Don’t Give Yourself An Ulcer

Act 54:

“It’s never too late… To Stop Worrying

Separate the worry from the problem. Figure out what you can do… then do it. If you have now power to do anything about it… worrying about it won’t help. Allow things to take their course. Options will open up. When you stop worrying, you think clearly. Open your mind to possibilities. You’ll be surprised how often the problem dissipates.” – Patrick Lindsay

Quote in book: “Nothing in the affairs of men is worthy of great anxiety.” ~ Plato

I am a worry wart. Sometimes I think I will give myself an ulcer because I stress and worry about EVERYTHING. I can’t help it. I stress over things that I can’t control. I worry about the outcome of things and the consequences. This is probably what makes me a non-risk taker. I’m too worried about the consequences to act. I don’t ever really act on impulse, cause I worry about the consequences. This is probably why a lot of people think I’m a kill joy and I’m definitely not spontaneous.

This is why I never do anything dangerous. I’m too worried that I’m gonna get hurt. I also don’t take a lot of risks w/ my heart, cause I don’t want to get heart broken. I don’t sleep around, because I’d be worried about catching some sort of disease or something. I don’t trust very easily, because I’m afraid I’ll get hurt in some way.

In general, I’m a stress case. Let’s take this past week. I was stressing about getting our task done the ENTIRE time. I wasn’t worrying about the problem. I was just worrying that we wouldn’t finish in time. The funny thing is that I’m a stress eater, but I couldn’t eat very much at all. I also like to bake when I’m stressed out, but I couldn’t do that because of the hours. So I had to find another way to deal w/ my stress or just stop worrying about it. I decided to try not worrying about it and just believe that we would get it done. This actually helped me focus on the task at hand and work faster. I’m trying to change my ways.

So, here’s another example of how I’m changing. I’ve been chatting all night on skype and Jordo asks me what I’ve been doing all night. I told him chatting. Then he was like…I thought you were writing your blog or something. Then I was like. Eeh.. I’ll get to it. Then he said. “well, you don't seem very worried…so you seem to be off to a good start” I think I said something like, well no one is gonna care if I post late. They haven’t cared the last two nights. Before I would’ve stressed the hell out to try to get the blog out before midnight on the day, because I promised to do one every DAY. However, if I get it close and before everyone wakes up… what’s the difference?

I’ve learned to not stress about the little things or at least I’m learning to, but I think I’ll never stop stressing about the big things. We need to find better coping mechanisms than stressing out. Find different ways to de-stress. I know mine are eating and baking (which in combination is not good for my diet). I need to come up w/ better ways. How do you de-stress or stop worrying? Can you give me some tips?