What If You Just Focus On Today?
And what is true right now.
Hi, welcome. I’m pleased to have you here with me.
Today I want to talk about worrying and hopefully give you some tips to worry less.
Before I do I want to say a big thank you to
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Okay, let’s talk about worry. When we worry, we add energy to what we don’t want.
Imagine yourself in an empty room. Now think about all the things that you have to think about each day to get your essentials done.
This might be, taking care of pets, children, other family members, work, house jobs, appointments, putting petrol in the car, sleeping, cooking a meal… imagine each thing as a square cube in your room. They can vary in size depending on how much time and energy they take.
Now imagine that you’re holding a balloon. Let’s call it the worry ballon. When you worry, the balloon gets bigger and bigger.
It’s natural to worry a little from time to time. But if you’re worrying a lot of the time that ballon gets so big that you end up being squashed in a corner of your room with no room to add anything else to your room including taking care of yourself.
One of my favourite affirmations is…
Right here, right now, all is well in my world.
I’m someone who can quickly make something small into a worry that totally overwhelms me. When this happens I can really struggle to think rationally.
Thankfully, I’ve learned a few useful tricks to help stop me from getting to that level.
Today I want to share one in particular and that’s focusing on what is true today, right now.
Most of the time when we worry, we’re thinking ahead and often what I call making up things that may or may not become real.
Let me give you an example.
My uncle is currently in a care home after he was poorly. He only has my mum, myself and my sisters to look out for him.
Mum worries about him a lot which is understandable and she wants him to be able to return to his own home.
But right now I’m encouraging her to focus on today and what is true right now.
He’s safe and being well looked after and enjoying lots of nice meals and cake.
He would not be able to manage on his own in his own home right now even with people going to check on him.
That is what is real - true today.
Over the coming weeks that will hopefully change and he will be able to return home.
But constantly focusing on “What if…” scenarios right now is not helpful. It’s just using up energy.
Instead, focus on the fact that he’s happy enough and well looked after where he is.
That doesn’t mean burying our heads in the sand and not planning ahead, it just means dealing with what we know to be true.
Worrying is an emotion that can easily jumble thoughts. By focusing on the here and now. You can plan more calmly.
If I start worrying about my son or another person I care about. I focus my attention on what is true right now. Almost all of the time, that is… Right now they are absolutely fine.
Bonus tip: Sometimes we do have good cause for worry. But often we focus on the worst of the situation. I encourage you to try and shift to any positive that you can hold on to and the best outcome possible.
My aim is never to tell you what to do. Instead, I want to share ideas to help achieve a helpful mindset.
I think most of us have a kind of default setting. For me that used to be thoughts that quickly jumped to what could go wrong. Worry mode.
I want to always challenge that default setting and replace it with something better feeling and more helpful. I want the same for you too.
Thanks for reading today. Wishing you a wonderful week.
Wendy xx
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Thanks for this. My wife always reminders me not to borrow trouble from tomorrow. It’s easier said than done sometimes but always worth trying.
It's better to focus on the best-case scenario than the worst-case scenario.