This is a blog that I first wrote during the pandemic, and with the recent election praying on many people’s minds, I feel like it needed updating and reposting.
Globally it feels like we’re in a time of upheaval. There are wars raging in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, a rise in antisemitism throughout the western world and a rise in policies that attack gender non-conforming people. Add the recent US election into the mix and it all feels like something worth worrying about.
But what does that actually mean?
Saying that something is worth worrying about, implies that there’s some inherent benefit to worrying. That worrying will help bring about a solution to the problem at hand.
In the long term, worrying can bring about many things, like: difficulty sleeping, shortness of breath, compromised immune system and depression. It also impedes your ability to think rationally and make decisions.
What it never does, is it never solves the problem at hand.
Not that worry is always useless. Worry (AKA anxiety or fear) is not just a thing that our bodies dreamed up to torture us, but it’s a reflex that only works in our favour when the right response to a situation is either fight, flight or freeze.
In other words, the coyotes circling you while you are taking your dog for a walk could be worth worrying about, but global upheaval is not.
That’s not in any way to say that it isn’t important, it’s just to say that worrying about it will get you nowhere that you want to go.
I have to remind myself of this a lot, and honestly I’m still not all that successful at convincing myself not to worry.
Especially when I am mired in uncertainty. When will I be able to go back to work? When will people stop believing that war is the answer to anything? When will we stop destroying the planet?
The answer is inevitably, I don’t know.
This worries me. If I let it, the worry grows and mutates into the Spiral of Despair (cue the scary music).
The Spiral of Despair is how active worrying looks for me. I think about everything that could go wrong and who should be helping but isn’t and what kind of disaster this could bring for myself, my family, my community, my world. Then, I do it again, and again and again.
There’s often a bit of variation. For instance, I might vary the scale of my negative thought spiral (usually between personal tragedy and greater tragedy), or who exactly I’m blaming, but ultimately the Spiral of Despair always ends in the same place.
It leaves me feeling helpless, powerless and utterly defeated. I can’t win because I’m fighting myself and I can’t plan or problem solve because worrying robs me of those beautiful tools of logic.
I wish I could say that I’ve discovered the secret to ending anxiety and am now leading a worry-free life. I wish that I could report that I would be marketing my new worry-free formula and that it could be yours for only 9.99$/month.
But I can’t.
I have times when I get wrapped up in the Spiral of Despair and don’t really want to leave it. There’s that allure of righteousness, and almost like a superstitious feeling that if I think of all the bad things that are looming then they won’t really happen.
If only it were so simple.
If there is an answer, I’m pretty sure it lies more in kindness than in superstition. The kinder we are to ourselves, when we’re in the grip of worry, the more likely we are to find a way out.
Gently coaxing ourselves into quieting our minds, into opening our hearts and into looking at the good in ourselves and those around us, might just be the only antidote to worry.
We’re living in the safest time in human history (unfortunately, not those who are currently affected by war), where our lives are longer and we have more access to medical care, clean water, and fresh food than ever before.
Yet, we are also taught more fear than ever before. We live in an avalanche of information (and misinformation) and it leaves us fearful and overloaded much of the time.
Our worry centers are learning that everyone and everything is potentially dangerous. We need to be on high alert all the time.
I invite you to challenge these thoughts. Do you set out in the morning to wreak havoc on the world? Do your friends? Your neighbours? Your family? If most of the people you know are more inclined to help than to hurt others, don’t you think this might be true for the people you don’t know as well?
It’s worth challenging your thought patterns (when you become aware of them). It’s worth learning (when there is reliable information), it’s worth planning (when there is something concrete that you can do), but it just
isn’t worth worrying.
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