Untangling Stressful Habits – Worrying
If you have been in my world for a while, you will know that I am passionate about habits and untangling stressful habits to live a fulfilling life as a well-being. So today, I have decided to start a series to shed some light on some stressful habits that have come back in to my awareness recently.
Before I start sharing about stressful habits, let’s have a look at what habits are.
What Are Habits?
There are many definitions on habits, a few include –
- “are routines of behaviour that are repeated regularly and tend to occur subconsciously” – according to Wikipedia
- “a behavior pattern acquired by frequent repetition or physiologic exposure that shows itself in regularity or increased facility of performance” – Meriam-Webster Dictionary
- “a recurrent, often unconscious pattern of behavior that is acquired through frequent repetition” – the Free Dictionary
- “something that you do often or regularly, often without thinking about it” – MacMillan Dictionary.
What Are Stressful Habits?
Basically – habits can be useful or not so useful, or helpful or not so helpful, stress inducing or not. Sometimes we are conscious of our habit/s (i.e. often chosen and intentional) or the habit/s can sit within our blind spots or the unknown.
When I refer to stressful habits, I am referring to habits that are impacting our overall life, business or well-being. They could be adding extra stress, suffering or draining life force energy in our lives. The stressful habits could be showing up in one or a variety of areas within our lives (i.e. physical, emotional, mental, financial, environmental or social).
In order to start to untangle from stressful habits, we need to develop self-awareness, so we can be more responsible and take ownership of our own life. Today I wanted to introduce worrying.
Stressful Habit: Worrying
If you are a habitual worrier or worry excessively, you may already be familiar with the following definitions of worrying –
- “causing anxiety about actual or potential problems; alarming.” ~ Google and Oxford Dictionaries
- “to torment oneself with or suffer from disturbing thoughts; fret” ~ Dictionary.com
- “To feel uneasy or concerned about something; be troubled ~ The Free Dictionary
In the above definitions of worrying, you probably noticed the words –
- uneasy, torment, and
- actual or potential problems.
Is there anything you would add to these definitions of worrying?
Where Does Worrying Show Up? –
Worrying can show up in many places within our lives. From our relationships to our finances. For example – we can worry that a loved one is going travelling and whether or not they will be safe (relationship) or whether or not we will have enough money in a month to pay our mortgage (finances). Once we know what we are worried about we can then develop awareness to help to untangle from them and/or work with our worries. And remember –
“Worry doesn’t take away from tomorrow’s troubles, it takes away from today’s peace.”
~ Unknown
Over to You…
Now you have this awareness, what is your next step? Feel free to share any insights on worrying or a reflection below.
If you are ready to take yourself on the adventure of getting to know yourself (your true Self), why not join the Toolkit? A place where I share tools, inspiration and ideas to live a courageous and openhearted life.