How to stop worry-wasting your time
‘Don’t worry, be happy’. A song lyric that means well, but in reality, how often do you find your mind ruminating over worries and worst-case scenarios?
Back in 1999, as a 14-year-old, I sat on the floor in my room trying to scribble down lyrics to the song ‘Sunscreen’ as it played on the radio. It took quite a different tact!
‘Don’t worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubblegum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you at 4pm on some idle Tuesday’
As a child I was full of worry having lived through one of my own worst-case scenarios – losing a sibling. These song lyrics were a mantra I held on to, but found it challenging to live-out. As an adult, and a psychotherapist, I remain deeply, both personally and professionally aware of the headspace that worry and anxiety consume. I know so well how worry can taint otherwise wonderful experiences, catch us restless in the dark night whilst those around us sleep, and find us living much of life from a braced position.
In the therapy room, anxiety and worry are one of my favourite things to work with, because the right support, tools and insights can be visibly transformative for my client’s lives. I observe people unfurl and reclaim time, energy, headspace and joyful experiences as they find a way to calm anxiety.
We know that worrying is unproductive, yet why does it feel so hard to stop? We want to be more present in our own lives, but why do we find our minds wondering to those worst-case scenarios? I’m going to answer those questions and give you three ways to stop worry-wasting your time!
Why do we worry so much?
Because stories are everywhere. With the digital world at our finger-tips, we only have to scroll for a moment to come across a sad news story that finds our hearts lurching and our minds whirring. We have more knowledge than ever before, and no medical symptom need go un-researched. Sure, knowledge can be power, unless we’re overwhelmed by it, in which case it can act as fuel for the fire of our fears, alerting us to all the potential things that are going wrong for others and could go wrong for us too.
Because bad things HAVE happened. When we’ve lived through tough times, or traumas, or seen the themes of our nightmares lived out in our own lives, it weakens the argument of ‘it will probably never happen’. We can find ourselves seeking reassurance, feeling like the child who just needs to be promised that ‘everything will be okay’, when we know deep down, that once, it wasn’t. So how can anyone promise us?
Because we’re told we can control pretty much everything. We can wear watches that tell us when to stand, and what our heart-rate should be, we can place lights on our nightstands that tell us when and how to wake up. There are tools, apps, hacks and technology that claim to help us plan every element of our lives down to the nth degree. Whilst this can feel comforting in one way, I believe these things are lessening our ability to sit with the discomfort that much of life is out of our control.
In my book ’The Uncomfortable Truth: Change your life by taming ten of your minds greatest fears’, I list out ten of life’s uncomfortable truths, and argue that instead of ploughing so much energy into avoiding these truths, the best tact to take is to accept that they are…truths.
I believe that one way to lessen the worry that bad things happen, is to find a way to accept that very same thing – that bad things will happen! I believe that instead of expending energy on worrying about whether someone likes you or not, it’s far more powerful and liberating to accept that some people just won’t like you (and it’s often little to do with you at all!).
Here are the 10 uncomfortable truths:
1. Some people don’t like me
2. I am going to fail
3. I will hurt people I love
4. I can’t always be fully present
5. Life isn’t fair
6. I am not good enough
7. People misunderstand me
8. Bad things will happen
9. I will lose people I love
10. I am going to die
Quite a list, right? I wonder which ones your eyes zeroed in on, or which ones found your heart rate picking up. These truths are likely to be the themes of your nightmares, worries and anxieties. But imagine, for a moment, how different your life could look if you didn’t fear this list of truths?
Here are three tips to move you towards a little more comfort and acceptance of the first 3 of life’s uncomfortable truths:
1 - Some people don’t like me. Ask yourself this. If planning a holiday to France, would you trust an opinion or recommendation given by someone who had never set foot in the country itself? Of course you wouldn’t! You’d seek advice from someone who had visited, stayed in a great location, eaten around the town. Remember this next time you find yourself ruminating over someone’s judgement of you. If they don’t truly know you, does their assessment deserve to take up so much bandwidth in your mind?
2 – I am going to fail. If you are someone who fears failing at things, or you find that your inner critic goes haywire when something didn’t go as you hoped, then ask yourself whether your expectations were realistic. Remember, failing doesn’t mean that you are a failure, it just means that something didn’t work out as you’d hoped, either because your expectations were sky-high, something happened outside of your control, or because you’re a human who makes mistakes sometimes!
3 – I will hurt people I love. Oh the things we’ve swallowed down and the truths we haven’t told out of fear of hurting people. The thing is, that in avoiding honest (albeit sometimes difficult) conversations, we aren’t protecting our treasured relationships as much as we like to think – we’re welcoming an elephant in to the room! It is your responsibility to be authentic and to do it as kindly as you can, but you cannot control how someone chooses to respond to that honestly. A good relationship can withstand healthy boundaries and tricky conversations.
These truths feel big. And it can feel a little nerve-wracking to see them in black and white, but if you’re honest with yourself, they already take up a lot of real estate in your thoughts and dreams. So, instead of letting these truths be the fuel for your worries and ruminations, why not try to befriend them, become more familiar and accepting of them? Bad things will happen, you will fail, people won’t like you. These things are truths that none of us can escape, and the less mental space the fear consumes, the more space you’ll create for joy and authenticity.
Because, perhaps the way to deal with the elephant in the room of your mind isn’t to find another way to live around it, but to accept that it lives there, and befriend it! This approach is changing mine and my clients lives, and I believe it may change yours too.
The Uncomfortable Truth by Anna Mathur is out 8th August 2024 (Penguin Life, £16.99) Buy here
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