Doing nothing but worrying? Develop a sense of proportion
Stress for Success
June 26, 2007

Can I trust my daughter’s friends? Is my job safe? Will we have hurricanes this season? Are my parents being well taken care of? Do we have enough retirement income? Will terrorists strike again? There’s an endless list of things to worry about.

The original intent for all stress emotions, including worry, was to motivate you to take positive action regarding whatever is bothering you. An example of healthy worry is if at bedtime you fear that you didn’t lock up the house, you go check. Theoretically, once you investigate and secure any unlocked doors -- you take positive action -- your anxiety should dissipate.

However, worrying may become unhealthy when you:
§ continue worrying about something after you’ve attended to it
§ take no positive action about whatever you’re concerned with
§ obsessively fret over anything

If you could clearly see that most of what you worry about isn’t worth your energy, would it motivate you to worry less? See if you’re like Althea, a mother who worried nearly constantly and was treated for this at an Adlerian Psychology family counseling center.

Althea especially worried about her 10-year-old son. She started worrying the second her eyes opened in the morning and throughout her entire day. The psychiatrist assigned her to:
§ Daily write down on paper every single worry (large and small) that entered her mind, and put them all in the one spot
§ After writing down each worry she was to stop fretting about it.
§ Make a one-hour weekly appointment with herself to do nothing but worry about each concern she’d written. She chose Wednesdays from 8 - 9 a.m. to worry at her family-room desk. Outside of that one hour she was not to worry at all.

During her Wednesday morning meetings with herself she’d do her best to worry about what was on those pieces of paper like, "Sammy’s 5 minutes late", "I wonder what the expiration date was on that milk he drank", "It’s going to rain and Sammy forgot his jacket."

It’s very difficult to sit for one hour and do nothing but worry; try it.

Althea was amazed at the myriad of things she worried about. It didn't take her long to discover that vast majority of her worries:
§ were trivial in nature
§ were about Sammy
§ never came to pass
§ focused on things beyond her control
§ were definitely not worth the time, energy and stress she invested in them

Once she became consciously aware of these epiphanies, she made a goal to decrease her worries by 50% each week. After just one month she quite easily decreased worrying to a more “normal” level.

It’s difficult as a parent, a business owner, or as someone with a medical condition not to worry. Often the worry is appropriate because something does require your positive action. Learn the difference between your own healthy and unhealthy fretting and preserve your stress energy for the concerns that can actually benefit from your attention.

Jacquelyn Ferguson, M. S., of InterAction Associates, is a trainer and a Stress Coach. E-mail her at www.jackieferguson.com with your questions or for information about her workshops on this and other topics and to invite her to speak to your organization.