Setting Your Worry Window

How does worry affect your everyday life? (light music) Worry takes me out of the present. Worry means that I'm no longer smelling the flowers. I'm trying to figure out what next week is gonna bring. It makes it difficult for me to sometimes fall asleep, focus on my work, be present in the moment. I find myself whenever I'm worrying, not able to enjoy what I'm currently doing because my mind is somewhere else. Worry is a natural part of life. We all do it. It can feed our anxious thoughts and prevent us from moving forward in the way that we really want to. What would it be like if you worried way less or not at all? Ah, a world where I did not worry? I would just do whatever I really would wanna do instead of having to pre-plan and prep. If I didn't worry at all, I think I would be able to enjoy things a lot more. Boy, that is a fantasy world. I would look at things and find so much more joy and I think the awe of life would be much more apparent to me. What can be really helpful is to set aside a specific time that we are going to dedicate to our worry. When we do this, what we're actually doing is training our brains to not engage with the worry outside of those specific times and that allows us to really focus in on whatever the task is or whatever it is that we're trying to stay connected to. I would probably sit at my desk and type up my list of worries. I'm a very fast typist, so maybe I could even get it done in 20 minutes. It would definitely be at the end of the day. I'd say about six o'clock in the evening, feet in the sand, or feet on the grass. And just give myself 30 to 45 minutes and just get it all out right there. I'd probably choose my living room on the couch for five to ten minutes, try to get it all outta the way, even though I could worry for a lot longer. After you've engaged with your worry, you really wanna make sure that you take time to engage in a relaxing activity to decompress and allow yourself space to breathe. After the scheduled worry time, I'm definitely gonna play some soothing music. Something to kind of take me into the evening. Right after that, I should take my dogs for a walk. Go out and just look in nature with the pups and make them happy, 'cause their joy really, truly is my joy. Afterwards, probably make a smoothie and take it outside as far away as I could get. It's really well intentioned to have a specific worry time in which you engage with your worry and then put it to the side. But we know that this is not going to be perfect....