What are you so worried about?

Worrying is hard to overcome because in a strange way, it actually makes a lot of sense to your mind. First, you imagine risks…and sometimes you are right. So, how do you overcome anxiety when you don’t even think it’s a problem? Deepak Chopra shows you how.

Worrying is such a prevalent habit that many worrywarts don’t recognise themselves as anxious. In fact, many worriers often feel justified. Why not turn the car around to double check that the doors are locked? Convinced of its own beliefs, worry is anxiety backed up by excuses invented by the mind.

Worriers believe they’re doing good.

In a strange way, worriers believe they are doing something good by protecting ourselves and others from danger. Since our minds are filled with every conceivable risk, we wind up being right some of the time. Like hoarders who never throw anything out, worriers uses the same logic. If one item proves useful, it justifies keeping a hundred that aren’t. We don’t see the obvious: worrying about ninety-nine useless things is a waste of time and emotion.

The need to worry

Worriers feel the need to worry. If this need isn’t fulfilled, we fear calamity. Who will keep things in one piece if we aren’t doing the worrying that is so desperately needed? But, this obsessive behaviour blocks deep insecurity by giving the mind a “solution” that feels convincing even though it is utterly false: the more I worry, the safer we will be. To turn the mind around, we must be given better reasons to not worry than to worry.

How to change your worrying ways

Worried belief: Life is full of accidents and random bad things. I have to be on the lookout for them.

Better belief: Accidents can be prevented with useful measures like wearing a seat belt and not living in a flood zone. Once the precaution is in place, there’s nothing more to do. By definition, unpredictable things cannot be foreseen.

Worried belief: You inherited the worry gene. You can’t help it.

Better belief: You learned how to worry, so you can unlearn how to worry. It’s a habit rooted in your sense of insecurity. By becoming more secure in yourself, you can gain control over your fears.

In addition, a recovering worrier should write down certain basic facts and consult the list regularly to see if their belief system is starting to match reality.

—You aren’t helping the situation by worrying. You will be of greater help by pitching in on a practical basis.

—You aren’t improving anyone else’s life by worrying about them. To improve their lives, be supportive and appreciative.

—Not to worry is psychologically healthy. Non-worriers aren’t being careless or negligent.

—Worry is a sign of deeper anxiety. It is healed by addressing that deeper level.

—Worry is making you unhappy. This is reason enough to give it up.

—Worry leads to bad decisions because they are coloured by needless, unrealistic fears. If you want a better life, you need good decisions.

—Worry shuts out others who want to be close to you. The more you worry, the farther away they will go.

Worriers, like other anxious people, don’t understand why their fears seemingly come out of the blue. “I wasn’t doing anything. I was having a normal day, when suddenly I was hit by this certainty that something bad was going to happen.” The hidden element is that anxious people need to be vigilant all the time. So when things settle down, it’s only a matter of time before they notice they aren’t being vigilant. Anxiety jumps to the “rescue,” putting them back into their familiar groove. —www.oprah.com