Why Am I Always Worrying?

and how I am dealing with it.

What Do I Worry About?

Worrying steals your peace, peace is replaced with turmoil, turmoil disrupts your life, your life becomes a constant cycle of worrying.

I am the person in my family who worries the most.

My family always ask me ‘What’s wrong?‘. I get annoyed when they ask, because nothing is wrong in that specific moment. However, there are things that are not right in my life, and I am worried every day.

My family see the worry carved into my face. I decide to ignore it.

I don’t really know when it started. I can’t pin it to a specific day, time, or age.

I worry about the path I am on in life, and all the potential outcomes. I worry that I will turn 35, reflect back on the past, and list over 100 things I should have done differently.

And everyone is different.

If I compare myself to my brother, it’s like two opposite ends of a spectrum. I never see him worrying.

Although worry is an emotion that builds internally, it’s also visible externally.

I am younger than my brother, but I have grey hairs. He doesn’t.

To add to my worry is my impatience. My parents tell me that’s always been the case. Whenever I wanted something, I had to do it. In that moment. No waiting.

But worrying and impatience are my two biggest flaws.

Taken together, these two things disable me from enjoying the now. I am sprinting impatiently towards a potential outcome that I worry I won’t reach.

How Worrying Is Impacting My Life.

Worry is a result of reflection. And I am a very self-reflective person.

I reflect on my life because I want better. I want to become the best version of myself I can. There is no other purpose in life. I want to manifest the life that I have pieced together in my mind.

I am very emotionally invested in myself.

The more we care, the more we end up feeling.

Worry saps me of energy.

When I worry, I piece pictures in my head of all the possible outcomes. And they are all negative. This sad spiral saps me of energy. When I worry excessively, I am disabled from doing what I need to do to get me where I want to be.

Worry weakens my relationships.

Instead of being present with people I care about, I worry about what I’m worried about. I enable my energy to focus excessively on my worry instead of being with the person I am with.

Worry has made me feel physically ill.

There was a period of 6 months in 2023, where I was ill, once a week, for 6 months. I couldn’t explain why, but I was forced to lie in bed all day. That was a signal from my body that not all was right in my mind.

Learning To Focus On Only What I Can Control.

So how am I dealing with it?

I have three options.

• Change it

• Leave it

• Accept it

I hate being worried, so I definitely don’t want to accept it, and I can’t leave it. So, I must change it. My worry is something I can control, so I must change it.

I feel like I must have the next 20 years of my life planned out.

I forget I am 27 years-old.

I can only do so much.

I am learning to be more patient. If I can learn to exercise patience, I know my worrying will weaken.

Exercising automatically alleviates anxiety. People stop looking after themselves when they worry. But my physical well-being is so important to me and I never allow myself to not lift weights, run, and move my body. No matter how I feel.

Meditating helps me stay grounded. I spend 15 minutes a day alone, being as present as I can. I re-centre, and focus on the present. It’s a subtle reminder that I am only human.

Educating myself is very important, and if I am not learning something new each day, I am failing. New skills help me build confidence, and will allow me to take more control of my life, instead of having to answer to someone else.

Speaking with friends and family. Relationships are the foundation of human life. We are social creatures, and nobody should deal with problems in isolation. I am much more open with family and friends about how I am feeling. They never complain that I am saying the same thing over and over again.

Writing. I always congested my mind with my thoughts. It felt like a barrel that had reached maximum capacity but couldn’t explode because there was no release. Now, I have made a hole in the barrel and water is flowing out. Writing has been the best medicine for me. I am so happy I started writing.

Final Thoughts

Everyone has issues. Some share how they feel, others don’t.

I am an emotional person, and I don’t want to give anyone a false perception of who I am.

Ultimately, it comes down to how comfortable I am sharing how I feel.

The best I can do is focus on the present, and control only what I do with every single second of my day. That’s the only thing I can do. Everything else - the past, the future, does not matter.

Ending on a positive note, one thing I have stopped doing is worrying what others think of me. No one cares. I would never have published this newsletter 6 months ago because I cared too much about what others thought.

I guess that’s a step in the right direction…

Worry is a thin stream of fear trickling through the mind. If encouraged, it cuts a channel into which all other thoughts are drained — Arthur Somers Roche