031: Stop Creating Worry

Did you know that you have the ability to stop creating so much worry? It’s true!
Worry is a big thing in all of our lives and I think we can all agree that it doesn’t serve us, at all. In this episode, I am giving you my tips for how you can intentionally decrease the amount of worry you let in.
You’ll also hear an analogy about worry and I also give you the rundown about my personal experiences of being a worrier throughout my life (along with helpful ideas to get you out of the worry cycle).
What you’ll find in this episode:
A segment on creative encouragement
Getting honest with yourself about worries
My experience of being a worrier throughout my life
An analogy about worry
How worry isn’t serving you
5 tips to decrease the amount of worry you have
Helpful ideas to get out of the worry cycle
Read the transcript of the episode below:
Are you a worrier? Do you believe that that's just who you are? This is episode 31. Stop creating worry.
Welcome to the Committed to Create Podcast. I'm Lisa Funk, and I am so excited to hang out with you here. As we talk about the power of creating with our hands and our minds, I like to keep it real, remind you that you are not alone, and share specific ways that creativity and mindfulness can help us live even more meaningful and joyful lives.
I am so glad that you're here.
Hello friend. And welcome back to my big blue couch. I was going to say the podcast, both, both the podcast and my big blue couch. If you are new here, I like to talk about having you come over to hang out at my house. I have a big blue sectional in my family room and it's so comfy and I've had many, a great chat and conversation there.
And I just wish that you could really come over in real life and have these conversations together. So I hope that you can just feel that way too, that we're just hanging out and having a chat. I definitely want you to listen to this podcast and know that you are not alone in how you're feeling and the things that you're struggling with.
This is not a place to come and think, wow, she has really got it all figured out. It's definitely not true. So I hope that I have made that very clear that I am human, and have struggled and continue to struggle with all kinds of things, all the same things, I'm sure, and because of that, I have worked really hard to figure out how to kind of cope with some of these things or how to move past some of these issues.
And when I say move past, I don't mean that I don't ever deal with them again, but there are definitely things that I feel like I've worked through to a point where it's just so much more manageable. And today's episode about worry is one of those. So I'm really excited to talk about it. I know, who's saying that they're excited to talk about worry? But I am because I'm hopeful that it might help you too.
Before we get started, I wanted to do a segment called creative encouragement.
So one of the things that I really believe in is finding ways to bring creativity into your day-to-day life. That is why I have created some tools and resources for you to do just that. And I just wanted to mention how much I have been loving seeing so many of you post on Instagram and Facebook and emailing us, telling us how much you are loving the daily mindful lettering book, because it just gives bite sized practice for 30 days of mindful lettering.
And it's so much more than just mastering all of the lettering skills. It's really taking that time to use your hands and to just create. And so I hope that you will find something, whether it's with the daily mindful lettering book, which we still have available for you, or if it's some other type of creativity.
And like I've said before, even if it's sitting down to draw with crayons with your kids, Or enjoying cooking a new recipe, whatever speaks to you, whatever makes sense for your life. Find a way to have some mindful creativity every day, and just be careful that you're not judging yourself too much while you're doing it, not being too harsh about the outcome or what it looks like or comparing it to someone else's, but allowing yourself to be present, to get in touch with your five senses and to enjoying the creativity. You don't have to be good at something to enjoy it. 
So what is it that you have been doing lately? If you're like, oh, nothing really. I've been really busy and life has been crazy. Or maybe you're thinking, I just haven't really felt like it, I've been there, too. I've been depressed many a time where I just have not felt like picking up my pens or doing anything creative, but I know that it helps it can be that thing that you can kind of hold onto during those hard times.
I know that so many people have purchased our lettering bundles to share with their friends and family who struggle with their mental health or who have been going through a down or hard time. And they just want them to have something to kind of express themselves, to focus on and create with. 
And so if that's you, I just, first of all, I just love you. I am so sorry that you're going through a tough time. And also, I just want to encourage you to just pick up that pencil and that paper and just start doodling. Like it doesn't need to be something huge. This isn't like a checklist. This isn't something that needs to be done. It's just something that's fun. That's fulfilling. And they can bring some joy to you. 
So I just wanted to hop on before we get into this episode, all about worry. And talk about creativity and just encourage you to commit to it, to commit to including it in your day-to-day life. All right. That is our segment for today. 
All right. So today's topic is stop creating worry. And you might be thinking, I am not creating worry. Of course, I'm not. Why would I want to do that? I do not like feeling worried. It's the worst, but I just, I'm a worrier I'm somebody who worries a lot and I just can't help it. And I'm not here to be like, oh yes, you can. Because, that's annoying, but I wanted to just share my personal experience with worrying.
I definitely would have identified myself as a worrier for a lot of my life. And I have to laugh though, when I say worrier, you can almost mistake it for warrior. Which is definitely not the same thing. I definitely did not want it to be a worrier. It did not feel good. It drained me of my energy. It felt negative and hard and sad to spend a lot of my time worrying.
I would spend time worrying about the past. I would worry so much about having said the wrong thing to someone and worrying about if someone was upset with me, for something that I had said or something that I had done wrong, I would worry about. Not having set something up right. Or that I had missed something.
And then I would also worry about the future. I would worry that things wouldn't work out the way that I hope they would, or that, for example, I would never find someone to marry or that I'd never be able to have children or that I would never figure out how to accomplish different tasks. And you might look at that and say, well, those are legitimate worries because you know, it's possible that you might not get married or it's possible that you might not have children.
And that's a big deal. I am not here to discount feelings or concerns by any stretch of the imagination. I'm not here to say let's feel happy all the time. Let's never have any negative emotion. No, that's definitely not the point. 
But let's really be honest with ourselves. How much did worrying about not getting married helped me to get married? Zero. It did not help me at all. Now, obviously I did get married. And so I'm not saying that if you worry about something, then it's not going to happen. It just wasn't part of what helped me to eventually get married. That could be a whole podcast episode in and of itself, actually, because I am pretty open about the fact that if I had never gone to therapy, I really don't think that I would have gotten married. Maybe eventually, but it was so huge for me in changing my view of myself and therefore the way that I presented myself and my confidence, and I just saw a huge correlation in the work that I did in therapy to the way that I was able to then find relationships that were really healthy and meaningful, and my amazing husband that I now am so happy to be married to.
That was a side note. But the point is that worrying about not getting married, didn't help me. But what I am trying to say is that I definitely can relate. To being a worrier and that you're not alone. If you feel like you are sometimes overwhelmed with worry or even paralyzed with worry, because I have been there, I have felt it.
And I'm not saying that I don't ever worry anymore, but it's not as paralyzing and as overwhelming as it used to be. And there are some things that have really helped me with that. And those are the things that I want to share today in hopes that they might help you as well. So I want to start out with a little story.
And this is from the summer of 2019, when we were still able to travel, I was able to fulfill a dream of mine and traveled to Europe with my family that summer. And it was so fun even though we were there with four small children. I know that some people do not think that that sounds like fun at all.
Isn't it interesting how we're willing to do really hard things when it's for something that we really want. That's how I feel about traveling with kids. It definitely doesn't come without its challenges, but because I love traveling so much and I actually enjoy traveling with my family so much, I'm willing to face those challenges. And I just don't allow myself to get overwhelmed by them because I love it so much. 
Anyway, we were able to go to a few different countries and when we were flying back from, we were flying from Switzerland back to London, and then we were going to be driving to the countryside to Kent.
And our flight from Switzerland was delayed to begin with. And then we got onto the airplane, and then we were sitting on the tarmac before we even took off for at least an hour or an hour and a half, which is just challenging when you have a one-year-old and you know, three other small children. And thankfully, my baby had been really good on all of the other flights and this one, it was just tough because it was late leaving. 
And then we were sitting, waiting to take off for a long time and he was not thrilled about that. And so I was just struggling and then one of my other kids was not feeling well and had a stomach ache and it was tough. And so by the time we landed, it was just like, oh my gosh, just cannot wait to get to our rental car and then make the drive, which was going to be at least an hour to our Airbnb, where we were staying actually near Leeds castle, if you're familiar with Kent.
So it's a long story, but basically trying to find the bus that that was going to take us to the rental car agency was a huge bust. We ended up getting an Uber to take us. And once we got there, it was late and they were like, we've already given away your car. We were just like, are you kidding me? And then of course they said, well, we could give you another one, but it's going to cost, you know, a million dollars. Okay. Not really million dollars, but it was just going to cost so much more money. And we were so frustrated and anyway, we ended up getting it all, worked out and getting in the car. By then, I hadn't been able to charge my phone for a long time and we needed the directions to get to our a little cute cottage, the Airbnb we're staying up. 
So we're in the car and I have the GPS going and I did not have like a car charger or adapter. I had the wall charger that we would use whenever we were at our Airbnbs. And then I also did have like an external charger, but those must've died. So I'm sitting there with my phone and I can see that I'm probably going to have enough battery, but I don't know, I am not positive if I'm going to, so I've got the directions there and I'm holding it and I'm like, okay, I have got to make sure that we can find this place we have never been before. And so I've got to make sure that I don't waste this battery power in my phone on anything else. 
Now, this is where I'm going to be real honest that I have, you know, this kind of like knee jerk reaction when I'm holding my phone that I want to, you know, maybe check on my emails or look at pictures from the day before, or check Instagram or whatever. And that's just natural, especially when you kind of have a long drive and you're just sitting there. You're not the one driving and I'm sitting there and I'm like, I cannot spend this battery power playing games or looking at old videos or anything. I need to allow this phone to use the battery just for the GPS. Like, we need to make sure this GPS gets us where we're going to go. And for some reason, as I was sitting there, I was thinking about how this is a lot like worry. 
Worry is what we do when we want to check Instagram. Or we want to look back through all the pictures or we want to play a game. We're wanting to do all these things when it's only going to drain the battery. It's not going to help us get there any faster. It's not going to help us know how to get there any better. In fact, it could derail us. It could cause major problems, but it's not going to help anything for me to lose all the battery power in my phone by worrying, essentially, which is the analogy. Right? 
And I just thought about that and thought about how tempting it is to worry. To think that somehow worry is going to help us that it's normal to worry. But at that situation, I needed to preserve that battery power and it was not going to help me get where I wanted to go to worry, or in that case, to use my battery power to do all of these other things that were not the main goal that were not important. 
So if you're following, I think you'll be able to tell that I'm not saying it's wrong to ever look at old photos or Instagram. The point is that if those things were worry, they are going to drain your battery.
So think about in your life where you're going and what are you worrying about, and is it helping you? Is worrying serving you? I'm guessing that if you're listening to this podcast, you don't believe that worrying is serving you because you wouldn't probably be listening. I think that a certain amount of worrying is definitely normal, but I think that there does come a point where worrying doesn't serve us.
So what I want to do today is look at our beliefs about worrying and give us some tips, some ways that we might be able to decrease the amount of worry that is kind of taking over our brain space and our emotional capacity so that we can not have that drain our battery anymore. 
So, first of all, what do we believe about worry?
Do we think it's just normal to worry or that I'm just was born a worrier? It's just who I am. I always worry. And I'm just going to worry no matter what? Do we believe that we worry because we care? And so, you know, that's why we're going to hold on to worrying. Do we believe that worrying is the only option?
And the first thing that I want to do is just challenge those beliefs about worry and try to change them because we can instead believe that worrying doesn't serve us. We don't need to worry anymore, even though it's so tempting. It feels like it's going to help, but it doesn't help. And just that alone, that belief, that worrying actually doesn't help us is going to make a difference.
Walt Disney has said that worry is a waste of our imagination. And Abraham Hicks has said that worrying is using your imagination to create something that you don't want. So I don't know about you, but I definitely don't want to use worry to create something that I don't want. So I can look at it and say, you know what, when I take a step back, I can see that worrying actually doesn't serve me and that I don't have to be a worrier.
Even if I feel like it's something that's really natural for me, it doesn't have to be something that I go to, that I continue to turn to. And I don't actually have to continue to be a worrier. I can change that. 
So my second tip is to decrease the use of the word worry. Start to be aware of when you're saying it and just notice it and then change it.
So when you notice yourself saying to maybe a spouse or a friend, I'm just so worried that just say, oh my gosh, ding, ding, ding, here I am. I'm using that word worry. And then just notice, huh? I'm saying worry a lot. Or that I'm worried a lot. And I actually don't want to feel worried a lot, because I know that it's not useful. I know that it's not getting the result that I want. 
And so first I'm going to notice when I'm saying it, and then I'm going to try to change that word so that I can decrease the use of the word worry. And I want to just say that, I think you'll find that as you commit to decreasing that word, I'm not going to say eliminate it because I think that it's okay to have a little bit of worry.
I think it's human to worry a little bit, but if you find that you're saying it a lot, trying to decrease it and replace it with something else or just saying, you know what, I actually, I'm not going to worry about that. I've decided that worry doesn't serve me. And so I'm not going to worry about that, or I'm going to find a different word to use.
The third tip is to play out what if scenarios. For so many of the things that we worry about, if we play out the, what if scenario, we may realize that it's really not that probable or we may realize that it's really not that bad. Like is the degree to which we are suffering from the worrying really equal to the suffering that we'll have, if the thing happens or are we doing all of our suffering ahead of time?
I want to offer that I think it's possible that lots of us are doing all of the suffering ahead of time in case the bad thing happens. And then if the bad thing happens, I'm sure we're doing more suffering than also instead of just waiting and allowing things to happen and dealing with them. If they do, even if the likelihood of something hard happening is high is still doesn't help us to worry. We aren't better prepared to cope with that thing because we have worried it. Doesn't put us in a better position. 
I am here to convince you today to let go of worrying. We think it's helping us. We think it's important. We think that it's protecting us somehow that if we worry now that may me, the suffering won't be as bad or we'll be able to tell ourselves or someone else see, I knew that that was something to worry about. I knew that something bad could happen. It's like, oh, congratulations. I'm so glad that you were able to see this something bad was going to happen and start suffering way in advance. 
No, it's not helpful. It doesn't help us to even cope better if that bad thing were to happen, which most of the time, it's not going to. The likelihood of a majority of our worries actually happening is so slim, yet we believe that it's a good use of our time and energy to spend time worrying about them. It's really not. 
In tip number three, and playing out these, what if scenarios, I also want to challenge you to play out the good option, the possibility of something good happening, what is the best that could happen? Instead of always thinking about what is the worst that can happen. 
I want you to at least give equal airtime to the good possibilities. I think that it's so important to notice that our brain always wants to go negative and that's totally normal. You are a normal human being, if that is the case for you, that's the case for majority of us.
And so we have to be intentional in saying, okay, if I'm going to go down this worst case scenario train, also going to inform my brain that we are going to also play out the best case scenario. And I think that that just helps us to realize that there are multiple options, that things are not always doomed and that we probably can deal with either situation.
I say probably, but I know that we can deal with either situation. And it's also likely that might be somewhere in between. It may not be the very, very best case scenario, but it likely probably also won't be the very, very worst. 
My fourth tip for you is to remind yourself of what you do have control of. What actions can I take when I'm worried about something. Is there something I can do? Is there something, an action I can take to prepare? To maybe help my child to know what to do in a situation, or to help myself to be ready for something. What is it that I'm worried about and what are the actions that I can take and remind yourself of the control that you do have instead of spending a majority of our time worrying and not actually doing anything. We think that the worrying, the stewing, the thinking, the going around and round in  thought circles, is somehow helping, but it's really not. 
So we can take action where possible. And then we can also really be honest with ourselves over the things that we do not have control of, and we can choose thoughts that are helpful. 
And that is number five, which is to decide new thoughts. Which are going to cause new feelings.
So we may say, I can't just let go completely of this future thing that's going to happen or might not happen. I can't just block it out or ignore it completely. And I agree with you. I'm not saying that you should just be able to forget about things, but you can approach it and say, instead of feeling worried, how do I want to feel.
Maybe for me, I feel that it would be more useful to feel determined or to feel motivated. In some cases, maybe I could even feel excited. And if there's something that I feel I can't control or there are actions I can't take, maybe I want to trust. Maybe I want to feel trusting or maybe I want to surrender. How would that feel? 
And so we can decide what are the feelings that would actually serve us and what are the thoughts that are going to lead to those feelings? So, a thought that includes the word worry is probably not going to lead to any of these feelings. And there may be more feelings that you come up with that you would like to feel instead of worried, but pay attention.
What are the thoughts that are going on in your head and how are those causing you to feel worried? What are the new thoughts you could think that will cause you to instead feel determined? Or motivated? 
So for example, if I'm worried about one of my children, not having friends and I sit and I worry about it and I think, oh, this is going to be so terrible. And they're going to feel so lonely if they never have friends and all these things. And I just let myself stew about it. Those are all the thoughts that are causing me to feel worried. 
If I say instead that I want to feel motivated, maybe I want to think thoughts like, what are some ways that I can help them to make friends? What are some activities that we could plan that could help them to get to know people better? What are some activities they could get involved in with friends who have similar interests? How can I help teach them about ways that friendships sometimes go and how to deal with difficult conversations or how to react when certain things happen?
That is so much more useful than just spending time worrying about a child having a life without ever having a friend. And it's so tempting because we kind of indulge in this worry somehow we think it's helpful, but it's really not. 
So again, write those worries down. If we don't write them down, I feel like they just kind of chase each other around in our brain until we feel paralyzed.
We feel so overwhelmed. So writing those worries down are so helpful because we can see, oh, those are just thoughts. Our brain is designed to create thoughts that it thinks are going to serve us, but they don't always serve us. And the thoughts that our brain comes up with are not always true. So these worries are not necessarily based in any truth, though.
It might be our brain trying to keep us safe. It doesn't mean that those thoughts are necessarily helpful. So we can question them. We can also set time aside to think through these worries to evaluate them. We can write them down and say, you know what, this afternoon, later on. I'm going to think through this and decide if these are serving me or helping me.
I'm not going to let these worries drag me down all day long. So what we want to do is also have ways to interrupt our worry cycle. And sometimes this really does feel like anxiety because worry can really affect us physically. We can sometimes suffer from insomnia or stomach problems or headaches and that is real. 
And so I want to suggest a few other things that can be helpful as we're trying to interrupt this worry cycle, moving our bodies, breathing, meditating, talking to a friend, trying to be present and mindful in the present moment. And you know, I can't have an episode where I don't mention creating, keeping your hands busy.
It's so helpful to be present and to kind of release that stress and worry. I believe in that so strongly, and it's just another reason to include creativity and your daily life. 
So as we know that worry can't exist in the present moment. Aren't we always worrying about the future or the past. We just want to learn how to be mindful and be present.
And I don't expect that we'll be able to do this every minute of every day, but I know that the more that we practice it, the more it will help. And as we know, worry does not prevent tomorrow's troubles. It only robs today of its joy. We've probably heard a similar saying to that, but it's really true.
I hope that listening to this podcast, you will resolve to decreasing the number of times that you use the word worry, that you will really internalize the belief that worry doesn't serve you. And that it's possible to not worry as much. And to know that focusing on what you can control, imagining also our best case scenarios and deciding on new thoughts and feelings are going to do so much good for us. And you have so much power to create joy to create trust, to create determination of the feelings that are going to serve you and to stop creating worry. 
I hope that this episode has been helpful. I love hearing from you. I read every single review of the podcast. It means so much to me. And you share your insights and what you're thinking about over on Facebook or Instagram and tag me, I will love hearing what you're thinking about.
And I just want to encourage you to take time to think about what you're creating with your hands and with your mind. Thanks for being here, my friends and I will talk to you again next week.
Links:
Daily Mindful Lettering Book
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I hope that my podcast has left you feeling inspired and excited to create the life that you want. If you’ve enjoyed listening to this podcast, I’d love for you to subscribe so you can continue to hear more. Want to get to know me better? Connect with me on my website or on Instagram to keep up with everything that is going on with me and my business.
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031: Stop Creating Worry

Podcast

046: Removing the Pressure

045: Creative Constraint
