Fourteen: The Usefulness of Worry

The erroneous beliefs we have about the usefulness of worry keeps us willing to indulge in self-torment.  Many people think that constant worry is beneficial.  We think worrying must help us prepare for the worst, motivates us, and helps us analyze our problems.  We believe worrying must help us avoid negative outcomes, and promote positive ones. 

Believing these myths about worry is like believing in the usefulness of superstition.  There is no truth to it.  Worry does more harm than good.

However, people cling to the fruitless practice of worry as if bad things will happen if they don’t do it.  The fact is, our minds cannot problem solve effectively because we are using up mental resources needed to think clearly.  Continuous, long term worry can become a period of depression.  Dr. Burns in Feeling Good, his book about cognitive therapy states,

“During periods of depression you lose some of your capacity for clear thinking; you have trouble putting things into proper perspective.    Negative events grow in importance until they dominate your entire reality – and you can’t really tell that what is happening is distorted.  It all seems very real to you.  The illusion of hell you create is very convincing.”

Worry is an attempt to suppress fear.  But, the effort and thought that go into worry delays us from doing what we are supposed to be doing – processing emotion.  Emotion is processed by using logical thinking to understand it.  Feeling some emotional pain is normal and necessary, but remaining in that state is not.  Excessive, generalized worrying can become the norm in your everyday thinking.   The sensation of hypervigilance, feeling always on the ready for trouble makes you into a nervous wreck.

Another seldom-admitted reason to engage in worry is, it feels good.  It’s like over-eating.  As you do it you are enjoying yourself.   Then later, you have regrets.  Worrying is a self-indulgence.  Some may even argue that it is a twisted form of self-love because you feel you are standing up for yourself against your spouse, your friends, your acquaintances, the world.  The down side is you are making your mental habitat a darker, colder, more fearsome place than it needs to be. 

One way to stop this practice is to ask yourself if you would want your own child to feel this way.  Imagine the mind-set you would want your child to have, day-to-day, moment-to-moment.  You would want him or her to be resilient, and unburdened, and hopeful, and joyous.  These feelings cannot prevail when constant worry is going on. 

Don’t you want this for yourself?  Don’t you deserve to focus on positive events, interesting ideas, things you want to do, and cultivating relationships with people who belong in your life?  Try to think of yourself as your own child the next time you indulge in negative thinking.  You have the power to enjoy your life.

As we think, so it shall be.

Happiness