NormsMilfordBlog

Oft times I’ve found myself worrying about something that hasn’t happened and may not ever happen – it’s just my imagination running away with me. That can happen when one is facing a potentially contentious confrontation with someone else. Confrontations can occur over disagreements or because bad news must be delivered to someone. If you let it, your own imagination will take wing and create all sorts of frightful scenarios for that upcoming confrontation. The reality is most often much less contentious than you had imagined it might be. In some cases I’ve even had people (clients in many cases) express relief that I had delivered the bad news that they lost a bid on a house. It seems that they had already had second thoughts about the bid and were secretly hoping that it failed.

In other cases the initial reaction to the confrontation of an issue or problem was initially surprise or shock and then, almost always, much less contentious and stressful than I had imagined it would be. I often reflect on the wasted energy that I had expended worrying about something that turned out to be a non-event.  I’m not a big fan of the phrase, “it is what it is”; however, the attitude behind that phrase is probably worth adapting, rather than spending a lot time worrying about it. “It” certainly is likely to be less than what you imagine it could be.

I suppose that there are lots of books and self-help articles that have been written about techniques for dealing with upcoming events in a more positive way than worrying about them and letting your imagination run wild. Everything from praying about it, to yoga relaxation techniques, to doing positive visualization exercises are likely well documented.  All of them have the same goal – to stop your mind from taking you to dark places, which can then actually affect your health, too.

When I was growing up MAD Magazine was very popular with kids and, in my mind’s eye, I can still see Alfred E. Newman on the cover saying “What, me worry?”  Then there’s the sound of Bobby McFarland singing “Don’t worry, be happy” that comes to mind. All of a sudden, I forgot what I was worrying about.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 22nd, 2012 at 12:25 pm and is filed under Inspiration. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.