Focus Your Mind and Banish Worry
Posted: Thursday, November 25, 2010
by Willie Horton
Gurdy.Net
The normal mind is bombarded by useless thought and, sadly, one of the most regular forms useless thought takes is worry. Worry is a cancer that immobilises the mind, disables the worrier from doing what needs to be done and, in fact, makes the worried-about undesirable outcome all the more likely. The trials and tribulations of everyday life are no more than passing challenges ' there to be met head on. But if you're wallowing in worry, you are simply incapable of rising to those challenges. Worry places the worrier in a bizarre parallel universe of 'what if' ' a million miles removed from the only place and time in which appropriate action can be taken ' the here and now.
What makes more sense? Worry about losing your job or doing the job to the very best of your ability? After all, not doing your job to the best of your ability increases the chances of you losing it - your worry, as it often does, becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. And what's the point of worrying about money? It would be far better for you to re-focus your mind on the small but important things that make life truly worth living? Which will lead to a happier and more successful life, directing your energy into what you don't want to happen or pouring your energy into the here and now in the expectation that the things that you want to happen will come to pass?
Sadly, the normal mind is the author of its own misery. I'm not saying that bad things don't happen - the point I'm making is that, when they do, there are very few people who are mentally fit enough to get on with what needs to be done to dig themselves out of the hole and start afresh. In fact, normal people do quite the opposite - even when all is going well for the normal person, those actively go looking for a shovel! Sadly, there's a mountain of research from the field of psychology that indicates that we are predisposed to focus our minds on the negative. And, as one client told me recently, if he can't think of something negative, his mind will start making it up! That is all that worry is - a concoction of a fevered normal mind.
So, let's sort your worries out for you. The first thing that you need to understand is that outside events don't worry you - it is you who decides to worry. OK - the decision might be automatically made for you subconsciously but that's neither here nor there - it's still a decision made by you. What you have to do it release your subconscious mind from its obsession with the negative. This is not done by fighting the negative - rather, you achieve it be consciously paying attention to real reality - the reality of what is actually taking place in this moment. The reality of now is very different from what you perceive it to be. Your perception is warped by your negative subconscious mind - you see nothing as it is. So you end up seeing other stuff - stuff that isn't real, problems that may never arise at some point in the future - when, yet, all you truly have is right here, right now.
The only place where you can be your very best is here. The only time that you can take the action required to better your life is now. You need to learn how to focus as much of your attention as possible on here and now. When you focus your attention in this manner, you will simply have too little attention left to manufacture the crazy trains of thought that hijack the worrier's mind! Not only will you break the subconscious cycle of worry, you will become more effective by being more focused - even an idiot (and there are lots of them around) could figure that one out!
So, tomorrow morning, instead of starting your day in the mindless mess that fosters and nurtures worry, take five minutes - it's all that you need to set things in motion. Sit down somewhere where you won't be disturbed for those five minutes, close your eyes and focus only on what you hear. The next morning,sit down quietly again and turn your attention to the physical feelings that you're experiencing in your body. The next day, close your eyes and focus on the way your body moves each time you breathe. Start getting in touch with what your senses are actually telling you. In coming to your senses, you will understand the nonsense of worry.
Copyright (c) 2010 Willie Horton
Willie Horton enables his clients live their dream - since he launched his acclaimed Personal Development Seminars in 1996. His clients include major corporations: Pfizer, Deloitte, Nestle, KPMG, G4S & Allergan. An Irishman, he lives in the French Alps and travels the world as a much sought after speaker and mentor. He is the author of To Succeed Just Let Go and the creator of Gurdy.Net
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