If you want to learn how to stop worrying please read on.

 

I write about what I know and what I have experienced. I do this because if I can turn my situation around, just about anyone can.

 

I am a recovering alcoholic, sober for 25 years. I had multiple problems to overcome to gain my sobriety. Worrying was one of those problems. My mother was a big worrier. She worried about everything and raised her children to be worriers, too.

 

I worried so much that it crippled me mentally and emotionally. I manufactured things in my mind to worry about, problems that had nothing to do with my reality. I discovered that this triggered my drinking.

 

I later learned that worrying is negative goal setting and by concentrating on negative goals, I was bringing those bad events into my reality. Once I understood this, I really wanted to change.

 

I knew that I had to stop worrying, but I did not know how to start. Does this sound like you? Let me share with you how I did it.

Do you ever worry about things that have happened to you in the past?

When we think about a past event we are concerned how this will play out in our future. The past is dead. The only thing you can bring with you from the past are lessons, but only if you are willing and open to learn and change.

 

If you stay stuck in the past, you miss your present life completely. You simply go through the motions of life, but you are not living. Let’s decide right now that since we can’t change the past you will not concentrate on it.

If you don’t worry about the past, do you worry about the present?

 Probably not. If we have a problem in the present moment we are usually actively dealing with it. If you are concerned about your present, ask yourself a few questions. Am I hungry, am I warm, do I have shelter, and am I in pain? If your answer to any of those questions is yes, your first actions should be to pursue a course to improve your situation. You must take care of yourself first. If your answers are appropriate, then all is well with you and you are free to deal with any outside issues.

 

If we don’t worry about the past and we are presently doing fine, then what do we worry about? The future?

 It is a time and space that is not promised to us. I found that the only way to stop worry about my future was to actively prepare for it in the present time and space. Spend your time working on the solution to the situation that could occur in your future.

 

An example: You have lost your job and not made a mortgage payment in two months. Any cash you have goes toward food and other needed items.   You are worried that you and your family will end up on the street. What happens three months from now if you worry and do absolutely nothing about your situation?

 

Yes, you and your family could end up on the street. Instead of worrying, spend your time working on a solution to your problem and this will not happen to you and your family.  Get moving, believe, if blindly and magic will begin to happen.

 

To stop worrying, spend your time working on a solution to the problem and even more importantly, think about how wonderful the solution will be. When you think about the solution, by all means feel really good about it. Get your emotions involved in the solution?

 

Take baby steps if you must. This is how you do that. The moment you catch yourself worrying-stop the worry thought and concentrate on the solution you want to occur for you. Think, visualize, picture the best outcome in your mind and feel great about it.

 

Hold that thought for as long as you can. Make it a picture show in your mind. You will enjoy your movie. After all you have a negative movie running when you worry.

We do not worry about the past or present; we only worry about the future. Only you can change your future.

 

You cannot have two emotions going at the same time. Worry and fear or joy and peace. You can worry or you can think positively about the best solution and feel good about it. You decide.

Finally, there as so many benefits to not worrying. Improved health, improved relationships, feeling peaceful, joyful and wonder at knowing that your future is without worry and in your control.

 

How great is that?

 

Albert Einstein: “Your imagination is your preview of life’s coming attraction.”