Choose the most loving thought and action

I find it really interesting that a thought can just pop into my head, turning an innocuous set of circumstances into perilous ones.  Something as simple as seeing I have a voicemail can have the effect of my brain thinking "oh my god!  What's happened?!"  or my boss asks to talk to me and I immediately assume its a bad thing; that I am in trouble.

These sorts of worries used to completely take over my life and heaven forbid that there be any delay that I had to sit with before finding out what my boss wanted or picking up that voice mail.  During that delay I would drive myself mad trying to foresee what might happen and implementing plan A-Z in response to it.  

What's interesting for me is not that my mind does this (I think most people have these sorts of random thoughts and depending on where you fall on the anxiety spectrum might determine how much you dismiss or act on them) but that my mind never seems to immediately assume the best.  

A voicemail could be a message from a long-lost friend, a competition win, a new admirer, the perfect flat, a shop telling me my shoes have come in- all manner of positive things yet my mind hardly ever thinks one of those things!  And yet a lottery win is just as likely as the call being to say that my flat has caught fire!

There is a saying that I like and it's 

"You can't choose your first thought but you can choose your second thought and your first action" 

And so I choose the most loving thought as my second thought and my most loving action as my first action.  I don't mean I delude myself- my boss asks to see me and I tell myself "I am going to be made CEO" but I tell myself "You work hard and you are good at your job" and then I do something loving for myself- pop out for a walk in the sunshine, call a trusted friend, make sure I have eaten.  

I have felt very much like a victim during my anxious periods; that I couldn't control my worries and that I couldn't control my response to them.  What I now know is that the former is true to a certain extent (the first thought) but I have to take responsibility for my second thought and what action I take.  Once I realised this I felt less scared of my anxiety and this really, really helped.  

What's your most loving thought and action today?

How to stop worrying and start living

So... here we are; my inaugural post for Don't worry, Love. 

I guess the clue to the subject matter of this blog is in the title; a play on words (I like those, so if you aren't keen, unfollow now, as there will be a fair few of them from this point forward). 

Until recently, I had always worried- even as a little girl and I cannot count the number of time I have been told not to worry. The trouble is, someone else telling you to do or not do something has very little helpful impact. 

What I have found is that first-hand experience; someone else sharing their story with me about how they have overcome life's challenges and stopped worrying and started living is the thing that has worked the best for me. So that's what I want to do with this blog. 

If you notice, I have added a comma before the word Love . (Did you see what I did there?) Now in the UK we are not big fans of the "l" word for describing anything other than romantic love but I want to stress here that I am not suggesting the solution to my anxiety has been found by getting it on or romantic relationships! The love I am referring to here about about something entirely different....

love as a power greater than myself that I can harness to transform any worry into trust and then live my life happily, taking action around a problem or letting go, as needed.

Now, I know what I would have thought 10 years ago if I had just read that.  My Head Goblin (more on that later) would have started up with something like "well that might work for you, you old hippy, but not for me, I want to cure this worrying with an immediate solution!!!!"  I used to really listen to my Head Goblin; I thought he spoke the truth but now I know he's just a little b*rstard who knows exactly what my worst fear is and will point out any evidence that might reinforce said fear.  But today I just recognise it's the Goblin talking and not me and say "thanks for that input but I'm not listening today".   I am not a hippy, I am a regular person for whom anxiety used to prevail but now I use several techniques and simple short cuts to get from worry to love and I can't wait to share them with you!