Catch the worry army

When my friend told me she admired how zen I am during this job and financial stress, I realized, it’s because I kind of understand how the worry army in my mind works now.

The worry army consists of three core members: anxiety, fear, and insecurity. They come with some random thoughts from your mind, attack your brain, and drive you crazy!

However, after I practice mindfulness, exercise, cook healthy food for myself, the situation has changed. I start to understand what kind of activities that recharge me, so I can always fit some of them into my daily life. For instance, I know that as long as I spending time learning for 30% of my day, I feel fulfilled. I know that if my day starts with exercising, it sets a positive mood for the entire morning. Esther seems to be a simple cute machine.

Even though I could feel negative in the morning before going to exercise, I would tell myself, “Okay, but everything can wait after exercising.” Over time, I started to cultivate high awareness in my daily life and regain my power to ask the worry army to wait for my recharging activities.

I mean, this worrying army will come from time to time anyway. But since I started noticing their arrival, I can have a better strategy to cope with them. Usually, I don’t run away or actively fight with them. Instead, if I want to be present at the moment (e.g. enjoy good food), I will ask them to wait.

For instance, before I open my inbox to see all the rejection letters, I do feel anxious. However, if I’ve got to get anxious anyway, why don’t I enjoy my couscous and worry about it later? No one is entitled to destroy my precious time with my couscous!

I don’t know why, usually after I ask them to wait, they kind of lose their power, at least, they get less interested in me. And then when I open the email inbox, oh! Only one rejection letter?! The worry army is clearly over worrying too much! I’ve told you!