Meeting Your Worries With Kindness

Do you have a tendency to worry? Do your thoughts get caught in a negative feedback loop when you find yourself concerned about what will happen to you, or to people and events in your life whose future seems dangerously uncertain? 
   
When we worry, we unconsciously believe we’re doing something productive, when in fact, we’re just spinning our wheels. We believe that if we just keep working the angles, we’ll come up with a solution or at least be prepared if something wrong or bad happens. 

Postponing worrying to a later time can be temporarily effective because it provides a sense of control over troubling thoughts and gives us a structured context in which to determine whether our concerns are solvable and what measures can be taken.

​However, if we only use rational methods to deal with worry, we run the risk of being stuck “in our heads” and avoiding feelings of loss, fear or lack of safety that have been suppressed throughout our lives. When we’re willing to act from our hearts and hold a compassionate space for the feelings that need to be acknowledged and expressed, we can free up the life energy that’s been providing the power source for our worries. It may be a bit uncomfortable at first, to allow those painful feelings to be felt, but little by little we  gain our freedom and discover a deepening sense of peace. As that happens, more of our life energy can be infused into whatever constructive actions we might need to carry out in the present. And we can begin to replace worst-case scenarios with best-case scenarios in our minds so we can recognize the goodness and support that’s already available to us now.

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