What are you worried about at this moment? What do you do when your thoughts become overwhelming? If you are feeling worried or overwhelmed for some reason, fear will increase that feeling. You’ll begin to feel anxious and scared because your mind is everywhere but here and now.
How Negativity and Feeling Worried Go Together
You can’t feel peaceful when you have negative emotions and beliefs. You can’t change anything by worrying.
When you are feeling worried, did it make the time to run slower? Did you find a solution to the problem with worrying? The answer is almost always “No”.
How Feeling Worried Affected Me
For me, I was feeling worried over many things. I was worried about my unpredictable future–what if I don’t reach my career goal; what if I don’t find my life purpose; will my son be bullied in school like I was?
I would feel worried about my past choices–could I do it better; what if I had chosen that instead of this; what if I never change myself?
And I would worry about other people’s opinion of me. I was worried about my current situation in my life. On a constant, I was feeling worried; like being on a continuous rollercoaster ride with my own state of mind.
The Way Feeling Worried Affected my Physical Body
Worry began to be reflected in my physical body. I had frequent stomach pains, the problematic skin, and pollen allergy. And the more physical pain I had, the more anxiety I experienced. The worry showed its claws by giving me situations that created negative outcomes.
But like many of you, I didn’t know how to stop worrying. I had a couple of emotional breakdowns because I couldn’t stop feeling worried.
Eventually, the worry began to manifest as an anxiety. Until one day I said to myself “Jana, this must come to an end”. I begin to seek useful ways to deal with my dark thoughts.
How Deep Breathing and Relaxation Techniques Helped
In that period of my life, I found deep breathing as a helpful method. I’ve been practicing being in the present moment ever since.
Relaxation is difficult, I know, but it’s the best way to take care of oneself. It helped me to change my dominant vibration. Relaxation in a form of deep breathing, being in silence, entering into a state of mind with no thoughts, and becoming self-aware.
Self-awareness gives you the clarity to focus on dealing with anxiety by accepting it’s within you. You don’t fight against it; you just become aware that you feel worried and anxious.
When you’re aware, you’re ready to find the right answers to your worries and you’ll begin to recognize the cause of your fear and anxiety. You just have to ask the right questions.
10 Questions to Ask Yourself When Thoughts Get Overwhelming
1) What is it that I feel worried about at this moment?
Most of the time, you’re worried the things won’t happen the way you want. It’s the Ego’s need for controlling others. However, it’s important to remember that you can’t control anything except your thoughts.
You can’t make the life to be perfect because it’s perfect just for being imperfect.
Worry is an imaginative thought about things that didn’t happen yet or will not ever happen.
So what if the things don’t happen the way you want? Do you lose yourself and your life? Of course not!
You must accept what you can’t change and move on.
2) Did my worry help me solve a problem till now?
How can worry help to solve the problem when it comes out of fear as an emotion? It can only increase the problem. When you begin to worry, you enlarge the situation in your mind but in reality, it’s nothing but an emotion.
You can’t prepare for the future by worrying. You’re only preparing for bad things and generating negative vibes. When you fear bad things will happen, you’re setting yourself up for that to come true.
You’re not born to be prepared for life. You’re born to enjoy and live now and not somewhere in your mind. You’ll find a solution to the problem when you get out of your worried mind and relax.
3) Does the worry make me a better person towards another?
You’re not a good person if you’re worried. However, you only represent yourself as a bad person who wishes all the bad things to everyone around yourself and for yourself.
It would be more useful to talk about the healing of a person who’s ill than talking about the illness. You’re not a good mother if you tell your child that the world is cruel so he must be careful.
You’re a good mother when you show your child how to make this world a better and more beautiful place to live by being descent and honest human being.
4) Does the worry make me a responsible person towards life?
By worrying, you show fear and cowardice. Of course, you have to be responsible for your life but in an emotionally intelligent way, as a mature person, and not childish.
You worry because you believe you’re responsible for your life being this way. That’s completely normal but by worrying, you’re preparing for the worst case scenarios. This means you expect it to happen and remember, what you expect–you get.
Now, you may very well be afraid that if you think positive and this doesn’t happen, you’ll be even more worried. You believe that you’ll disappoint yourself because you were positive and the outcome wasn’t.
However, it’s important that you trust the process and continue to keep that positivity going. It will come back around.
5) Did my worry become a habit?
Sometimes you’re worried because you’re used to feeling worried. You’re doing it almost unconsciously.
This habit doesn’t serve you and you have to change it to overcome anxiety. Your new habit should be based on positive thinking and beliefs that’ll serve you.
Now, with every new habit you apply in life, you have to be patient and persistent. I understand patience is in the last place on your TO-DO list when there are many other obligations.
Try to look at the habit of having positive thoughts as a tool for improving your life. The habit of positive thinking will increase your self-worth and self-confidence.
6) Has it ever become a reality something I was worried about?
When I think about things I was feeling worried about in my past, 95% of them didn’t manifest in my life. Instead, what has manifested was the feeling of anxiety, desperation, stress, and physical pain in some parts of my body.
I survived all the negative emotions through pictures I imagined. I survived things that never happened, the same things that my anxious mind told me to worry about.
What I’m trying to point out here is that you harm yourself by worrying. That’s the number one reason why worry isn’t good for you.
Perhaps worry doesn’t always manifest, but you create the possibility for it to become real.
So, stop for a moment and see how negativity and worry creates anxiety which hurts you. Observe it from a neutral side. You’ll notice how damaging a worry can be.
7) If it has, how did I behave in that situation?
I remember one situation when my worry showed its face in a real life. How did I behave in that situation?
I was petrified and crushed. I acted as a coward.
It was a terrible experience and one of my greatest life lessons. I learned that I’m able to make my life the way I want. Depending on my beliefs, the creation of life will be positive or negative.
Now I choose to make positive results in my life with new positive beliefs.
8) How would I feel if I wasn’t worried?
Does the answer “free” urge you to get out of your worried mind?
You’d feel free and peaceful living in the present moment. In the way you’re supposed to live.
Feeling free is enough a good reason to stop worrying now, so next time, instead of finding excuses to worry, find reasons to feel free.
9) How realistic is for my worry to become true?
Consequently, your worry will only become true when you put emotions into thinking about it. This creates energy for whatever it is you’re worrying about to become a reality in your life. In other words, the more you worry about something, the more likely that something is to happen.
10) Why do I think being worried is good, and not being worried is bad for me and my life?
You can’t disappoint yourself if bad things happen while you think positively. You disappoint yourself by thinking negatively. Therefore, even if something bad happens, you’ll still see positive results.
It’s not positivity that overwhelms you. It’s negativity that doesn’t give you space to breathe calmly. You’re not born to worry; you have just learned from others that feeling worried is the only thing that proves you’re a human being.
At the end of our life, we’ll see how we wasted our time by worrying too much.
Deal with the cause of your worry
- You have to understand what worry can cause to you and your health.
- Be alone in silence.
- Ask yourself questions regarding to your feeling of worry.
- Write down the answers to these questions.
- Find the cause of your worry in your past or why you choose to worry instead of thinking positive. Whose belief you picked up along the way?
Now imagine all those worried thoughts becoming real; your anxiety showing its claws.
Will you say – “I knew it would happen, I was right”, and feed your Ego with the thought, or will you think, “What have I done to myself and my life or life of someone else? How can I correct this?”
Now that you realize where your worry can lead you, don’t let this happen. Prevent it in time. Find at least five minutes today and be in a complete silence.
Analyze your thoughts and emotions and ask yourself the questions from this article. As a result, you will begin your journey towards ending the constant ordeal of feeling worried once and for all.
RESOURCES:
- https://www.calmclinic.com/anxiety/stop-anxiety-quickly
- https://www.themavencircle.com/relax-and-calm-your-anxious-mind
- https://adaa.org/about-adaa/press-room/facts-statistics
Originally published on AnxietyGone.
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