I had a conversation with my sister one time in which I shared a situation that had been causing me some anxiety. I still didn’t have the complete picture of the issue, but would soon. However, I didn’t have it yet. And so, as often happens when we don’t have all of the information about something causing us consternation, I started filling in the blanks, connecting dots that weren’t there, and just generally making stuff up. I continued to mull it over, allowing my thoughts to run in circles, and tried to play out all of the possible scenarios in my head.
It was real productive.
During that conversation I mentioned, yet again, that I didn’t want to spend more time and energy worrying and thinking about it. She interrupted me and said “Well, you don’t have to think about it now, because you’ve already scheduled time to get the rest of the information. Until then you don’t have to think about it.”
She was so right. I had set aside dedicated time on my calendar to actually fill in the blanks, and connect the actual dots.
By assigning a specific time to think about it I was able to stop stewing about it.
If you find yourself on the hamster wheel of worry, assign a specific time to think about it.
And think about it then.
(Hat tip to my sister Margie and her never failing big-sister wisdom)
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