How To Deal With Worry

Worry cannot exist in the present moment.

It's simply not possible.

The only way that we can worry is by thinking of the past or future.

Something about the past that we wish was different,

Or something about the future that we are scared about or hoping will be a certain way and not another way.

That's basically what worry is.

There might be some other types as well.

But in the present moment,

Bad stuff can happen,

But we can't worry about it.

We can only experience it in the present moment.

And that might be unpleasant.

There might be unpleasant things that happen either now or in our future.

That's okay.

Unpleasant stuff happens.

But when we worry about it,

We're creating more unpleasantness that does absolutely nothing to change the outcome.

In fact,

Worry gets in our way of changing the outcome.

If we're worrying about something,

We're not planning effectively.

If we're worrying about something,

We're not changing our behaviour to something more appropriate to dealing with future circumstances,

For example.

If we're worrying,

We're not thinking clearly.

If we're worrying,

We're often not doing what must be done.

A lot of the time,

Burying our head in the sand comes along with worry,

Because it's the worry that makes it just too difficult to bear.

And so we often reach for distraction instead,

Because it's too painful to think about.

If we think about things as they really are,

There's much less of that unpleasantness.

We're much more able to think clearly about what might need to be done in order to avoid that potential nasty future situation.

And so the antidote to worry is,

Once again,

To be in the present moment.

And what does that mean?

Well,

It means to have all of your senses wide open and focused on the data that's actually coming in right now,

Rather than being in the imagination,

Which is the only place that the past and future can really exist.

This doesn't mean that it's not a good idea to plan for the future,

Nor does it mean that it's not a good idea to learn from the past.

But notice that those two things are very,

Very different to worry.

So,

To be here in the present moment,

Although that's a term that's often used alongside spiritual teachings,

And some of these teachings sound quite magical,

Well,

That's to do with the cultures from which they came.

We have to remember that these cultures didn't have the benefit of modern science.

But there are things about some of these teachings,

Not all of them,

But there are things about some of these teachings that are consistent with science.

When we look at the actual teaching of the Buddha,

For example,

The Dalai Lama said publicly one time,

If and when science proves anything about our teaching wrong,

Then we will change our teaching.

This was the attitude of the Buddha as well.

This guy,

He was a real guy,

Just a normal guy like you and me.

What was special about the Buddha was,

First of all,

That he figured out the mind.

Second of all,

That he taught other people how to figure out the mind.

He figured out practical steps to train and understand the mind.

This is unique.

And what's so special about this,

To me at least,

Is that all of what he taught remains consistent with science.

Science has yet to find anything that conflicts with what this guy,

The Buddha,

Taught.

Now,

There is a religion around Buddhism,

And that religion has taken some other ideas,

Things such as reincarnation,

Or the big karma machine in the sky that keeps track of everyone's good boy and bad boy points,

Like Santa Claus,

And brought them into the Buddha's teaching.

This stuff was around before the Buddha.

This stuff is Hindu,

And it comes out of a culture where magical thinking was very present.

This may come as a surprise to you,

But this guy,

The Buddha,

Did not teach reincarnation,

And he did not teach that there's a big karma machine in the sky keeping track of our good boy,

Bad boy points,

Like Santa Claus.

He did not teach these things.

What he did teach was practical steps for understanding and training the mind,

And a very,

Very large part of this was being present,

Being in the present moment,

And that doesn't mean anything other than what it means in plain language.

Look around.

Listen.

Feel the body and the things that it's touching.

I've spoken about this a lot,

And the things that it's touching.

I've spoken about the breath before,

And this is uniquely appropriate to being present,

Because the breath is always happening right now.

That's why the Buddha made a big deal of the breath.

It's because it's always happening right now.

When we put our attention on what's happening right now,

It becomes impossible for us to worry.

And I encourage you to experiment with this.

Please don't take my word for it.

Please don't take the Buddha's word for it.

This old guy himself said the very same.

He said to anyone who was listening to him teach,

Don't take my word for it.

Go and try it yourself.

See what happens.

See what happens when you put your attention on the present moment.

Take a deep breath.

Look around.

Listen to what's happening.

Feel the body.

Feel the body.

And see where worry is when your attention is on the present moment.

Now,

Worry may come back up in the very next moment,

And that's fine.

We're only ever talking about one moment,

The present.

These are not strategies for eradicating worry across a lifetime.

We're not aiming for some kind of magical defeat of the mental function of worrying.

That's just not possible.

You're always going to have the facility to worry.

That possibility will always be there.

No one ever lost the capability to think about the future through meditation or mindfulness practice,

But they gained choice.

So many of us are racked with the difficulty of worrying being our kind of default mode.

We wake up in the morning and we start worrying either about what's going to happen tomorrow,

What's going to happen next month,

What's going to happen to our business,

Am I going to survive,

What am I going to have for breakfast?

All of these things we worry about.

And what we're aiming for with mindfulness practice is to make the choice instead in one moment,

Just once,

Only ever once,

To do something else.

Wouldn't it be nice to be able to choose whether or not you worry?

So I encourage all of you to try this simple practice of paying attention to the breath,

Enjoying the pleasant sensations of the breath.

And when you catch the mind wandering,

Never mind,

Start again.

Or,

Aha,

I caught you.

I caught you Mr.

Monkey Mind.

You celebrate successful practice.

This is mindfulness practice.

You just observed the mind doing its thing.

And now you're going to choose something else to come back to the pleasant sensations of the breath,

Which are happening right now.

If you want to experiment with some other meditation object,

The meditation object,

The typical meditation object is the breath,

But you can use anything.

You can use anything that's going on right now.

You can use the sensations of the body.

The body scan is a popular meditation tool.

So you begin paying attention to the very top of the head,

And you work your way down the body,

Paying attention to all of the different parts of the body.

You can also take the body as a whole.

Really anything that's going on right now will do just fine.

If you try this practice,

Please do let me know how you're getting on.

I would love to hear from you.