We were having lunch a while ago when I suddenly blurted out to Mahal“OMG! I’m so excited!” He looked at me and I saw in his eyes that he was wondering what was I excited about. So I immediately added “I’m excited about all our upcoming travel plans both near and far!” Like this month we plan to celebrate Halloween at Nuvali, we plan to do some hotel hopping in Manila, and we want to explore those parts of Laguna we haven’t visited yet. Then next month we’ll be in Batangas. We already booked an overnight stay at Acuaverde for baby Tuz’s first birthday. Then come December, for Christmas until New Year, my parents want to spend it at the beach with the whole family and I’m already calling various beach resorts to inquire for their cheapest rates. Then on January next year, we’ve already booked flights to Cebu and we’ll be going home to Oslob. Then on my birthday month, February, I want to explore a place we haven’t been to yet (Tuguegarao perhaps?) then the whole summer I want us to go back to Boracay, visit Aklan, Capiz, Romblon and Masbate! So exciting!

After a little while, now that I think about it, I started to worry a bit, like, okay, how are we going to do all that with baby Tuz in tow? Where will we get our budget? Can we really travel that many times like I used to do by myself before? Hmmm… Then I remembered that it’s not good to worry so much about it and just let things unfold. So this is what this blog post is about. How to not worry whether about life in general or even love…

are you a WORRYWART like me?

As positive as I try to be now, there was a time in my life when all I did was worry. When I was a kid, I worried about finishing school. My dad was jobless and my mom was (and still is) a government employee who couldn’t afford the high tuition fees of the exclusive school she wanted me to go to. Thank God for scholarships, I was able to make it. When I was a teen, I’d worry about getting pregnant early like many of my childhood friends who ended up being knocked up at such an early age. Thank God, I was like a tomboy then and though I had a lot of male suitors, I never really had a real boyfriend until my sophomore year in college and never really engaged in sexual activities until I met my first husband. And in my adult years, I worried about not being able to bear children at all. And now that I’m a mom, I still sometimes worry about giving our one and only son the good life he deserves. And this is something that I try not to think about or dwell upon as much as I can.

 

So how not to worry?

It’s human nature to be concerned about what’s to come. It’s human nature to think about the future. This is the very reason why insurance companies are a very lucrative business. They capitalize on the fears and worries of people they sell insurance to. But you know what, I have learned that being concerned and being worried are two different things.

Being concerned is thinking about your future and how you can better prepare for it while at the same time still being able to stand up tall today, being able to do your tasks well today and being able to enjoy your life today. While worrying is about becoming paralyzed emotionally and mentally by overly thinking about what’s to come or what’s not to come.

Didn’t the Catholic Bible teach us to pray the Our Father where it says “give us our daily bread”? Meaning, today’s bread. So we should just focus on today, on the tasks at hand, on what life is offering us now and let tomorrow take care of itself. After all… today… now… this present moment… is all we really have.

 

A good example:

I remember about sometime ago, my Mahal and I had a really huge fight. And before that, we always fought about similar issues every week or so. When I thought about it, it was really because I was worried of what’s to come and what’s not to come. What if I destroy the best friendship I’ve ever had? What if our future plans don’t work out? What if his family hates me? What if he leaves me? What if this is all just a phase? What if… what if.. what if…???

It’s been eating me up alive that I just had to stop myself, breathe, focus in the moment and live. No one is perfect. People change. Circumstances change. All I have is now. And what do I have now? I have the best friend I prayed for all these years. I have someone who can accept all my eccentricities, weirdness and shortcomings. I have someone who honestly loves me for me and is willing to make his own sacrifices for me. I found my soul mate and he has found me. He makes me the happiest I have ever been. Our chemistry is just so great together. It’s like having a clone, only, he is the more perfect version of myself. That’s what I have in him and I ought to enjoy that now and not keep on worrying about how it will all turn out in the end. If I take care of him and love him now, the future will take care of itself.

Okay, I think that’s as mushy as I can get for now. The point is, worrying is useless. It’s a useless and dangerous use of energy. Even medical professionals agree that worry causes a big chunk of people’s sickness these days. Like when I got separated from my ex, I’ve been having panic attacks at night. Even when I’ve started moving on, I’ve been having skin rashes, anxiety attacks, and I can only manage to sleep 1.5 hours at a time. My best friend/bebe has been really worried about my health. My brain felt like exploding and my tummy always had this feeling of doom. But still, I kept being positive and tried to just focus on my tasks at hand. But still, worrying slowly ate me up. And recently, all those years of stresses and worrying gave me high blood pressure, high cholesterol, fatty liver, etc. which I am now curing with various medicines and proper health habits.

It was only after that big fight with my bebe sometime ago that I managed to learn how to stop worrying and thereby increase my hours of sleep and took steps to finally live a healthy life.

 

So what did I do to stop myself from worrying?

Action Steps:

Basically, I learned from Dale Carnegie through his book, HOW TO STOP WORRYING, these three (3) things:

1. Analyze the situation fearlessly and honestly and figure out what’s the worst thing that can happen to you. After much scrutiny of my situation, I realized that the worst thing that could happen to me is that I’d end up alone, that I’d grow old alone and miserable.
2. Reconcile yourself to accepting it if necessary. This is where you’ll begin to feel relaxed. If you haven’t been sleeping in days, at this point you would be able to do so. After I realized that I could end up living alone the rest of my life, I accepted it mentally. After all, even as a kid, I remember believing that I didn’t need anyone else, that I can take care of myself. It’s not so bad. There are perks to living just by myself but not necessarily lonely. I can do whatever I want, have sex with all kinds of strangers if I want to (lol!), travel the world, meet new people, do more adventurous things by myself or with new friends, etc. etc. True enough, after I mentally accepted that, I started having this calm feeling in my chest. It was then that I started to relax a bit.
3. Try to improve upon the worst (which you have already accepted mentally). After I’ve accepted the worst thing that could happen to me, all the worries in my head disappeared. I decided to forgive him, to forgive us, for all the fights we’ve been having. After more than a day of not communicating with my bebe, I finally texted him and said “I’m sorry. I love you.” He immediately replied and said how happy he was that I texted him, that he loves me very, very much and that he’s sorry too. He said he was getting saddened by all our fights and how he wishes things would be okay once more between us. When he said that, I can’t even remember what we fought about in the first place. All I know is that we can get through this like we always do and that our love will see us through. So, that’s what I told him. Since that day, we’ve become much better best friends and partners for life. Little things didn’t bug me anymore as much as they used to. Forgiveness always comes instantaneously and we’ve just been overflowing with love and affection despite the physical distance between us at that time.

 

To summarize…

Focusing on the present, appreciating what your partner offers you no matter how big or small, forgiving little flaws here and there, all these things have been very helpful in making us live a more fulfilled and happy life day by day. And since we started focusing on the present, we’ve also been more devoted with our daily gratitude prayer. We always end the day praying together and thanking God for everything that happened during the day and acknowledging all His blessings. This has put us in a more grateful and happy state. And because of these things, we’ve accomplished so much more that are helping speed things up for our future plans. It’s just really been amazing!

And on those rare moments when worry starts to creep in once again, I just do these three steps:

1. What’s the worst thing that can happen because of your problem?
2. Accept the worst thing that can happen.
3. Do your best to try to improve the situation so the worst thing that can happen won’t happen.

 

What else can you do?

If life gets too much and you feel like you need outside help, I recommend you do the following:

1. Meditate.
2. Go out and smell the flowers.
3. Read inspirational quotes and books.
4. Exercise.
5. Count your blessings no matter how small.

We all deserve to live the best life we dreamed of that we can possibly live now. And this does not come from material things (though they help improve the quality of one’s life) but from being happy and at peace with yourself.

That’s it for now! So stop worrying and let’s enjoy our life! Happy Tuesday, everyone!