subject: Here Is Excellent Advice For The Worrier! [print this page] Here Is Excellent Advice For The Worrier!
Usually when we worry we set up a condition that might happen and then we imagine in our minds the thing actually happening. We experience in our imagination all the pain, passivity, and anxiety that we would experience if the event really came to pass. We usually use every resource of our imagination to make the painful event as detailed and realistic as possible.
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As Maltz points out, we can use the exact same process that we use in negative worry to build up our self-concept or our feeling that success is imminent. So he advises the chronic worrier to use his imagination to play with the idea of success. The worrier is used to thinking about failure. But Dr. Maltz thinks he should now do exactly what he does when he worries, but this time he should think of success rather than failure, a desirable outcome instead of a feared outcome. This is worrying in reverse.
Here is excellent advice for the worrier. Here is constructive and channeled worry. Don't stop worrying; to take that advice would simply mean to stop using your imagination. Rather, change the content of your worrying. Instead of worrying about an undesirable outcome, begin to worry about the possibility of something positive. Start off by saying, "Now just suppose I could bring this about." Then start saying, "How would I bring this about?" From there you go to the idea, "Well, it is possible to do this." And eventually, after adding fine details and vivid mental pictures, you come to the point of actually saying to yourself, "Now, what can I do to bring this about?" This is productive worry; this is worry that lends itself to growth. And this is worry that encourages a high level of energy output rather than the kind that depletes energy.
Another form of constructive worry is problem-solving. Worriers need to have their intellects actively engaged most of the time. Otherwise they tend to direct their attention to something unproductive. Research has demonstrated that worriers possess a better ability to generate vivid fantasies than non-worriers. Unless this ability is directed toward identifying and finding solutions to problems it will be used up in apprehensive brooding.
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Whenever the worrier finds himself passively brooding over something he fears will happen, he should say something like the following to himself: "What's happening to me now is that energy is flooding my mind and activating my imagination. That energy is the raw product of creativity. But I am using it in an unproductive and negative fashion. In fact, I'm turning it against my own body, wearing out my organs and disturbing my body chemistry. I should be using this energy to solve a problem of some sort." Then he should act upon those thoughts.
To a large extent the chronic worrier is not responsible for the fact that energy continuously bombards and fuels his imagination. The chances are good that he is a highly emotional person by nature, and that emotionality is what's really activating his mind. He's not responsible for the fact that he has an energetic mind, but he is responsible for the use he puts that energy to. like it or not, all worriers are potential "idea men." They are creators, artists, problem-solvers. The way for them to handle their worry tendencies is to turn that energy into ideas, solutions, inventions, and innovations.
