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Can worrying about something actually help to prevent it?

One of my very favorite books is The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker.

Simply put, it is brilliant and instructive and intuitive.

The book starts with a horrendous story….PLEASE don’t stop reading there. Keep on reading, I promise it will be worth it.

de Becker talks about why real FEAR is good for us and explains that most people mistake worry for fear.

Worry is, in his words, “A way to avoid change, when we worry we feel justified to NOT take action, a way to avoid feeling powerless over something, when we worry we feel like we are doing something, a cloying way to have connection with others, it is a poor substitute for love or taking loving action, a protection against future action.”

He goes on to say that Daniel Goleman in Emotional Intelligence says that “worrying is a sort of magical amulet that some people feel wards off danger. People believe that worrying about something will cause it to not happen.”

Further, de Becker says, “The relationship between fear and worry is analogous to the relationship between pain and suffering. Pain and fear are necessary components of life. Suffering and worry are destructive and unnecessary components of life.”

What do these words mean to you?

Is there a thing or a person that you worry about a lot?

I hear people voicing worry that their child is divorced or not married or with the wrong partner or not having a partner at all.

How does this worry help the child?

Is it not more stressful for the child to have to hear the parents worry?

I urge you to buy the book, The Gift of Fear and give yourself the gift of never choosing worry again.

Choose instead to take a certain action that will help the challenging situation.

Choosing to constantly worry makes your life miserable and dumps all kinds of stress hormones in your blood stream. You are in effect simply poisoning yourself.

If you are being abused, what positive action can you take today instead of worrying when the next time is that the abuser will strike?

My wish for you is that you throw out worry with the garbage and begin to implement a system of positive actions in response to your life challenges.

Don’t worry, take action.
Love and light,

Indrani