We spent alot of time anticipating things we fear will happen. We probably spend more time in a state of negative anticipation than we actually do experiencing negative things.
If you stood apart from yourself and calculated how much time you spend suffering because you’re worrying about something bad happening, you would probably feel shocked to find out you’re causing most of your own pain.
That’s anxiety.
When you find yourself thinking this way, there is an easy solution you can choose. You can choose hope.
This week and last, I found myself worrying about my aging parents. They have lived good long lives, but no matter how long and how good, all lives end, even our own. As they have gone in and out of the hospital multiple times in the last month, I found myself scared about their deaths and how much my life will change with them gone, and worrying about how I will handle that. Will I neglect my husband? My friends? My job? My patients?
Will I be irritable? Impatient? Short tempered? Impulsive? Yes, yes and yes.
But I find I can also choose to be hopeful and when I do I feel better. I can hope each time that they will find a fix and each time they will come home from the hospital and I don’t need to deal with the end right now.
If I can stay with hope, I feel energized and so much better able to function and cope.
Then I can live today instead of suffering today.
There will be time for that, when that time comes.
true love; breaking the cycle of failed relationships 