A Framework for Dealing with Worry

I am a skeptic of quick, one-line answers to life’s challenges. I don’t mind checklists since I can pick out what makes sense to me. I prefer thoughtful analysis of potential causes and their effects.

We are all unique because of our varying views, attitudes, ambitions, and fears as we try to live successfully. These differences can complicate our attempts to gain a clear understanding of what‘s going on and what should be done. If you are serious about doing something useful and long-lasting, you have to wrestle with all the ambiguity and uncertainty and develop your own approach.

Worry resides within a complex structure which supports many temperaments, connections and relationships. We are all uniquely different, and so are our experiences and the environment in which they occur. The short, quick solutions from self-help experts may have worked for them and those they counsel, but chances are they won’t work for you “lock, stock, and barrel”. But, don’t discard all the remedies recommended by these experts. Choose the suggestions that make sense to you and adapt them to your circumstances.

My approach to adapting the ideas of others is based on my early days in business. I use a five-step framework for implementing change. The five steps represent stages of progression that result in effective and lasting change for me.

Stage 1: Awareness
What am I sensing? Define the emotion. At best, it’s curiosity. At worst, it’s fear or anger. In between is an extensive range from annoyance to concern.

Stage 2: Knowledge and Understanding
Determine, in detail, what’s causing me to feel the way I do. This is a search for information about me, as the object. Then I research what the “experts” have to say about the subject, in this case “worry”.

Stage 3: Analysis and Liking
How does this new understanding fit in with my values, principles, and rules for living effectively. I hold on to what resonates with me as being right and true or worth considering as an addition or modification to my lifestyle. I ignore the rest.

Stage 4: Preferring and Deciding
Often there is more than one reasonable outcome from the previous stages. To choose the best, I check my purpose in life and priorities. How do the alternatives fit in with what I am trying to do with my life? What changes are implied? What obstacles must be overcome? What is the impact on the “spokes in my wheel of life”?

Stage 5: Committing, Planning, and Acting
How much of this change am I willing to take on? What am I willing to combat?

Now we are into “change” which on it’s own is a discipline with many theories and experts selling their wares. I’ll leave that discussion for future blogs … back to the framework for dealing with worry.

Progression through the stages is not always serial with a phase being completed and then followed by the next. Often I spiral back and forth as I discover a discontinuity or ambiguity which was not dealt with in earlier stage.

Sometimes the progression through theses stages is very quick, especially when the process clearly suggests I should forget about worrying since it is not strategic, effective, productive, or useful.

I welcome your comments on this framework. How would you change it to create one more suited to your needs?.

Worry is like cholesterol …

Worrying indicates that that we are not looking forward to the next step. We aren’t ready and emotions kick in. The range of feelings is broad. Can you add to this list?

anxious, concerned, uneasy

annoyed

nervous, jitters, uptight

brood, fret, troubled

doubt, question, unsure, uncertain, apprehensive

distressed, stressed, under pressure, strained, tense

dread, panic, fright

anguish

These feelings don’t look very helpful, but they can be if we use them to figure things out and make the right choices. At a minimum, we will be heading in the most suitable direction to relieve the pressure.

Dr. Edward Hallowell , psychiatrist and author of Worry, refers to this as “good worry”. He states:

“Worry serves a productive function … good worry leads to constructive action.”

Just like “bad” cholesterol, too often “bad worry” takes over. Hallowell calls it “toxic worry” and differentiates it as:

“Toxic worry is when the worry paralyzes you.”

It can be harmful to your mental and physical health. It handicaps, incapacitates, and diminishes you. It concentrates on avoiding or resisting reality. It gets in the way of finding solutions by circumventing clear thinking. Instead, it distracts with negative self-talk that wastes time and energy. For example, students writing a test can become anxious. They have two options. They can focus on problem solving techniques and the subject matter, or they can wander off into worrying about failing and its embarrassing consequences.

The brain follows your directions. Will it be thinking clearly or clouded by “toxic worry”? It’s easy to plunge into deeper states of concern and anxiety. Just thinking about your problem(s) for too long can immobilize you and lead to generalized anxiety disorder. What to do? We need to learn how to minimize “toxic worry”, the bad cholesterol.

The many flavours of “worry”

We all worry at times. Hopefully it’s short-lived and beneficial. Worry is natural and has an important purpose. It warns us to prepare for a challenge or risk. It reminds us to be careful when trying to cross a street busy with reckless drivers. It signals us to be on guard when approaching potentially vicious animals, like stray Rottweilers or drunken sailors.

Worry is not the body’s instinctive fight-or-flight response to immediate danger. Instead, it’s psychological. It begins with anxiety or concern caused by a real or imagined challenge, risk, or issue. With me, it can start with a feeling or a thought, then quickly develop into a chain reaction of more thoughts and feelings as I consider the next step.

“Worry” is too general a term. It needs specific and descriptive adjectives or synonyms to indicate it’s more distinct qualities. It’s criticality can range from not too serious or trivial to potentially tragic or life-threatening. A sudden change to  plans surprises us and we become uneasy. We are annoyed because we will be late and may miss something. Testing our plumbing skills for the first time by installing a dishwasher causes panic as we imagine flooding the kitchen. As we climb the ladder to fix the eaves trough two stories up, worry turns to outright fright, maybe even profound contrition as we pray for our safety.

When we have to face new risks, we get nervous. Remember the jitters before that first presentation or speech? Eventually we learn to brood and feel uptight as we imagine the challenges we may encounter. We are not sure if we have the skills to handle unforeseen problems and difficulties. In a new job or business, concern turns to doubt as we wonder if we know enough about our competitors and have the necessary resources (capital, people, skills, raw materials) to beat them.

Health is a personal issue that should be high on our worry list. We dread potential threats to the quality of our lives. We question our resolve to do what’s necessary to avoid them. It doesn’t take too long before we become anxious about our finances. As teenagers, will we be able to go to the concert or buy a new outfit? Our troubles continue as debts loom in the face of loans, mortgages, investment mistakes, hoped-for vacations, education expenses for our children, maybe even our own as we attempt to recover from job loss, and retirement.

A second spectrum of worries occurs as we extend our concerns beyond the personal to include our family and friends, and, if we get really serious about worrying, to our community, country, and world.

Remember fretting about how your parents will feel if you don’t pass or make the team? What will your peers think about how you look at the prom?

The prospect of a child dropping out of school makes parents anxious. Anguish sets in as your child gets involved with the wrong crowd and you imagine the threat of drugs or criminal activity.

If you are really a worry-wart, you’ll find time to worry about all your friends’ marriage and career problems.

Now that we’ve opened the gate to the rest of the world, how about environmental pollution, politics, changing social structures, the impact of technological progress, terrorism and so on?

Just thinking about it all makes me worried! It’s time to pause and try to figure out how to deal with this epidemic.

Worry … who … me?

Two weeks ago, “worry” started to show up. My things-to-do were piling up more quickly than they were getting done. That build-up was making me anxious.

And then on Saturday, as I drove out of the driveway to knock off one or two of these things-to-do, my plans were disrupted by a “thump” from the rear of the car. It seemed to be tuned in to the frequency of the rotation of the tires. I got out to investigate. It wasn’t a flat tire. I couldn’t feel or see anything imbedded in the tire, like a nail. There was nothing clumped to it, like one of the squirrels or chipmunks that use my driveway as a thru-way. I decided to forget driving on the weekend and booked the car in for a check-up on Monday. I was annoyed that my plans were dashed and concerned that there I might be facing a costly alignment problem or worse.

Anxious, bothered, worried, annoyed, concerned … all for nothing. The resonating thump was caused by several loose license plates and other junk that had piled up on each other in the trunk. So often what I worry about doesn’t materialize or it doesn’t turn out as bad as I expected. What a waste of time and energy.

Later that week there were several instances when someone else  was worried about what they or others were facing. Changes were occurring. The future was uncertain. It was questionable that certain individuals were prepared to deal with the uncertainty and challenges that might occur.

I wondered:

Is there some value to worrying?

Is it a natural instinct or do our phobias force it?

What are its causes?

Do our feelings or thought process too quickly cause us to worry?

When does it make sense to worry?

How are worry and stress related? I don’t worry too often, except when I get behind on too many things. My worries might be a reaction to stress due to having too much to do. Does worrying increase as stress increases or is it the other way around?

How much should you worry about other’s decisions?

Is “don’t worry” good advice?

Whew – that’s a lot of questions to find answers to. I’ll share my findings with you in future posts.

When “small things” get in the way

Recently a friend of mine said “So many small things seem to get in the way of momentum these days.”

Dealing effectively with “small things” is first a matter of understanding your priorities. What’s really important or strategic to you? “Strategic“ is one of my favourite words. My nature is to plan. I prefer to carefully guide my life by strategies that meet the goals that are important to me. Blah stuff! Words like plan, strategy, goals, important, but that’s me.

“Strategic” and “important” are similar and related, but not identical. “Important” derives it’s significance from your strategy. Merriam Webster distinguishes the two:

strategic: a careful plan or method devised or employed toward a goal

important: marked by or indicative of significant worth or consequence

Goals come first. You achieve them by devising and then implementing a strategy. Activities that make your strategy a success are meaningful and therefore worthwhile and important. That’s why my first rule is “Set Goals“.

All other activities are a waste of time and energy. They are inconsequential, insignificant and unimportant relative to your goals. That’s why my fourth rule is “Put first things first“. Focus on what matters most, until you are tired and have to rest.

But it’s a challenge because distractions occur and worry sets in as you wonder how to deal with them. By definition distract means to divert, to turn aside. Don‘t let distractions put you off course by confusing you with conflicting emotions or motives. Instead, divert the distraction. Let’s develop a simple table of how to react to distractions.

When a “small thing” competes for your attention you have to compare its strategic nature and the risk associated with its supposed urgency. There are four factors to consider: is it strategic or not and is it urgent or not. Organize these factors into a “significance” table, beginning with strategic. Here’s my suggestion for the best way to react to each of the four possible combinations.

	Urgent	Not Urgent
Strategic	Do it now!	Schedule a time and do it before it becomes urgent.
Not Strategic	Delegate it.	Leave it!

These approaches are usually realistic and appropriate. Sometimes it’s difficult to determine who to delegate to. How about the originator of the “small thing”, whoever benefits most from it, or whoever is most impacted by it?

The Ultimate Virtues: Humility

Humility is tough for young children to acquire. Most parents want them to have high self-esteem which can lead to less commendable behaviour such as:

• self-admiration,
• feeling superior and being arrogant about it,
• exaggerating self-worth, importance, or stature,
• boasting and bragging, and
• judging others.

Humility makes room for others by:

• showing respect and concern for the welfare of others,
• taking responsibility for our faults and failings rather than blaming others,
• apologizing when we do something wrong to others,
• making amends, and
• giving credit where credit is due; not unfairly glorifying our own self.

Humility leads to authentic self-improvement by:

• making us aware of our imperfections,
• leading us to try to be better people,
• freeing us from conceit, vanity, and inflated pride in oneself, or one’s appearance, and
• modelling propriety and modesty in dress, speech, and conduct.

“Humility is not thinking less of yourself,

it is thinking of yourself less.”

The Ultimate Virtues: Gratitude

With children gratitude starts simply. Teach them to say “thank you” and mean it. Teach them to explain what it is they are thankful for. With that start, children will expand this virtue to include:

• appreciating all the blessings they have received,
• looking for and finding the good in adversity,
• valuing their tears as much as their laughter,
• trusting that each moment brings them an opportunity to enjoy, to accept, or, when facing challenges, to create positive change,
• recognizing their lives as precious,
• freeing themselves from resentment and jealousy,
• understanding what they really need, and then
• living contentedly with whatever comes their way.

“Acknowledge your gifts and be grateful to the source. Because if you know from whom you’re receiving, you can always go back for more.”

Rabbi Noah Weinberg

The Ultimate Virtues: Wisdom

Think of it! What if everyone was wise, grateful, and humble! I am 70 years old and have a handle on “gratitude”, but I’m still working on “wisdom” and “humility”. Let’s look at wisdom first.

“We cannot do right unless we first see correctly.”
Richard Gula, ethicist, Professor of Theology

Wisdom may be the most complex of all virtues. It’s the culmination of all our efforts to practice all the other virtues. To reach this highest point may take most of a lifetime, so the sooner we start on it, with ourselves and our children, the better.

The building blocks include:

• developing a deep awareness or perception of people, things, events or situations,
• understanding the critical relationships between these people, things, events or situations,
• building a knowledge base of principles that will guide our choices and actions in the future,
• insight: the ability to realize, recognize, and discern what is true, right, important, or lasting, and both good for us and good for others,
• exercising good judgement and make reasoned decisions and choices, and
• acting conscientiously, in keeping with this knowledge, insight, and good judgement.

The end result of choosing and acting wisely is effectiveness which is the consistent achievement of optimum, decided, decisive, or desired results that serve the well-being of that which we cherish.

The Extra Mile – Justice

Image via Wikipedia

The seed that eventually grows into justice starts early with the cultivation of fairness. Initially the child‘s emphasis is on “self“ and then advances to include “others” and the necessity to be fair. The Golden Rule, which directs us to treat others as we wish to be treated, leads the virtuous child to respecting the rights of all persons. Once established as a principle of justice it blossoms, as we mature, to a worldview that is concerned with what is happening to all of humanity.

This respect for others includes accepting the basic human dignity and rights of all persons, even those with different beliefs and behaviours. It naturally develops into honesty, courtesy, civility, kindness, empathy, and eventually a new element – tolerance.

Tolerance
Tolerance is the root of justice. It must start with children since it’s opposite, intolerance, can begin at a very early age.

Early indications that a child is developing tolerance and the virtue of justice are:

• respecting adults and authority figures;
• being proud of his or her own culture, heritage and identity;
• not judging, categorizing, or stereotyping others;
• refusing to take part in activities that make fun of people because they are different;
• not laughing at jokes or demeaning comments that are discriminatory, prejudiced, or bigoted;
• refusing to exclude someone because they are different or not as experienced at something as the others; and
• standing up and voicing displeasure and concern for someone who is being put down, insulted, or ridiculed.

At these early stages, a tolerant person starts to:

• listen fairly to all sides of an issue before forming his or her own views and opinions;
• discuss with an open and unbiased mind;
• refrain from trying to force his or her own views on others;
• allow others the freedom of conscience to make moral choices that will be legitimately exercised, provided they do not infringe on the rights of others;
• agree to disagree about even the most controversial of issues; and
• behave and live respectfully with others even as the debate continues over profound differences.

Eventually the tolerant person begins to appreciate the richness of human diversity and recognize the many positive qualities and contributions of people from all backgrounds. The tolerant person embraces diversity by:

• recognizing that each person is not just unique, but uniquely gifted;
• welcoming the chance to learn more about some of the diversities, such as: race, ethnicity, culture, nationality, religion, education, gender, age, ability, disability, economic status, political views, beliefs, and behaviour;
• being friendly, open, and getting to know more people with different backgrounds and beliefs;
• focusing more on positive traits and similarities than differences; and
• finding the good in all people.

Social Justice
And then we have it  - Social Justice – increasingly more individuals creating a society that

• understands and values human rights,
• recognizes the dignity of every human being,
• builds institutions that that are based on the principles of equality of opportunity and outcome, democracy, and solidarity;
• helps to protect or make things better for others that are not experiencing freedom and democracy as we do; and
• enhances peace and human security by curtailing hatred, violence, and bigotry.

From a parenting standpoint, two excellent books that discuss this virtue are:

Raising Good Children, Thomas Lickona, Bantam Books, 1994 and

Building Moral Intelligence, Michele Borba, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA., 2001.

Go the Extra Mile: Optimism & Perseverance

“Success or failure … treat those two impostors the same.”

I don’t know who is responsible for that quotation, but it is one of my favourites. I found it especially useful when coaching. But … what is the “same“ treatment? It’s optimism.

Optimism
The power of positive thinking has been extolled for centuries.
Whenever your child believes the chances of achieving his or her goals appear doubtful make sure you focus on the positives.

A positive and optimistic attitude is an asset to yourself and others; anything else is a burden to yourself and others. The optimistic child:

• sees and focuses on the good in all situations, actions, and events;
• at worst, looks for the most favourable viewpoint when confronted with negative situations, actions, and events;
• anticipates the best possible outcome, even when things look dark;
• is always hopeful;
• does not waste time and effort on self-pity, complaining or blaming; and
• considers mistakes as learning opportunities, a chance to become even better.

Perseverance
When your child looks at the road ahead and it looks bumpy and full of difficult challenges, or at the road behind and its failures, mistakes and lack of success, make sure you encourage him or her to keep trying.

“The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.”
Nelson Mandela

When things are too easy, the sense of accomplishment wanes in comparison to when we have persevered and overcome huge obstacles. The persevering and persistent child:

• is determined and carries on with a plan even when obstacles are encountered;
• endures resolutely like the best athletes and keeps going when the going gets tough;
• is diligent and responsible, always applying herself to achieving the goal;
• does not waste time or procrastinate;
• is resilient: when knocked down or experiences failure, picks self up to try again;
• is stubbornly steadfast and persists in spite of counterinfluences, opposition, or discouragement;and
• does not give up or quit; instead persistently tries and tries again.

Like most other virtues, persistence and perseverance cannot operate for good in the world in isolation from practical intelligence. A person who is merely persistent may be a carping, pestering, irksome annoyance, leaving no salutary effect whatever. But given the right context, occurring in the right combination with other virtues, perseverance is an essential ingredient in human progress.