287 Holly Worton ~ How to Let Go of Worrying & Focus on What You Actually DO Want

Today’s Guest

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What You’ll Learn

• Why some worry is okay, and how it can actually be useful
• Why it’s actually beneficial to give your worries attention
• What to do with your worries
• How to turn your worries around so you can get the outcome you actually want
• How to do both the mindset work and the practical action to transform your worries
• What to do when you’re worried about things you have no control over
• Other ways to take care of yourself when you know you’ve been worried

Things I Discussed

• Getting Things Done, David Allen
• Ask Your Guides, Sonia Choquette

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Related episodes

• 319 Holly Worton ~ How to Let Go of the Past and Future to Focus on the Now
• 311 Holly Worton ~ How to Quit Feeling Like a Victim & Start Taking Responsibility for Your Life
• 310 Holly Worton ~ How to Feel More Safe & Secure in Life
• 305 Joanna Hennon + Holly: How to Forgive, Even When You Don’t Want To
• 299 Holly Worton ~ How to Get into Alignment with What You Want in Life
• 291 Holly Worton ~ How to Open Up & Be Vulnerable in Your Creative Ventures

Transcript

The transcript for this episode can also be downloaded here (no opt-in required).

Holly: Hello and welcome to the Into the Woods podcast, episode 287. This is your host Holly Worton and I am back with another solo episode.

Today, I am going to talk about something that has been in my mind for the last couple of weeks and it seemed like a really appropriate topic to discuss in this episode. So, we are going to talk about how to let go of worrying. Actually, just me, so I am going to talk about worrying. So, I am going to be honest here, I will be a worrier, I think it has definitely improved over the years, and it is not something that is a major problem in my life, but it something that has come to my attention in the last couple of weeks and so I thought it was worth discussing with you, because I know I am not the only person in the world who experiences this.

So, I am recording this episode in the week after my kickboxing winter course, which is a colder version of the summer course that I talked a lot about last July; except this time I was grading, and I didn’t do the grading in summer, so this time, in my opinion, the stakes were higher. So, it is a two-day course, it is 13-hours of intense fitness and self-defence and kickboxing over the course of two-days, so it is five-hours on Saturday, eight-hours on Sunday. It is challenging physically, and mentally, because you just get tired by the end of it and the end is when you do the sparring, and that’s the most challenging part for me and it is just you are just really exhausted by the end.

Today is the first day that my body is kind of back to normal and that’s taken a few days. Anyway, I was worried about all kinds of things, I was worried that the winter course would be more difficult than the summer course, because all the instructors say that it is. I was worried that I wouldn’t do well in my line work, I was worried that I wouldn’t pass my grading. Now, I did plenty of mindset work, in the weeks and days running up to this winter course and I also did the practical action of practising my line-work and my fitness stuff, every day at home. But I was often short-tempered, and difficult to be around, because I had this kind of low-level worry energy and thoughts running in the back of my mind, so much so that my husband said: I really look forward to this grading being over so that you go back to normal. So, this is something that other people noticed as well.

Then it got to the winter course last week and it was fine, yes, it was really challenging, there was a two-hour kind of run with fitness on Sunday morning, it was challenging, and tiring, but I did it and I wasn’t dead after it. My body hurt, I was sore, I was tired, but I was fine, I wasn’t dead tired, like I have been in the past and yes, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, my entire body was aching, but I was fine. In fact, I actually enjoyed it once I was there and once I was getting through it and I really enjoyed parts of it. Best of all, I found out yesterday that I passed my grading so I will be getting my brown-white belt in the New Year, which is really exciting. So much so that I am really looking forward to the summer course this year. I got the dates yesterday, I have got it in my calendar, I am looking forward to doing my grading to brown-black in the summer. So, it is really interesting to me how this situation went from worry and stress to not only was that not as bad as I had built it up to in my head, but it was enjoyable, it was good. It was tough, but it was good, I liked it and I am looking forward to the next one.

So, I am sure that you have experienced something like this in your life where you were worried about something, whether it was going to a course, or trying something new, or doing something in your business like running a webinar, or giving a talk, we do all kinds of things that take us outside of our comfort zone and that are challenging to us and that we often worry about for days and weeks coming up to this thing. So, let’s talk about worry.

Is worry always a bad thing?

No, I don’t think it is. I think some of the worry that I experienced for my winter course was good, because it raised this concern, wanting to pass my grading, and wanting to not suffer too badly on the course. It raised this concern, or these concerns, to the top of my mind, it got me to focus on this thing that was really important to me. So, as I was rounding up my goals and my projects for the end of the year, this grading was one of the biggest things, it was one of the most important things to me. I wanted to do well on it, and I wanted it to be pleasant, I wanted to not suffer through it, the way I felt like I did in the summer course. It was something that was important to me, it was in the forefront of my mind, and the fact that I was worried about it, kind of kept it present for me. So, I think that some worry is okay, because it got me to do the mindset work, to make it easier, it got me to do the practical action work, which was starting to train with running again, a couple of months in advance, doing the line work at home, to practice, doing the fitness stuff to practice. It got me to take work on the practical actions that I needed to take to actually do well on this, because if I had just taken it easy, and not done any preparation, I probably wouldn’t have passed, or if I had I would have just barely passed and it would have been very, very, painful and just excessively difficult.

So, again, I think some worry is okay, because it raises these concerns to the top of our minds and gets us to take the action, hopefully. The problem is when we dwell on the worry and we let it become over-consuming and run our lives and we don’t actually do the practical action or do the mindset work that is going to make us do well in the situation. That is when it becomes unproductive and that is when it becomes damaging because it raises our stress levels, and it just makes everything more difficult.

So, the way I dealt with this is first to become aware of this worry, become aware of the fact that I was worried about this course. So, I think it is really important to not – again – dwell on the stuff that we are worrying about, but to make it real, journal about it, get it out of your head and onto paper and this is a really important step. Oftentimes, when we take all the worries and we dump them onto paper, and we actually read them, sometimes we are like: that’s ridiculous, that’s not going to happen. So if you actually write down all of your what if questions: what if I fail? What if I am really tired and I can’t complete the course? What if I trip and fall when I am doing the piggyback run, because that was one of the things that we had to do, after we had run for 45 minutes or so, or an hour, I think it was after we had been running for an hour we went to this park and we had to do a piggyback run. That was another thing I was worried about, because you had to pick someone of your weight and size, carry them on your back, and run around the field with them. I am terrified every time we do that, because I am always afraid that I am going to trip and fall and faceplant with this person my size on my back and break all my teeth and my nose and my face. So, as I hear myself saying that I realise you know that has never happened, I have done piggyback runs before, I have been fine, it could happen, but it is probably not going to happen. So, when you write down all these “what ifs?” and you get those worst-case scenarios out of your head and onto paper, that’s where you can see them and think: okay, what are the odds of this happening? Is this really going to happen and what can I do to prevent it?

So, I think it is really, really, useful to give these worries the time and space, pull them out of our heads and get them onto paper in a journal, or you could write them on a separate piece of paper so you can burn them if you wanted to, but I think it is important to give them the kind of space, and time, and make them real, so that we can see them, and we can do something with them. It is kind of like, you know, having a bunch of goals or things that you want to do in your head, and not writing them down, you are much less likely to actually achieve your goals if you are not writing them down, you need to make things real. I think by writing our worries down we are not necessarily, it is a very difficult comparison, because I think we need to make them real so that we can do something about them, but again, not dwell on them.  So there is a fine line here, you want to do some work with this stuff but not go overboard. I have written out a bunch of journal prompts, and I am going to share those in the Patreon group that you can use to get clear on this. So it is stuff like: what am I worried about? Why am I worried about this? What are my worst fears? What are my “what ifs?” What are my worst possible outcomes?

Then you need to turn it around, once you have gotten all the crap out of your head, and onto paper, you need to turn it around and ask: what would I rather have instead? What is the best possible outcome I can imagine? What do I really, really, want? So, instead of face-planting during the piggyback ride, breaking my face, not being able to complete the grading, failing the course, all these horrible things: what do I want instead? I want to have lots of energy for the run, I want to have lots of energy for the other fitness, for the linework, for the grading, I want to do really well in the sparring, I want to pay attention to detail, I want to stay calm and cool and collected when I am doing the sparring, even when I am sparring with people I don’t know. So, it is like taking all of your individual fears, turning them on their heads and saying: what do I want instead? Instead of these crappy, scary, things, what would I rather have? What is the best possible outcome that I can imagine?

Really get into detail with that, so take every single one of those fears and flip them on their heads, and then add to it, what are some other things that you want? Do you want to feel proud of yourself? Do you want to feel really satisfied with your performance? What do you really, really, want? What is the best outcome that you can imagine, even if you think it is ridiculous, like people coming up to you and saying: wow you did really, really, well in this thing, I was watching you, that was great, I am really impressed with how far you have come! Like, whatever, what do you want to be seeing yourself doing, what do you want to be feeling when you are doing this, what do you want to be hearing from other people, what do you want to hear people say to you? What do you want your thoughts to be? What is all the good stuff that makes up this best possible outcome? So, really get into it, and you can write this down, or you can sit with your eyes closed and visualise it, you can do both, whatever works for you, but really flip all those fears on their heads, and create your best possible outcome.

Now, you need to analyse what to do about that so you can achieve that, because just by sitting and visualising you are probably not going to manifest that result, maybe you can, most people probably can’t, so you need to do practical stuff.

Questions

So, the next question you need to ask yourself: what are the practical things I can do to achieve this best outcome?

So, for me, it was starting running a month before, practicing the linework at home, it was practicing the fitness at home, it was going to class, that’s the practical stuff.

Then, what’s the mindset stuff you need to do?

What do you need to believe about yourself in order to achieve this best outcome? Who do you need to be in order to achieve this? So you need to do the mindset work to transform your fears, your blocks, your limiting beliefs and I did a ton of work on this. So, I did beliefs of all kinds, I did stuff like: “running is easy for me”; “my body loves running”; “it is easy for me to do well on the winter course”; “I stay calm and centred when doing my line work for grading”; “the winter course is fun and easy for me”.

I did all kinds of stuff based on all of my individual fears about the winter course, flipped them on their heads, created belief statements and did those. I also did a process that we have in PSYCH-K® called a ‘VAC to the future’, which is where you create that really kind of rich visualisation of what you want to be seeing, hearing and feeling, in terms of what’s your best possible outcome or goal. Then, after I did that, I did some more belief statements, I did a lot of work on this stuff, and I really believe that the mindset work that I did helped me to get in the best possible mindset, and mental state, to do well on this course to the point where I actually enjoyed this thing that I had been really, really worried about.

So, as always, it is really important to combine the mindset work with the practical action work, so I kind of go back and forth on this, I do both. I always say this is like a spiral staircase that you are walking up, one step is the practical action, one step is the mindset work, and I was doing a lot of that, I started training for this with the runs, probably two or three months, it might have been three months ago, because I kind of stopped running after the summer course, because my hip was hurting. Anyway so I kind of had to step it up, so I had to plan in advance, and I started doing the training, started practicing at home, and started doing the mindset work. So, I would do a little bit of mindset work, then I would take the action, and sometimes through taking the action I would realise that I had more mindset work to do and so I would clear that take some more actions, do some more mindset work… so it was a constant process for me of going back and forth. So, do the mindset work, get yourself in the right mental state so that you can achieve this best possible outcome but also take the practical action, so you need to ask yourself: can I do something about this situation? Can I do something to ensure that my best possible outcome is more likely to happen?

Deadlines

So, you have got a deadline, which I did because I had this winter course, plan what actions you need to take, pop them into your calendar and time block them in there and take these actions in a timely manner. So, months ago I put the runs into my calendar, I put the linework and fitness into my calendar to make sure that it happened, and I have done the same with all my other goals, and projects, that are coming together because, now, at the end of the year, I have a lot of stuff coming together and I want to make sure that I achieve all my goals and I am taking the actions that I need to take. So, you have got to plan this stuff in advance, and for me the best way to do that is getting it into the calendar, so it is like I have got the deadline and I work backwards from that to see what I need to do in the timeframe that I have. So, with my walk1000miles, at this point, I only have about 25 miles left to go but I have looked in my calendar and I have checked and re-checked to make sure that I have my last couple of walks planned in my calendar and that they happen so that I can achieve this goal. The same thing for my book, I have got dates in my calendar and I have blocked out big chunks of time to work on the book. I am wrapping up my bardic grade training for my Druid group, and I have got stuff to go through before I turn in my review for that, I have got time blocked out in my calendar for that. So, if you have got a deadline, either a self-imposed deadline or kind of a concrete deadline, like the winter course, which was happening whether or not I did I it, get that deadline and work back from there to see, when, and where, and how and how often you need to take the practical actions that you need to take to get your best possible outcome.

Worries within our control?

So, this is all assuming that we are worrying about stuff we can actually control. All of the stuff that I have mentioned, all of my goals and projects, that is stuff that I absolutely control; but, sometimes, we worry about things that we have no control over and that’s a bit trickier because we can’t take the practical actions, but we can do the mindset work. So, if you are worrying about a situation that you have no control over, and there are plenty of situations in life that we have no control over: we can vote, but we can’t control politics in our country, we just have one vote. We can’t control the economy; we can’t do much about traffic, so if you are stuck in a traffic jam, you are stuck; you can’t control stuff that happened in the past; we can’t control the weather, we can’t control what other people think; we can’t control what other people say, or feel, or do. We can’t please everyone, so we can’t create a situation where everyone is happy. We can’t control time that we have lost, money that we have lost, stuff from the past. There are so many things that we can’t control, so what do you do about it?

But stuff from the past, I think that is worth looking at, look at regrets that you have, decisions that you have made in the past that you are not happy with, get those out of your mind and onto paper and realise that you can’t do anything about that, all you can do is make better decisions in the future, and I think it is worth bringing this stuff to the forefront of your mind for that reason. So, I did this thing in the past, it did not work out well for me, how can I avoid that in the future? That is really practical, getting clear on what you would rather do instead in the future. And, again, making that future focussed, you can’t control the stuff that you did in the past, you can’t control the mistakes you made, you can’t control the bad decisions you made, but you can make sure that you don’t make the same mistakes and decisions in the future. So, that’s useful, there are a number of things that you can get out of your head, and wrap your head around, but you need to let go about the worries about the past, because, again, there is nothing that you can do about that, you can’t go back in time and fix that stuff. You can’t fix the overarching problems that we have in terms of the economy, politics, world leaders, shit that is going on in the world, don’t worry about it, do what you can do, which is vote, raise awareness about topics if that’s what you choose to do, but there is not that much you can do about that so don’t worry, do the little things that you can do, and let go of worries about the overarching gigantic things that effect the world. Global warming: do your part, climate change, there are things that we can do to be kinder to the environment, do those things, but the earth is only going to do what it is going to do based on what the other billions of people on the planet are doing. So, there is only so much we can do about these huge worldly things. So focus on what you can do, and don’t worry about the stuff that you have no control over, that you have no power to change.

What you may want to do, and this may help with your worries, is again get all this stuff out of your head, because I think it kind of clears up your head from the worries when you write it down, and give it that space, and those words. It is like I remember years and years ago, when I read the David Allen book, Getting Things Done, the first thing he recommends that you do is get your tasks out of your head and into a system. This is kind of like that, it is getting your worries of your head and in a system, to actually do something about them. So, if you have got these huge worldly worries that are bothering you, stuff that you have no control over, hand it over to whatever higher power or energies that you believe in, ask the Universe to help, ask source to help, ask spirit to help, goddess, whatever you call that higher power, or higher energy. Ask for help from your higher self, ask the Angels to help, ask for help from whatever helpers you usually ask for help, and if you don’t have a practice like that, give it a try. I read Sonia Choquette’s Ask your Guides a few years ago and ever since I have been asking the Angels for help, with everything, even the smallest things, I take a minute and ask for help. So, give it a try, you might be surprised, so ask for help from higher sources, or energies, with the stuff that you can’t control. This is something that I should have mentioned before, with the stuff you can control, the practical action stuff that you can do, ask for help from either the guides, the Angels, source, and also, humans. So, if there are people that can help you, ask them for help as well with the stuff that you can control.

So, moving back to the things that you can control, ask for help from a higher source, ask for help from the Angels, but also recognise with everything that not everything works out the way you want it to. I was just at Avebury for the last couple of days, and that is probably the last time I am going to be staying in that house, I was really sad, I was disappointed. I was talking to the owner of the house about that and she was saying: I really wanted you to have the house and I was saying: I really wanted to have the house too… that didn’t work out. Sometimes not everything works out the way you want it to. Sometimes it is in our best interest and highest good for something else to happen. Sometimes we just needed to learn something from the experience.

So, rather than worrying about stuff that you can’t control, focus on what you can do. You can do the mindset work, you can ask the higher powers for help, you can take practical actions on somethings. So, focus on what you can do.

When you are aware that you have these worries, again, do what you can do, do the mindset work, do the practical action, ask the higher powers, but also focus on self-care because worrying is stressful, and it can take a toll on your body, which can affect your ability to deal with this stuff that you are worried about. So give yourself permission to take care of yourself, practice self-care, make time, give yourself the time, the space, to relax, do some light exercise, go for a little walk, stretch. Give yourself permission to take care of your mind and body so that you can more effectively deal with the stress of the worry.

So, that’s all for now, I hope you found that interesting and useful. If you are in the Patreon community, pop in there later, I will be posting the journal prompts that I have created for you in the Patreon group and that’s something — I have been sharing a bunch of journal prompts lately — but I really want to start tying them into the episodes and we will see if that is relevant for all the episodes I do, but when it is relevant my plan is to start doing some journal prompts, because I find it really useful to have journal prompts to get clarity on things and think about things, so I want to share those with you. So, if you are in the Patreon community head over there and check that out.

If you are not, membership starts at just one dollar a month. If you go to http://Patreon.com/HollyWorton you can join there.

That’s all for now thank you so much for listening, if you enjoyed this episode please subscribe if you haven’t. thank you thank you as always for tuning in week after week and listening to me talk. I hope you found this episode interesting and useful.

Next week

Next week, I am back with Joanna Hennon, we have a really, really, good, juicy, episode on how to decide which personal and professional development courses to sign up for. We talk about bad investments that we have made in the past and how we make good investments now. I think a lot of us are kind of addicted to learning and may have fear of missing out and so we don’t always sign up for the things that are right for us. So, this is a really interesting in-depth episode of how to make the best investments and decisions in your personal and professional development.

For this week if you want to find the show notes, as always, head over to https://www.hollyworton.com/287 to get the show notes on this episode and remember to pop into Patreon for the journal prompts. Thank you very much and have a fantastic week!