What percentage of the time do worries occupy your mind?
Imagine your mind being a living room where you invite visitors in or out. When worry is constant in your life, it is like an uninvited, disturbing guest sitting in your living room distracting you all day long. Who do you really want to be there – worry or another guest? How long do you want worry to be in your house?
Why not make friends with worry and invite it in at the time of your choosing. Set an appointment with worry like you do with other responsibilities. Have a meeting with it and agree on action steps to move forward.
Controlling when you worry lessens its power. You may even find when the appointment time comes that you don’t have much to think about.
Here are a couple more tips.
• Look from the outside – Look at your mind like it’s a living room and see who is spending time there. Build an awareness of the frequent visitors.
• Go through your guest list – Now that you know who is frequent visitor, consider who you really want to be on your guest list. Consider how you make more room for them.
Real-time experiment: Pick a worry that is currently on your mind and make a set appointment to meet with it in the next hour. Wait to think about it until that time comes. Observe what happens.
If it works this time, can you do it again? Can you extend the time out farther to another day? Play with it. Enjoy your power over worry.
How can you celebrate building a new relationship with worry?
