photo credit: stacy michelle

Worry is a thin stream of fear trickling through the mind.  If encouraged, it cuts a channel into which all other thoughts are drained.

— Arthur Somers

The other night I tossed and turned, got up, went back to bed, got a cup of tea, checked my email (sheezzz!), watched the weather station, drifted back to sleep and… awakened, again as worry after worry ricocheted against the edges of my messy mind. What a waste of good sleeping time!  Not to mention brain power.

These days, I’ve plodded forward “doing what needs to be done” to set various affairs to right.  And I’ve intentionally avoided some big ones.  Why?  Well, I suppose because I could, because I was pretty sure there would be no harm done in the delay, because I just wasn’t up to tackling them.

Then, the day before my sleepless night, I forayed into one of those important but not urgent tasks that I’d been avoiding.  I’d figured out a few “baby steps” (as PattiAnn advised in a recent post) and felt I could do these little bits, no problem.  Well, it turns out, almost no problem, because blithely and unwittingly, I stepped into a molehill.  And stumbled in the night as fears burrowed up into my consciousness, some frivolous, some formidable, all stomping about my sleepy mind, waking me so I could worry-worry-worry.

And so I fretted about: Continue reading » Three Ways to Quiet Worries that Burrow Up in the Night

photo credit: CJ (Siege)

Experiment with distancing yourself from your worries and let us know how this works for you.

Have you ever found yourself stewing over something that happened and didn’t go well for you?  Berating yourself because you blew it big time and you’re mortified remembering what you said or did?  Castigating yourself for your oh-so inappropriate reactions?

Continue reading » Distance Yourself from Your Worries