When I was younger I had this poster hanging on the wall in my room. I ran across it, in mint condition, rolled up in the corner of the closet in my old room at my parents house a few weeks back. I chuckled a bit to myself thinking back to those days, but honestly thought little of it and moved on with the mission I was on scouring the closet for some other specific item from my past.
Earlier this week I was in with a patient and her husband discussing the various emotional aspects of heart disease. My contribution to those conversations many times consists of the same content about expected fear, anxiety, and possibly depression, the importance of communication, and the effect those emotional effects can have on one's physical health. The contribution of my patient's and their loved ones however can often greatly differ.
On this particular day the husband of a patient was quite talkative and discussed several things from growing up on the farm, to faith and religion, and his work experiences in the hospital. His wife (the actual cardiac patient) contributed some, but often gave way to her more verbose husband. Among all of this, one topic in particular caught my mind's eye...WORRY. It seems another family member in the hospital that day had referred to worry during one of their discussions as the "singly greatest sin of all". He went on, with great intensity, to discuss the effects of worry, the various references to it in religious lessons as well as more secular works of wisdom as well. Now I'm not sure I buy in to the religious aspects of the discussion, but it certainly got me thinking...
Some weeks earlier, you'll recall from a previous blog post, I spent several hours with a lady living with brain cancer in addition to her heart disease. And somewhere in the recesses of my brain I had logged a comment she made, though I had not given it even a first thought, until now. "Well yes I worry...well no, it's no good to worry. I am concerned at times, but I won't worry about it." And as I left the above patients room the other day, and began wandering down the hall to my office, this topic of worry consumed my present mind.
According to Dictionary.com 'worry' is in this case best defined as "to torment oneself with or suffer from disturbing thoughts; fret". Followed by several more entries that elicit unpleasant images (including to harass or bite which I found most appropriate). In contrast, the initial definitions for 'concern' are "to relate to; be connected with; be of interest or importance to; affect" as well as a few more, some relating to worry, others of a bit varied connotation.
Exploring further Wikipedia: Worry led me to some interesting additional information. A Liebert and Morris theory on anxiety from 1967 provides that "Worry refers to negative self-talk that often distracts the mind from focusing on solutions to the problem at hand". While Dr. Edward Hallowell speaks of two main types of worry: "Toxic worry is when the worry paralyzes you," whereas "Good worry leads to constructive action".
After all this analytical exploration of worry, my exploration got personal. I could hear my girlfriend in my head on occasion over the last few months; "don't worry", "there's really nothing to worry about", "I don't want you to worry". And from there, I thought of other topics of 'worry' in my own mind and how these worries effected me. Combine this with recent discussions with my parents about indigestion and the likely stress related causes and it became very clear...even I, the guy that teaches stress/anxiety reduction, the guy who often classmates in grad school referred to as the care-free guy, the one that nothing seemed to bother, am quite susceptible to WORRY.
So here I am, all my recent worries ever present to me (work, car insurance, house hunting, my relationship, my family and friends) when I flash back to that poster, sitting in the corner of the closet. "Hakuna Matata", and yes I do expect all of you to sing the song to yourself (or out loud for some of you, you know who you are), it mean's no worries. Does any part of me think I won't worry anymore, no certainly not. Is part of me motivated to try, most definitely.
How bout you? What's on your worry list today? Is it productive worry, or is it stalling you in your tracks? Let's all focus less on the problems, and more on the solutions!
HAKUNA MATATA!
No comments:
Post a Comment