Worry and Sleep
-why worrying doesn't help
Why do people worry? Obviously we worry for many different reasons. Some worry about money, some worry about their work, some worry about their kids, and some worry about everything. What I am asking however is what purpose worrying serves us? Why do we worry in the first place? It must serve some kind of purpose or else we wouldn't do it. As we know, worrying can be very detrimental to our sleep. It can also cripple our lives by holding us back from moving forward and accepting necessary change.
It's easy to tell a worrying friend to stop worrying about something, and that it doesn't help to worry, but we all know that this is easier said than done. Sometimes we worry even though we know the uselessness of it all. It's like the worrying serves some additional purpose, beyond just negative anticipation of something uncomfortable that may or may not happen to us. The funny thing is that worry is often more intense when we are unsure about the outcome of an uncomfortable situation, than if we already know that the outcome is going to be negative. Worrying is a way for us to control a situation, or really, to think that we in some way are in control of a situation that frightens or intimidates us. It is an inability to let go of control when facing a situation with a potentially negative outcome.
This need for control rests on two faulty assumptions. The first one is that we are in control of a situation when in reality we are not. The fact that we have to worry about a situation is a good indication that we are not in control. We may be able to affect the outcome of a situation but there is still an element of uncertainty, and this is what causes us worry. The second faulty assumption is that it is better to stay in control than to let go of control.
The truth is that with our little thinking brain-mind, we lack the capacity to take ourselves surely safe and sound through difficult, uncertain situations. When we are able to let go of control, we more easily access those parts of our minds that we can refer to as superconsciousness, or big mind to use a Zen expression. With this big mind as guidance we are more likely to steer clear of dangerous obstacles that may get in our way when we tread an uncertain path.
Inner guidance to replace worries
Most people think that we only have ourselves to rely upon to resolve uncomfortable situations that cause us worry. In the end we are the ones who have to deal with whatever enters our lives. We can get support from other people but we each walk the path of our own lives quite by ourselves, or so it seems.
In reality, we all have access to infinitely more intelligent and aware parts of consciousness than we are aware of. We have the ability to receive accurate guidance in regards to life's matters if we are only able to understand how this guidance comes to us and to trust it.
Most of us have experienced opening up a book and reading something that felt like it spoke to us at the very precise moment about some issue we were dealing with. We probably dismissed it as a coincidence or fluke, and nothing to pay too much attention to.
The fact is that the more we open us up to those kinds of experiences the more they happen to us, and vice versa. What is necessary however for us to form a healthy relationship with these 'higher' parts of our consciousness, is that we act on advice and guidance that we receive. If not, we will first of all fail to reveal to ourselves the accuracy of the guidance, and secondly we will diminish the importance of this guidance or our trust in it, which will lead to a diminished connection to these parts of our consciousness.
The more we get in touch with these higher parts of our consciousness, or big mind, the less we will be inclined to worry about uncertain situations that are ahead of us. We experience a greater sense of inner trust and direction that will ultimately help us combat our fears and worries. Before we know it life has transformed before our very eyes and situations that used to trigger our worries now go by unnoticed.
Worrying leads to more trouble
All this worrying that we cause ourselves only serves to give us more trouble. We worry so that we can't sleep at night. We worry so that we can't focus properly on whatever tasks we have to do. Our worry sometimes causes problems between ourselves and other people. We impose our worries on others, think that because we worry about something, they also have to worry about this, or at least make changes that help ease our worries.
In truth, some worry will be almost impossible to shake off. For instance, worrying about a very sick child will obviously not go away just because we rationalize the meaninglessness of the worry. Doesn't matter how many exercises we do around this worry. We are still going to worry about our sick child and there is nothing wrong with that.
The worries that we can start to rid ourselves off are the daily worries, such as worrying about work situations, or worrying about sleep, or worrying about how our children are going to turn out. This is worry that serves no purpose and actually makes things worse for us. Our worry gets in the way of us sleeping properly. Our worry causes us problems with our children, who'd rather that we stay out of their lives (at least in regards to how they choose to live their lives). Our worry causes us endless other difficulties.
How can we go about letting go of worries? First of all, we need to clearly see how worrying serves little or no purpose, how it's a completely useless act, a waste of energy. Secondly, it doesn't hurt to see clearly how worrying actually causes us more problems. Realizing this helps us want to rid ourselves of worry. As long as we don't want to stop worrying it's not going to happen. As long as we don't see the false sense of control that worrying gives us, we may not want to stop worrying.
Once we are clear we really want to let go of our worries we can start by being more mindful in our everyday lives about how we choose to worry in different situations. The more attention we pay to how much we worry throughout the day and what situations causes us the most worry, the more our subconscious mind will alert us to the fact that we are worrying, when we are unable to see it ourselves. It's simply a matter of being more mindful about how we use our minds throughout the day.
Start out by making a list of the things that makes you worry. Go through the list and for each worry on your list write down how often you experience this worry and why. Also try to grade the worries on your list on a scale from 1 to 10. Grade them to see what causes you the most worry. The purpose of this list is simply to make us more mindful about our worries. This will help us gain control of our worrying mind, where control actually is not a bad thing.
In fact, the only place where control serves a really good purpose is in regards to our own minds. When we let them run loose, they become like wild animals, and run our lives for us.
It's very hard for some to see and accept, but in truth a chaotic life is an indication of a chaotic mind. We want to blame every negative consequence in our lives on something outside of ourselves and make changes on the outside. However, the greatest changes happen when we start to change our insides, our minds.
If you start to be more mindful about your worries in the way described above you will soon notice that you are able to catch yourself more often when you actually worry about something. You can then choose to use your rational mind to stop the worry, or at least to lessen it.