurs to you,

Know that you can choose to put all your attention on it and then grow it almost like a plant,

Or you can choose peace.

You can stay present in this moment and trust that when any eventuality occurs in your actual experience,

Not your imagined experience,

Your actual experience,

That you'll respond appropriately at the time it happens,

But not a minute before because a minute before it hasn't occurred.

We are not by nature predictors.

We are not fortune tellers,

But we are really great at responding to life as it happens because that's what we were built to do.

We were built to respond to life as it occurs.

I kind of think of worry as a complete waste of time and energy.

It's a waste of your resources and it's ignoring the fact that you're creatively skilled to deal with problems and that the perspective of knowing and having the confidence to know that you can deal with anything that arises is where your power lies.

Your power does not lie in imagining scenarios that haven't occurred and trying to think of all the different solutions that you could have in your arsenal of ways of dealing with those occurrences if they were ever to happen.

If you could understand that it's just not a good use of your resources,

You don't have a good time doing it.

It's not an enjoyable experience.

It takes you away from the moment.

It takes you out of yourself.

It doesn't really believe in you and that you can deal with a situation when it arises when you very well can and you have up until now.

So you want to look for all the evidence you can in where you've shown up in life,

Where life has shown you something that you didn't expect and that you still responded effectively.

And you can choose in each moment when a worrisome thought appears to drop it like a hot coal and not pay any attention.

And if you are paying attention,

Then be aware that's what you're doing,

That you're putting that focus onto an imagined thought and you're cultivating it and growing it into a snowballing problem.

Because have you noticed when you think about a problem,

It never gets smaller.

There's never a solution found.

It loops and it just becomes bigger and bigger and bigger and it robs you of your peace and it robs you of this moment.

So the next time a worrisome thought comes around,

Decide to ignore it and choose your own peace instead and know that you can trust yourself,

That whatever shows up in life,

You'll respond in the best possible way you know how.

I hope you enjoyed this talk.

And if you'd like to hear more like this,

I have a course titled Breaking Free from Worry,

Transforming Anxiety into Clarity and Calm on the app too.

Reviews

Excellent talk!!

i love listening to your beautiful, soothing wisdom!
❤️🙏

Love this perspective!
Thank you 🙏🏻
I shall try to drop it like a hot call. I love that analogy.

I liked what you said about giving an alien a guidebook how to worry. Hit home for me. 🙏🏻

As a chronic worrier, I love the change in perspective this talk offers: When I slip into worry mode, I am distrusting and showing a lack of belief in myself. If I am not 'for me', who is?! You've given me so much to think about here. Thank you 🙏

Very beautifully said. Something to listen to over and over again 🙏