I used to be a chronic worrier - yunno the kind that is always sick and ends up in an early grave? Yeah. I recognized that too. I chose to worry less. Working my way toward a worry-free life. Pssssst.....I think that's a myth. Worry is part of how we are raised to cope with stress. Our parents teach us that it is appropriate to grind our teeth and give ourselves ulcers over things out of our control. When I was little it was the war in Vietnam, the economy, government, etc. They also laid down a pretty potent model for how to worry about some things that did affect us - my Dad being on strike from GM, helping 3 kids in college, carpool, sports practices, etc. Is it any wonder that my generation learned to worry about everything they did and MORE!?! We are over achievers.
When I got sick 11 years ago, I looked around for something that made sense. That's when I found Reiki. It made sense to my spirit if not my head - that reckoning would take years. One of the basic Reiki principles is often translated as- Just for today I will not worry. I don't like that NOT in there, so I think of it more as Just for today I will remain calm. In the beginning, it took a lot of self-policing. Sometimes whole days were spent reminding myself - Ummmmm you are supposed to be calm. I am still working on it.
But I have made some head way. Losing my job might have been an incredibly stressful situation. I won't lie. It had it's moments, most of which I wrote about here. But being a stressed out nutbag wasn't going to change that in any way. So I kicked back, enjoyed my time off and went with it. Believing that the right job would find it's way to me which it did.
If that had happened 20 years ago, I have no doubt a thorazine gun would have been required to put me down before I hurt myself. So it's interesting to see how just changing that one little thing - worrying - had such a profound effect on my life. And I wonder what other tiny thing might I let go of?
So in answer to the prompt - NOT A DAMNED THING.
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