Repetition #4: Worry Game
With a certain attitude, we can track the ways of worry through the mind. The tracks rarely get our attention, though worry rightly describes a game. The option to play the game differently and with humor seems advisable; or adds flexibility; or supports cleverness. You choose.
Map the favorite steps in creating and supporting a worry.
Mine would go something like this.
Make a list in my mind of everything that happens in the next while.
Continue until I find two or three that evoke some level of anxiety. Nest these together so that once I realize I can’t solve one smoothly, I notice that I catch myself up in the next one. Soon notice that the next carefully looms. And takes back my attention. It is like a high wire act on the flying trapeze.
An imaginary knot of mental ropes might describe the situation.
Here we go again and again.
This blocks memory of any previous success. Keep threading the thoughts though these lines. I realize that I have a choice that I fail to exercise.
Meditative reflection and choice seem important allies in restructuring any anxiety game; So does gratefulness for other aspects of our life experience. So does going out for a walk.
Describe a personal version. Write it on a large enough stone. Know where that stone rests. Maybe turn it over and look at other side. Woody Guthrie wrote the verse that reminds us that the back of most no trespassing signs stand blank and empty, awaiting our instruction.
Sometimes meditation describes an emptying of the head. I think another definition allows us to enjoy the humor of our thought patterns without becoming engaged.
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