There’s such a stigma that we can’t even talk about it.

Well, hey there. Welcome back.

The Stigma of Private Worry

What are you worried about? No, really. What are you worried about? Maybe you say nothing. Maybe you say, “Oh, the usual, you know, the things everyone worries about.” We deal with life and concerns and we take objective measures to reach goals in public. But then in private we worry and sometimes the worry doesn’t match our outward demeanor does it? Worry has a stigma to it just like suicide does. And I talked about this in my episode called throwing away the container. There’s such a stigma that we can’t even talk about it. We don’t even allow ourselves to talk about it. We wave it off as a few moments of weakness or we just think everyone feels the same way about this that or the other thing, but we don’t really address it for the most part. Now, you may feel that you have a worry about a certain thing and then you decide you’re going to take action. And when you do that, you actually feel a lot better. But it doesn’t happen often, does it? The stigma and guilt prevents you from really exploring it. And if you’ve noticed through a number of episodes and even my books, I tend to push really hard in the direction of, well, no, let’s just do that. Let’s feel that. Let’s let’s see what that’s like. Let’s not hide. Let’s not shove things into the dark recesses and not deal with them. Because that’s how they get their power. That’s how they fester and get stronger because we push them into a corner and we don’t deal with them.

Saying It Out Loud: The Power of the “Third Voice”

It’s typical for someone to feel bad and embarrassed if they say out loud to someone, I am worried about this because it almost feels so unnatural to just say it that way. And if you’ve read three voices, it means you’re saying it in your third voice. We like to say it in our second voice all the time, which is our inner dialogue and monologue. Because like many other things, fears, paranoia, and so forth, they sound silly when you say them out loud. Well, then why wouldn’t you say them out loud then? If it sounds silly and sort of dispels it. Here’s the contrast.

This does not apply if we’re worried for someone else. If we think to ourselves, “Oh, I’m worried about Susan. And Susan being someone you work with or Susan being your daughter or your cousin or your sister. Now you’re concerned. Oh, that’s so much better. Well, I’m just concerned for her.” Well, it’s sort of silly for you to be worried about that. But I’m sure she’ll be fine. Yeah, I’m just worried about her. Aw, it’s really nice that you feel that way. It’s really nice to have all that empathy towards someone who isn’t you. Do you see how odd that is?

If you’re worried about Susan, you may just have coffee with her and sit down and say, you know, how have you been? What’s going on with that? It’s you won’t even say I am worried about you because you know that’s a full paw. You’ll say, “So, what’s going on with Rick?” or “What’s going on with that thing that you were dealing with? How’s that going?” And then you’ll assess what you need to do, your empathy and your your advice and so forth based on that. If you’re born with male psychological genetics, you will think, “I’m hearing a problem. I want to fix that.” If you’re born with female psychological genetics, you will think, “I’m hearing that someone is hurting and suffering. I want to help them. I want to listen and make sure that they feel heard.

But neither of these things is applied to yourself.

And again, you may hear this and think, “Oh, okay. I get it that some people worry, but I don’t do this. This is not me.” And you know, if you’re true, if you’re accurate, then cool. Then good for you. I’m actually thrilled. If this is something that doesn’t apply to you, that you don’t find yourself in a in a corner or in a a self-perpetuating loop or something that rules your brain anytime it has free time, then you’re doing pretty well.

Bringing Worry Into the Light

But a lot of people aren’t. A lot of people experience this. And as with so many things, it’s something that we can deal with. It’s not something that’s part of the human experience per se. I mean, worry and concern and all that stuff and fear, yes, it’s all part of that human experience, but only to a degree. We can deal with the stuff that is, as I said, the loop or things that are shoved into the corner. We can bring them into the light. And again, how do we do that? As always, we raise awareness of it, which we’ve just done.

So, here’s some thoughts on dealing with worry. And again, if you’re using the app, all these things will be in the project library, and you can just click on it, and boom, you’ll have these on your little clipboard.

Cuz I like when you’re lazy. Sometimes I’m lazy, too. What if you just said out loud all of your worries? Like I’m a big proponent of waking up and saying I’m grateful for and then you list the things you’re grateful for. I do that in the morning. I stumble around half asleep and my feet hit the ground and I’m immediately saying I’m grateful. Your feet hit the ground, Mark. Don’t you have carpet? Sorry. My feet hit the carpet.

I’m grateful. I love myself editing. Don’t you?

The “Worry List” Exercise

But what if you just wrote down I’m not saying first thing in the morning, don’t do that. I’m saying once you’re awake or whatever time of the day that you have a lot of cognitive ability and you’re and you’re clear-minded, what if you sat down and you made a list of everything you’re worried about? Not projects, not goals, not stuff you want to take care of, not even stuff you want to think about, but stuff you’re worried about.

And isn’t it odd that those things may not be the same list? Isn’t it weird that you go, “Well, wait a second. The stuff I’m worried about is stuff I don’t want to deal with. The stuff I’m worried about isn’t even related to me. Like, I worry sometimes about this or that or the other thing.

But what if you brought it into the light? What if you wrote it down?

What if you made this list, looked at it, and then went back to it, and then noted how realistic each one of those was?

What if you went back and you wrote a why next to it, like, why am I worried about this?

Tracing the Origins of Our Fears

And what if we took a page from my book BeCAUSE! and we tried to trace it back to where it actually comes from. If you grow up poor, you can have a worry about having enough money. Even though you have enough money, even though you have more than enough money, even though you have everything in place to keep you safe and comfortable and prosperous, you may still worry about money because in your childhood, that’s all you did. Do you not think that bringing that to the light could dispel that? that the monster that’s pushing you away from the pain of being poor, the pain of not having enough isn’t really needed because everything’s okay. Now, granted, maybe things aren’t okay. Maybe you are in a a downturn. Maybe you see a pattern and you really are kind of hard on your luck right now. And I’m sorry if you are. And so, the monster’s warranted and he’s doing his job to to protect you. But this can apply to so many things. And again, it gets back to the book Because where you pull it backwards and you say, “Well, what’s propelling me to feel this way. It’s it’s a self-reflection and can be a selfrevelation. I mean, the coolest thing from this could be you lit you literally listen to this silly 10-minute episode, then you write a bunch of stuff down and you go, “Oh my god, I’m not worried about that anymore.”

The Goal: Just One Less Worry

What if this one episode took away just one of your worries? just one no matter how silly it is because the silliness of a worry does not dictate its intensity. It does not dictate its effect on you. You can worry constantly about the silliest of things that have no business being in reality and it will hurt you and it will make you suffer. And as you know, one of my themes is I don’t want people to suffer. If there’s something I can do with my voice or my actions or something I create for them that can help them to not suffer, that is part of my mission with this podcast.

So, think about that. Even if you don’t write stuff down, even if you don’t use my my productivity app and you click on the little thing and you get the nice little list that goes along with this episode, just leave this episode...