Hello Neighbor!

My husband calls me the CEO of worry. When I ask if he’s worried, he’ll lovingly but laughingly say “I don’t need to worry. That’s your job.” We have different personalities and he doesn’t process life the way I do.

So, I started thinking about worry that I occasionally experience. What is it exactly? My husband calls this line of self-questioning, meta-worry, that he humorously defines as worrying about worrying.

But I’m an analyzer by nature so here’s what I came up with. Worry arises from fears I create in the present that I project into the future. It’s about something that might happen but doesn’t. “Life has been full of terrible misfortunes, most of which never happened,” said Michel de Montaigne in the 1500’s! Clearly worrying has been going on for awhile!

I can create some wild, unsettling scenarios. When I look at specific concerns, I see they’re just thoughts. They’re not happening anywhere other than in my head.

“There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it,” Filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock once said. Well that’s me alright. My husband watches scary movies but I don’t need or want to watch them because I’m creating them. Why aren’t I making movies?

So enough! I’m limiting worry by noticing fearful imaginings when they pop up. I’m catching those thoughts before they expand intoMy husband calls me the CEO of worry. stories. Although they really can be springboards into movie scripts but that’s a topic for another time.

For the moment, I’m remembering that today’s concerns will pass without adding an extra layer of worry. It’s oddly surprising to consider that a pleasant outcome is a possibility too.

Being here now,
Jane