No Worries! (From letter to Beth, July 30 ‘06 )
The advice in this was written in response to Beth finding her mother not very well at her home in Eastbourne.
I’ve always found the best way to a state of “no worries” is to push through them, tell them to go away, come out the other side and on to something more positive. Maybe I’ve been doing my brand of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) all my life. However, lately when disappointed or worried I just tell myself this is a necessary part of a person’s being and living, in this case me, in order really to feel the better times better. Life is ups and downs. It wouldn’t be nearly so good if it weren’t down at times to give us the contrasts.
Some folks choose spiritual paths to solve problems. I think such for me would be more stressful than palliative. The path to nirvana can be bumpy and twisty. I prefer not to bother too much about my inner workings or following something (Call it blissful ignoring) preferring a good dose of suppression – nearly 60 years now and life’s OK, still sane, still active, still joking, still enjoying a glass.
So it’s a trick to give worrying an opposite force, or turn to something more positive. The mind can do this with practice. Have you ever found you’re worrying about something, not quite sure what? I think those worries are sometimes called ruminations. Then suddenly you’ve forgotten what it was, and tried to recall it, but when you do, it has lost some of its intensity. I wonder what that process is, must consult Madame Google. Perhaps it’s rumination removal. Anyway, it’s powerful. Maybe it’s important to have a worry, forget it for a bit, then exhume it, trying to recall it. Would this be better than not having any worries, I wonder? As I said, I think worry is necessary at times. It’s good to welcome a wee bit of the problematic in life. “Come on in, what have you got for me today to deal with? Oh, you again! I’ve seen you before, I know what you’re up to.”
It reminds me of what Annie Besant, the theosophist and women’s rights activist, wrote in the early 20th century. She believed that our negative thoughts could be turned by using the same mental pathways that they occupy. It sounds plausible but I imagine it takes practice, possibly the opposite of what I’ve been saying to tell the negativity or worry to be gone. Whatever your treatment, worry is mind-created. The same mind creates or attaches to ways to deal with it. The ways can become obsessive. It’s all a bit of a worry really!
Have a look at any of the CBT sites I tried. There are loads of them! I don’t think there’s a need for the difficulty of following someone’s advice and all the pitfalls involved with that. In our cases we can just use our pretty strong nervous systems to help our minds turn to more positive channels.
OK, I’d better stop now. Otherwise we’ll both start questioning me banging on about worrying so much. Then we’ll really have something to worry about!
Worry July 27 ‘06
I woke this morning, Thursday, July 27 at 5.00, a tad too early to do much about it. It wasn’t the heat, but may have been the sun yesterday
because I was out in it a fair bit. However, there was worry, too. Beth would be on her way to New Plymouth, maybe with an hour to arrival.
I won’t go into all the daft fears and worries, but this kind of thing that I get from time to time goes far back. As a child I used to worry about mum
going away and not coming back. It was a terrible thing for me. I do hope
that it’s not a general worry for children, especially ones with siblings.
Controlled by Externals June 8 ‘06
Jonathan said on the phone tonight how he hates being controlled by external forces. He’s lost his Tokyo online work and what to do next is worrying him.
I got to thinking maybe there are few people who have the luxury of saying don’t like being out of control of their life because normal to most people is not being in control. I know I can get upset when things go wrong or awry, usually if there’s some change to what I’d planned. I wonder if most people live with everything being not quite right then they have the pleasure in comparison of feeling great when there’s a “winner”. Maybe we’re too used to a state of being just fine, and find it hard to take a knock, an upset to our nice little condition. I think I’ll run with that view.
Worry Mar. 30 ‘06
We worry about what we’ve got and what we do; we worry about where we’re going and what we’re leaving; we get concerned about what we’ve done and what we should do. For a good life, the least of our worries should be all these things that we worry about. Just practise pushing them aside.