Why do we worry?

The reason we worry so much is that we’ve got an amazing imagination. It’s capable of creating the most elaborate, detailed worlds that haven’t happened yet. It may just happen to be focused on the negative right now.

What if today we stopped beating ourselves up for being so stressed out and instead admitted, “I have an amazing imagination. I”m so creative when it comes to describing my future. What would happen if I applied that energy to a positive possibility?”

Within a creative imagination, anything can happen. Wonderful things. Horrific things. It’s all there – all the possibilities. There’s a yin-yang element to worry and the imagination.

Is worry always bad? No, it isn’t. If the worry about something sparks us to take action and deal with the situation, then the worry is helpful. If it pushes us to make necessary changes in our lives, it is helpful. If it warns us that we may be in danger so that we take action, it is helpful.

When we can imagine the worst (and also see the possibility in it) we have turned a corner. Things begin to shift. Worry is transformed into creativity.

I remember that quote attributed to Mark Twain that says “Worry is like a rocking chair, it gives you something to do but never gets anywhere.” Well, look where it got someone!

As musician Bobby McFarin sings in his 1988 song Don’t Worry, Be Happy, “in every life we have some trouble; when you worry you make it double.” Worry can double whatever it is we are dealing with and we don’t need to magnify our worries!

The question then is what are we worried about? And if it is something we can do something about, then let’s do it! If it’s not something we can do something about, let’s not let it double in our imagination.

It’s all about you…

I saw a story online about Delta Air Lines and effective communication. This last month, Delta sent an email from its CEO, Ed Bastian, to millions of its most loyal passengers. It was an effective email and one of its secrets was the way it repeated a singe word, over and over. In the course […]

My new word is…

…contronym! It’s a new word to me, even though I was an English teacher in a previous life! A contronym is a word that can be its own opposite! In German, contronyms are called Janus words, named after the two-faced God of duality, Janus, in Roman mythology. So…you know synonyms are words that share the […]

What a difference a word makes!

What we say has power to affect others and our experiences with them. And the words we choose to describe ourselves and our situations determines much of our experience! Are we… rich or temporarily blessed, lonely or enjoying solitude, or struggling or growing through resistance? We know that… well-educated isn’t the same as smart, talents […]

You don’t have time?

We will NEVER have “enough” time. Because we can’t “have” time. Time is not something that can be had by us humans. Time isn’t even real! It’s just something we humans created to make our lives more convenient. Time is like a handful of sand…the harder we try to grip it, the more it slips […]

Faith is trust?

“Faith” is trusting the process. We know that SOMETHING is making our heart beat right now, our lungs function, the grass grow, and the planets spin. So whether we admit it or not, what we have is FAITH. We have faith that our heart will keep beating and that we’ll wake up tomorrow morning. We […]

Vacation complaints…

Vacations are a national tradition (as is this perennial childhood complaint!) This post is of actual complaints received by “Thomas Cook Vacations” from dissatisfied customers. I think you’ll be as amazed as I was by them! “We booked an excursion to a water park but no one told us we had to bring our own […]

The “gift” of our breath

The phrase “take a deep breath” is misleading. The breath isn’t something we can just “take.” Breathing is a gift, a miracle, offered to us over and over again. Yet much like our health, we often take it for granted right up until the moment we no longer have it. “Remember to breathe” means remembering […]

July 4 humor!

Bringing you some humor for this special day of days. (And if it seems like it came from one who used to be a teacher, well, you’re right!) Father William, the old priest, made it a practice to visit the parish school one day a week. He walked into the 4th grade class, where the […]

The tide does come in!

No matter how bad our current situation appears to be now, nature guarantees a turn for the better. Change is always happening. Nature’s cycles are dependable. We can’t rush a seedling; pulling on it to make it grow faster will cause it to die. We can’t rush a baby; whevever possible, we have to let […]