The Benefits of Worry

I’ve been giving a lot of thought to the benefits of worry and have decided to make a list, so you can study from this and learn:

Benefits of Worry:

Um, as you can see there aren’t any benefits. Worry most exclusively is about projecting into the future an event that has not yet happened and spending valuable time, taking you effectively away from the present moment.

Focusing entirely on the task at hand is often called Mindfulness, and you’ll see in the popular media more and more attention (ahem) being directed this way, including college level and advanced courses in what mindfulness is and how to achieve that state where worry has little or no effect on you.

The Rinpoches (advanced lamas) say: “Worrying about the future is like fishing in a dry gulch.” There is nothing to catch. Yet, if you take an inventory right now, right this moment, where are your thoughts? Do you attach an emotion to your thoughts? Is it a negative emotion about the potential outcome? Do you have any control over which emotions you choose?

We always have a choice: one of the first things we tend to forget in this rapidly moving, accelerated techno-civilization of ours, is that we do have a choice how to respond to our own thoughts.

What if, for just the moment, you could separate your emotions from your thoughts? Thoughts come and go, like clouds. Have you ever seen a cloud stay in one place?

When we worry about something, we tend to mix the thoughts and the emotions together. What if you could separate them, feel the emotion and choose a different one, while letting the thoughts drift by, completely unattached to them?

Say you may be worried about money, having enough of it. And you project into the future this worry with the emotion of dread? Do you know everything that will transpire? Have you got it all figured out how the future will unfold? You can choose to change the emotion from dread to joy – and I don’t mean in avoiding way. But what is to stop you from choosing to be joyful in the moment?

Paramahansa Yogananda speaks of the joy of knowing God within you at all times, that you can turn to that joy at any moment and it is there. What if you are not a ‘spiritual’ person? Can you still choose the emotion of joy? While it may be difficult to do so, it is still doable. It takes effort. Practice. Let go of your thoughts. Stay in the moment. Choose your emotions.

Worry has no benefit. Worry is surrendering your power to a future that does not exist. Worry is taking you completely out of the present moment. Worry is taking you off your spiritual center – a place we really need to be in this era of rapid evolution of our global human society.

Imagine you are holding your child or your beloved. A worry enters your mind. Would you sacrifice that moment for the worry? What if it were a more powerful moment; that the person you are with is ready to make their transition. Are you going to worry, think about yourself, or stay completely focused in that moment to fully be present with that person?

What is the value in worry? Ask yourself that question the next time a worry comes to mind.

You have a free will – the power of choice. If you have great difficulty moving from worry with your own mind, use inspirational passages, pictures, memes, real-life examples and people in your life who are actively mastering the moment. Create an arsenal of positive power producing mindfulness tools to keep you fully engaged and present in the moment. That is where your power is.

We only have the moment – do not fritter away those precious moments with worry. Breathe. Focus. Master and choose your emotions. Thoughts are fleeting; they will always pass. Let them. You think your thoughts, but you are not your thoughts. You are must more than that. You are a SPIRIT, beyond the grasp of space and time, who also is experiencing a physical presence.

Re-focus. Re-ground. Choose your power. You always have a choice.