Making Peace With Worry

"May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears." -Nelson Mandela

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Alexander Jewish Family Service Friends –

Are you a worrier? I know that I am; it just seems to be in my nature to worry about everything and everyone that I care about.

When I read the quote below from Mark Twain, I got a good chuckle.

“I have been through some terrible things in my life,
some of which actually happened.”

Like Mark Twain, most of the things I worry about never happen - but that doesn’t seem to be enough to make me stop worrying.

There is a wonderful Chinese proverb that speaks to this:

“That the birds of worry and care fly over your head, this you cannot change;
but that they build nests in your hair, this you can prevent.”

One of the things that I am trying to be more mindful of in this year is to focus on those things that I have within my control and try to let go of some of the worry about things that I have no influence over.

The Roman philosopher, Seneca, put it this way:

“There are more things to alarm us than to harm us,
and we suffer more often in apprehension than reality.”

For me his words really ring true. I often find that outcome that I am dreading related to something that I am worried about is almost always worse than the actual thing or event when it happens. To make matters worse, I sometimes find that I procrastinate and put-off the things I worry about the most which - in the end - only extends the time that I have to worry about it.

So, if you are a fellow worrier, my wish for you this week is that you are able to approach your worries and fears with a little bit of humor (like Mark Twain) and with a whole lot of compassion for yourself – perhaps then we can allow the birds of worry to fly around us but not invite them to build a nest and stay.

Well that’s what I think.

Thanks for listening,