Getting rid of worry

An exercise to get your week moving

I subscribed to Amber Rae’s ‘Daily Clue’ email newsletter recently and have been enjoying the short inspirational notes in my inbox each morning. (If you would like to subscribe yourself, you can do that here.)

Each note is written as a daily clue designed to help you orientate your life around wonder, and let wonder lead the way.

I say all that, to say this: I really enjoyed this exercise that Amber shared for starting the week in today’s email. Here’s what she suggests:

1. Grab pen and paper, and write down all the worries taking up space in your life.

2. Once you have your list, look at each one and get curious: How would my inner mentor handle this? What would love do?

3. Take it all in, and smile at your awareness.

It’s so easy to start our week immediately feeling overwhelmed. We see all at once everything that we need to do, and our brains can’t handle it. It triggers stress and anxiety. We worry about how on earth we’ll manage to do everything.

Our brains don’t always help us at moments like this. We end up with an exaggerated sense of how big everything is and how long it will all take.

That’s why writing it all down is such a helpful practice.

Somehow, writing things down disempowers those things. They are no longer massive, immovable mountains; instead they become manageable goals.

Taking a moment to write down and then reflectively think about what we’re anxious about, using our ‘inner mentor’, turns something overwhelming into something achievable and even enjoyable.

I found it so helpful to do this today.

Photo: Joshua Earle