Stressed Out

Understanding and managing worry provides an excellent starting point for “getting out of your own way”. Worry can be thought of as a barrier that blocks you from your best self. When you are in a state of intense worry, you have extremely limited “access” to things like intuition, knowledge, talent, peace, love, and appreciation. Instead, you have increased access to emotions that are more “compatible” with worry, such as anxiety, fear, and depression.

As an example, many people fear public speaking. Studies show that people fear this as much or more than death! Why do you think this is? I believe that the intense fear is triggered by worry. Once you start worrying about what others are thinking, fear and anxiety creep in. And if you are caught up in a rash of negative, fearful thoughts, it can be very difficult to perform. In essence, this fear blocks you from your knowledge and talent.

However, in the absence of these fears, you are not worried and once again have free access to your abilities. As another example, how often have you struggled to find the right words in the middle of a stressful argument, only to have those perfect words come easily to you after the argument has ended?

If you take a close look at worry, it’s simple to see that it serves no useful purpose. You will not change the outcome of anything by “worrying” about it. The only thing that worry will accomplish is to increase your suffering and to choke you off from your true self. Author and teacher, Leo Buscaglia, put it best when he said, “Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow, it only saps today of its joy.”

If you would like to learn more about worry as well as strategies for managing it, be sure to check out my e-book, “Kick the Worry Habit!”.