by Tamara Kulish from https://tamarakulish.com/

The surprising way I was able to stop myself from worrying, about everything!

This post was inspired by Pooja posting about worry!

“Worry does not empty tomorrow of it’s sorrow, it empties today of its strength.” – Corrie Ten Boom

Oh, I lived with worry for so long. I knew I shouldn’t, but I felt compelled to.

It used to feel like I was cursed and everything was out to get me so I felt I had to think through every possible scenario to try to evade the next bad thing.

What I didn’t know then, was I projected my negative inner thoughts about myself onto the outer world.

Once I got started practicing speaking kindly to myself, I started to get in touch with my abilities and saw that I had always managed through the storms, so I learned to develop trust in myself, which surprisingly to me, I found my worrying was decreasing and decreasing.

Oh, and I also had to remove the people from my life who were contributing to my anxieties in the first place! That sounds “easy” enough to do, but as anyone who has experienced this knows, removing their words from being replayed and reenacted in our minds is another layer to work through!

Where did a lot of my worrying stem from?

Changing how I thought about God and the universe also helped. I had been indoctrinated into thinking that every bad thing that happened was a result of God’s punishment or “correction”. I was trained by the churches I was in into thinking that God was transactional: that good behavior resulted in blessings, while bad led to trials and tribulations. When there wasn’t any sign of bad behavior, it was just assumed that I had “undisclosed sins” to receive the punishment of poor health for myself and my daughter, as well as struggling finances.

When I left both the church and the province I lived in, I was able to see that health issues aren’t a “punishment”, that these things can happen to everyone. My frequent migraines ended up being a symptom of allergies, and once I started taking allergy meds, they cleared up. Many of my daughter’s health issues, which even her doctors blamed me for, were due to undiagnosed Celiac disease (apart from having been diagnosed with severe IBS). All of these issues were just barely being understood all those years ago, and it is now shocking to me how both the doctors and the churches were so quick to blame me for them, to the point of ostracizing me from the congregation. My financial struggles were due to living in a province that had lost 2 referendums to separate from Canada, so there were overt attempts to force the non-francophones out by administering university-level business French tests, and even my 85% pass grade was no longer deemed sufficient for employment, a ploy to keep Anglophones out of jobs.

A new way of seeing God’s nature

When I left the church, I learned that God’s nature is that of love and loving his creation. Wow, what a huge shift in thinking!

That stood in contrast to the transactional nature of God I had been taught, and which so many people still adhere to and subsequently judge others with. Even people who may not actively go to church may have had this mindset permeate into their family and community, and this helps fuel our fears of “nor being good enough”.

When we move into a new paradigm, of understanding that God loves all of us and wants the very best for us, it becomes easier to release the “I need to be perfect and perfectly pleasing” mindset that ends up creating so much anxiety. We can develop trust that God, our Angels and the universe all want what is best for us!

We worry more when we don’t feel supported or are criticized

If we come from a family or community where we have not received a lot of support, or we may have been heavily criticized, we become very anxious in all areas of our lives, fearful that anything we may or may not do will be scrutinized in a negative light.

There isn’t usually a lot of grace given to people who receive criticism, and if someone is struggling with an issue that is not well understood, it is easy to cast blame.

The result of feeling like one’s life is always under a very critical microscope is for people to minutely examine everything they do to try to eliminate any future criticisms.

This constant inner and outer scrutiny increases one’s feelings of anxiety, and we start to worry, our thoughts become consumed with trying to foresee anything and everything that may create more instances of criticism.

Taking charge

When we take charge of supporting our own mental health and take back the “remote control” from others, we can give ourselves permission to be the best we can be.

No one is perfect, we all make mistakes, we all have inner issues we need to work on.

It was a long work of progressively removing the residue of different individuals critical words spoken to me, of understanding they too were products of a critical environment, and they criticized me to gain approval and acceptance. So unhealthy, isn’t it?

As I slowly gave myself permission to just be me, warts and all, I slowly lost interest in other’s negative thoughts about me, and learned to instead focus on the positive things and people in my life. I totally changed my perspective on how God viewed me, and that helped give me strength to release my old anxieties.

It’s a work in progress, and I found it worked best if I didn’t beat myself up when I slipped up, but instead found ways to support and encourage myself.

Our neural pathways take time to reset and to reprogram towards the positive, so please be patient with yourself!

Remember these things: You are WORTHY! You are worthy of being loved in a healthy way! You are loved by much bigger and stronger forces than those who may not. Your life can change for the positive, even if it takes baby steps to get there!

 ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Blessings!
Thank you for liking, sharing this post and for following me!
Tamara

I hope you’ll poke around my Archived Posts Main page divided up into 3 sub-pages: Mental Health and Rewiring the Brain || Healing and Developing Ourselves || Positive thoughts and Affirmations to find a wonderful trove of supportive and encouraging posts!
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39 thoughts on “The surprising way I was able to stop myself from worrying, about everything!”

  1. Pingback: An answer to dealing with the Inner Critic! – Tamara Kulish
  2. Pingback: Anxiety Freedom – by Anthony Hopkins – Tamara Kulish

    1. Yes,truly, being able to release anxiety is life changing! I’m glad you are benefiting from this experience!

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    1. Thank you for the inspiration! Yes, our frame of mind changes everything doesn’t it? I never thought it was within my capabilities, but making the inner changes is possible.

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  6. My gosh that idea that blessings come from being good and bad things result from being bad infuriates me. It’s so so wrong. It’s a dumb idea that goes back to Job and beyond. Trials are a blessing that strengthen us. I could go on, but I’m too irritated and sorry for what you went through to think straight.

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    1. Thank you for your encouragement and support. You are right, it is a very flawed notion on many levels. Unfortunately too many people are still living under the yoke of those judgmental ways.

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        1. Yes, I would hope so, but many stubbornly stick to it as a “matter of faith”, for they can find Bible verses to back themselves up. 😒

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              1. Inevitably, people in those churches will fall on rough times. What do they do then? They have to suffer quietly, without reaching out for help, because others will surely think they must have committed some grave sin. It’s so illogical, it ought to be unsustainable, but people are stubborn.

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                1. I was in 2 congregations where this was systemic. Many people suffered and became depressed. When they left, everyone was told they left to go out into the world to continue sinning and to have no contact with them. Unfortunately, there is no accountability or understanding of this by the churches. This is one of the reasons I write about these kinds of things and offer support, encouragement and help to those still struggling with the emotional effects of it.

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  7. The concept of slowly offering ourselves permission to just be and letting go of other’s negative thoughts, is such a powerful exercise, and I can relate very much. It’s so freeing to focus 100% on our opinions.

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    1. It really is! It was a long journey for me to learn, but I feel much better now mentally and emotionally than I ever did before. I took the slow road!

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  8. Tamara, thanks for sharing your journey to worrying less about things over which we have no control. As I work on resetting/reprogramming neural pathways, I’ve yet to rid myself of the “residue of different individuals critical words spoken to me.”

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    1. Rosaliene, this is a work in progress in each of us! There is no timeline. Keep speaking supportive and encouraging words to yourself, always, and especially when those old tapes come up. You have created a safe life for yourself, keep breathing in the calm air of your home, reminding yourself that with each breath you take and release, that you are breathing in the new, and releasing the old. You’re safe!

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    1. This is a vital part of finding emotional wholeness. Believing we are worthy and bot worthless, learning to like and to trust ourselves.

      Thanks for seeing this Wynne!

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  10. That is a delightful saying Tamara, it is a powerful thing worry…until we can put it into its place. Many a long time it was me, until I realized it was just me, my approach, and the holding patterns fear creates. Once I understood my fear, it lost its power over me…and an incredible freedom came over me…and a love immeasurable. And in that I could see that we do need to feel one side of the equation so that we will appreciate the other when we find it. That hard life we live is showing us something very powerful by going through it. How could we not feel so much better after experiencing it and go beyond into that understanding of love. Great post, and thank you for sharing kind lady. May we all find that freedom 😀❤️🙏

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    1. Mark, it is my hope that some people will find their path beyond anxiety and worry. As you said, the freedom we get from not being constantly sucked down those rabbit holes is immense. All the anxiety and worry I carried heavily contributed to the repeated Shingles relapses I had. Our bodies and minds reap the benefits of doing this inner work.

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  11. As always, you are an encouraging voice, Tamara. I never knew about the French test and the attempt to cause those who spoke English to leave.

    One additional point. Those church reactionaries may, in part, be judging the unfortunate negatively in order to produce a false sense of security and control in themselves. In effect, they might believe they will avoid misfortune by “being good.”

    Be well, Tamara.

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    1. Dr. Stein, in my observation I believe you have hit the point square on. When people are abused and still with their abusers, they will often continue the abuse onto others in order to gain reprieve from abuse and to be seen as “being in line” with the abuser. I don’t know the term for it, but I have observed it in action.

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