Healthy Anxiety Or Borrowing Trouble?<\/p>\n

We all do it from time to time. Worrying about things that might happen; Things that almost never happen the way we predict; Things we have little or no way of controlling. This is borrowing trouble. <\/p>\n

We do it without even realizing it. We borrow trouble on autopilot. The most insidious thing about it? It\u2019s usually based on legitimate, understandable concerns. Worries about money, relationships, work, health, and our impermanent existence all seem reasonable. In fact, a bit of anxiety is actually healthy and helpful. It brings us stronger motivation to do the things we may not feel like doing; the hard work of self-care; taking the risks that lead to rewards. But borrowing trouble is not healthy anxiety.<\/p>\n

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So how do we know what is healthy anxiety and what is borrowing trouble? And how do we make use of the good anxiety while reducing borrowing trouble? The answer: Developing and maintaining a strong mindfulness practice.<\/p>\n

So what does that mean?<\/p>\n

A helpful way to look at it is to realize we only have so much hard-drive space available in the bioelectric computer we call a brain and there are only so many things we can actually control in our lives. Given this limited bandwidth, fretting about what cannot be controlled is a waste of our emotional and intellectual resources. Mindfulness practice is setting aside time every day to train ourselves to focus on our physical sensations as we sit in meditation. As thoughts and emotions arise, we notice them without judging them and return our focus to our physical sensations as we sit in meditation.<\/p>\n

It is a profoundly simple process that is quite difficult to execute. The not-judging part in particular is exceedingly difficult as we are so easily triggered by the thoughts and emotions that come up. The good news is that mindfulness gets easier with practice. With the time and effort of sitting every day, the not-judging part of the work goes more smoothly. We get to a point where we can take a step back and notice, \u201coh, I\u2019m doing that again\u201d and let go of those thoughts and emotions and return our focus to the here and now.<\/p>\n

As we get better at mindfulness practice, the training begins to show up in our day-to-day life. We begin to notice we are better able to discern healthy worry from borrowing trouble. We see that can take simple, direct actions to make use of healthy anxiety. We see that we can use mindfulness to notice, \u201coh, I\u2019m borrowing trouble again\u201d and return our focus to healthy anxiety and the actual steps we can take toward positive change.<\/p>\n

The hard work of a strong mindfulness practice focuses our attention on our self-talk and lets us see the difference between healthy worry that motivates us to take on a real task at hand, and borrowing trouble about negative possibilities we can\u2019t control or may even have no basis in reality.<\/p>\n

With mindfulness, time, and effort, we can spend less time borrowing trouble and more time doing things that actually help us live fuller, richer lives in the here and now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Healthy Anxiety Or Borrowing Trouble? We all do it from time to time. Worrying about things that might happen; Things that almost never happen the way we predict; Things we have little or no way of controlling. This is borrowing trouble. We do it without even realizing it. We borrow trouble on autopilot. The most insidious thing about it? It\u2019s … <\/p>\n