Excess stress often leads to a greater worries.
But why is that? Especially since so many illnesses and problems in general are triggered by stress? Is it possible to live a life without worry?
Well in a way yes, but how? That may be your next question especially if you are very experienced in the area of worry and a life of excess stress.
Okay since this is supposed to be a “how to” type article I am going to tell you okay? (Now we can all say Yeah!! )
Okay, so here is what was told to me by my husband (who is pretty smart by the way). He recieved this information from someone else. and I have since heard other versions of what I am about to tell you.
So are you ready? You really do want to stop being overly stressed and worried, wearing down your body mind and immune system right?
Well I hope that is why your thinking of reading this.
So here it goes, what you do according to the one who told my husband, who later told me is go get yourself a pen and paper, (in this modern age you could also pull up a word processor or something instead, it is actually faster to type sometimes, plus you can rearrange the words, highlight and change the fonts and colours fairly easy, saves much time and paper.)
Okay so have you now got your pen, and paper, or pencil and paper or chalk and chalk board, or better yet your word processor pulled up? If your really feeling creative you could get some of that big sidewalk chalk and make your list out in your driveway, provided that your driveway is paved of course.
Now we are all ready and set right? You didn’t think I was leaving you did you? Were you worried I would not get to the point soon enough? Tell the truth we are all ears now?
Okay, that will be the first thing for you to write down on the side of your page about things your worried about or have been recently worried about. (I did tell you to make two columns right? Well no worries, if I didn’t I am telling you now. so get a marker so you got a good divide down the center of your page.
Now that was not so bad was it?
Moving on now. We are going to label your columns, you did know that is why I said to make two columns right? You don’t want to forget what goes where on your list right?
Now on one side of the page your to write this heading “My Worries” or “What I Worry about Most” now start writing these down, write down all your worries. Are you worried about not having a place to live? Worried about not having the bill money, worried about your child dying, or your spouse or your best friend. worried about the economy, the price of gas, the color of your skin,hair, nails, house, car, how much you weigh, whether your getting a job today or never, whether or not you’ll be on the news tomorrow because a metorite fell out of the sky and landed on you, maybe your worried that you will go insane because of mounting debts, maybe your worried you’ll decide to go rob a band and get caught, or maybe not get caught, and have to try to figure out where to tell anyone the money came from that your spending. Now wouldn’t that be a funny one.
Maybe your just worried that the whole planet is going to freeze, or maybe your into the global warming movement and believe the whole planet might just catch fire one of these days, especially with all those bombs they keep making, I mean they may all explode or something, maybe the planet we are on will fall out of the sky, (now where would this planet go if it fell out of the sky, is there anything below the earth, ummm think about that a second… okay. are you done thinking?
Wonder who looked underneath of space anyway to really “know” nothing is under space. I mean there is a floor usually under the table right?
Okay, now I’ll be serious for a second maybe less.
What I want you to do now is take your list and look at each thing on your list, and tell yourself just exactly what can you do anything about?
I’ll help you on this a little okay. First one deadly serious and very painful for me. The day my son died, I told him to be very careful going to and from the college he was starting that day, then later that day when he was home, and we took him to work I told him to be careful, and we would be back to get him, to be careful and not get hurt.
So what did my son do? Well he died. And there was NOTHING I could do about it at all, I could not even prevent his death, if I could of I would of, but I couldn’t. He made a choice to walk home because he got done early, then someone else made a choice also that same day, and that choice led to my son’s death. He died, he is dead, and I can show you where we found him, and I can show you his grave.
But what I cannot show you is how my worry over his safety kept him in the least safe, or how anyone else’s worry kept him safe.
One thing that echoes in my memory is something he said the day he died, when I told him to be careful and to not get hurt or anything like that, not to mention don’t get killed, *Not sure I even said that, but I may have really thought it.
Well, what he said and I quote was this, “Why worry, you know I am always careful”, and then he left to go to school that day. And what he said was true he was always careful. But being careful was not enough to keep him alive.
Also there is NOTHING absolutely NOTHING I can do to make my son undead. He is gone, he has left this world and gone on into eternity, if the profession of faith he made shortly before he died was true he is in heaven, if it wasn’t he isn’t in heaven. (Now that is a horrible thought.). Where ever his soul is today, whether it is in heaven or hell, there is nothing I can do about it. Nothing. not one thing. If I set down and worry about where his soul is today I do nothing but cause excess stress upon my body, and mind. Not to mention it is a fast way to find insanity. *Just in case your wondering how to find insanity, maybe I should write out some detailed directions in case some one really wants to go visit the world of the insane for a time.
Now what about if you’re pregnant, are you worried about the baby? If you will be able to carry the baby or not? Well I’ve been there done that too, and it is very hard to loose a baby, with one of the worst miscarriages I had (yes, I have had more than one, not a pleasant thing really, it still hurts a lot some days) well I had started spotting, the doctor told me to just lay down and take it easy not to do anything much, so I didn’t and I made an emergency appointment. Where I learned the baby had already died and I would be loosing the baby soon. And I did, I had done nothing to cause the miscarriage, I had not taken drugs or alcohol or done anything to purposely kill the baby, yet the baby died. And I cannot change that fact.
So maybe your worried about having a place to live, well that’s a very good thing to worry about is it not? Well not really? Because even if you end up having to stay at a relatives house or a friends or on the streets, (the shelters are all full right now by the way, I checked already, which is why I didn’t mention staying there) so what happens? Well unless you just so happen to die for some reason, you’ll still be a living maybe not where you want or how you want but so long as you have a heartbeat and are breathing your alive, at least you were the last I checked. Now if your walking and talking and complaining then it is a fairly certain probability that you are alive. But you could always go look in a mirror or a store windows reflection and ask yourself if your alive or not.
Okay, now that we are done with the formalities I want you to read over your list, read it carefully. Because you are now going to put a name on your second column. You can name this one “what I can fix, plan for, or prevent”.
Have you got that?
That should be easy right? Okay, now look at your list. Are you worried tonight about your child who is overseas in battle? Maybe you are? I know it is a scary thought that someone will be sending bullets in the direction of your child, and doing so on purpose with intent to kill your child. Don’t worry though my child is headed that way too. And while it is a scary thought, just how is it I can catch a bullet in my hand from this side of the world, while my child is on the other side of the world? Okay, now. have you figured out how that your going to step between that bullet or missile or whatever else and your child?
And do that from where you are now? Well tell the truth. Can you prevent your child or mine from getting killed? The quick and simple answer to that is NO. Also don’t think that your child is safe just because they are in the other room while your reading this, that meteorite you were worried would fall from the sky, killing you as you slept could just as easily fall on your child’s end of the house. Not to mention some drunk could drive off the road and through your home. Killing your child and maybe even you.
Now if someone were to get drunk and drive down the road towards your child, just how do you think you will keep that drunk from killing your child? Can you from your home or where ever you happen to be just grab the steering wheel of that car and turn that car away from your child? NO, you can’t. You can’t even stop the drunk from getting on the road in the first place. And, no try as hard as they can the police do not catch every drunk driver, just because one drunk has not killed anyone or gotten caught means nothing, because of the fact being sooner or later if they live long enough, and drive enough they will kill someone. It;s a matter of time.
But what does worrying about that cause you? Well for one thing it weakens your immune system, it causes you to be stressed over things you can do nothing about. Unless your the one actually serving the alcohol and handing the keys to the drunk to drive then you have no reason to even feel guilty.
Okay, so now you may see where I am heading or should. As you wrote your list and included all the things you worry about or are stressed about, have you caught a pattern? If not let me help you okay.
What I want you to do is first look at the your most extreme worry. What is it that you worry about the most, that is highly unlikely you can prevent? Maybe it is martians from space invading the world. Maybe it’s all the stars falling out of the sky, or the oceans running dry. Now look at that worry really close. I’m waiting…
Have you looked at your most extreme worry? Well have you?
Okay, I’ll say you have, now that you have looked at it I want you to look at this realistically, just exactly how likely is it that you or anyone for that matter, how likely is it that you can do something about that worry, Can you fix it, plan for it or prevent it? Have you ever prevented a meteorite from falling on your house and killing you? Now you can tell yourself the truth, you know that you haven’t if your reading this. So don’t be silly.
So that worry can be marked out, use a good thick black ink pen, mark it all the way out. Now move on to your next worry, look at it realistically.
Worried about no where to live, what can you do? Can you plan for, fix or prevent yourself from becoming homeless? Well can you? I believe most people can, or if they can they can fix the problem of homelessness in time. So that goes on your list to prevent, fix or plan for. (not that I recommend you plan to become homeless but if you know your headed in that direction then at least do what you can so it is not so hard to fix later).
Now work through each item you have listed, if what you have on your worry list is something you can really do something about, either prevent, fix or plan for it goes in the second column.
Now when you get done, with this what I want you to do is this take the second list and recopy it onto a nice clean sheet of paper. Make sure you write out in detail each and every thing it is that you are planning to worry about, by the way I forgot to mention this will be your “planning to worry about page” so it will need to look really nice. Take your time as you write out each one of your worries okay. Make this look as nice and neat as possible.
Have you done that?
So you have? Good.
Now go find a paper shredder or a good pair of scissors or just use your hands. You’ll want to put both pages together or you can do this one page at a time.
You’re guessing now right? Okay, you guessed it. What you do is shred all the pages ALL of them. Destroy each list. Yes, that’s right, even your list you worked to make look really nice. Although if you could see the damage done to your body because of worry you would quickly see a good reason to loose you worry list.
But why? Why did I just tell you to destroy both papers even your very special “planning to worry page”? Why. Oh,,okay if you want you can get all the pieces out of the shredder and try to glue or tape them back together again,especially since your so “worried you’ll forget to worry about something on the list”.
Are you seeing how silly this is?
Well since you have gotten this far, I will tell you how it is that I am able to not worry about things, now granted I am just as human as you are, and I forget, and try to glue my “Plan to Worry List” back together again at times.
But I have finally over the years came to the place where I know that what I can fix, plan for or prevent I should be working on, if I don’t I’ll end up with whatever it was that I was worried would happen. Which means it would be my fault. I mean if I decide to go jump off a mountain someplace I’ll likely get hurt if not killed, so I know I can prevent that by not going and jumping off a mountain. But if I decide to do that anyway, I don’t need to wonder or worry about whether or not I will at the least get hurt or injured because the odds are in favor of me getting very hurt, with the odds more in favor of me getting killed depending on what mountain I happen to jump off of. By the way I suggest that you don’t go jumping off high mountains or low mountains because you can and will likely get hurt. And I am not worried about saying that because it is true.
Okay, I was silly again but only a little. So now I will be serious again for a second okay. I personally believe that whatever you have placed your faith and trust completely in well tell whether or not you will live a life of worry or not.
So what do I mean by that? What I mean is this if you have placed your faith hope and trust in your own abilities, in what you can see, touch or hear in this life, then it is my personal belief that you have placed your faith in something that will not hold up when life becomes very hard. Trust me when I say some things are very hard, and some people go through things that are so hard, it makes others hurt just to hear of the things the other person has lived through.
But as hard as life is for many people sometimes you don’t see everyone giving up or just dropping dead Why is that? It is because some have placed their faith in what cannot fail. Others may be trusting in something else, but have not really yet been tested to see if what they were accepting as truth would hold up/
Personally, I have placed my faith, hope and trust in God alone, I know there is nothing I can do to fix the many different trials in my life at the moment, there is nothing I can do that will take the memory of how my son died away, nothing I can do that will help me be at ease when I know I have a child who will soon be leaving to go to a place where he will be in lifethreatening danger.
Now if you will re read the above paragraph, I said there is NOTHING I can do. And that is true, well maybe not totally true, as there is one thing I can do. Which I have done and that is to place my faith, hope and trust in God alone. I know that God cannot fail, and I know that God is able to do anything. God never changes he is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow and forever.
And God has told us in the Bible to lean not unto out own understandings but to trust him, but he has also said he will give us peace. And the verse I will put at the end of this is what has allowed me to learn to not worry, and when I forget all I have to do is remember that it is silly for me to worry about anything at all. As God is still God, even when one of the most horrible days of my life came and went, God never allowed this planet to fall out of the sky, he never forgot to have the sun shine, never forgot to send the rain, and he never forgot to send the rainbows which is a reminder of the promises he has made. And when Jesus left this world to return to heaven to prepare a place for all those who have trusted in his complete and finished work reguarding salvation he never forgot to send the comforter. And he never left out one of my favorite verses.
If you are the type to worry I hope you will read this verse, and think about it, really meditate on it, then if you’ll do that I think you will see how I am able to have peace even when life is hard. And I believe if you study and meditate on this verse you also will come to the place where you can accept the truths that are contained in the words of this verse. One of the most comforting verses to me. especially as I have accepted as truth the complete and finished work of Jesus Christ.
Below is the verse, I hope this will be of comfort to all who read it, also I hope that no matter what you believe about God, you will see how worry does nothing but take away the joy you can have in just living.
Well actually this is three verses, but who’s worried about details at two in the morning. I need to go to bed. So here are the verses, that have been a blessing and a help to me, I hope this will be a help and a blessing to you also,.
Phillippians 4:6-8
6 Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.
7 And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
8 Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.
One last note, in case you have not figured out how to live a worry free life, I did not say stress free, I said worry free. The way to do that is to find something to hold on to and then never let go. For me the above verses are my staying power. so long as I am able to remember these verses I know that eventually everything will work out, not because of me but because of whom it is I am trusting in.
