How do I stop worrying?

It’s safe to say that you might not be human if you don’t worry at all.
There’s always some little worry that can play tricks on your mind. Even when you are all relaxed and ‘zen’, there might be a moment of worry at some point during the day.

Worry becomes a problem when we physically start feeling the tension rising. From hormones firing to your heart rate going up, something within you is affected and not in a good way.

It’s a scientific fact that stress directly causes changes to your genes and creates disease.

With the right guidance though, you can stop worrying and have less stress.

What we think is true, isn’t it?

Worry has everything to do with the way you think as your thoughts direct your actions. The problem is that we tend to believe everything we think…
Whatever the mind cooks up, it all makes sense to us and we fully agree. This means that we can become prisoners of our own thoughts, usually without knowing it.

Whether we worry about something that will never happen or worry about something that has a high probability of actually happening, our stress response will be the same.

But here’s the kicker: we can change the way we think and we can get a grip on our thoughts. It’s a matter of taking control and managing our streams of thoughts.

When we manage to slow down the constant stream of thoughts, we create space.
Space in between thoughts allows us to choose the thoughts that we invest in. We literally become aware of what is on our mind and can consciously choose what we attend to, and what not.

Which thoughts will make me feel good, and which will make me feel worse? When there is enough self-love and self-respect, we can then choose the thoughts that bring us more peace of mind.

My mind is too busy to meditate

And how do you get to the point where you can pause and create that little bit of space?
Relaxation, meditation and mindfulness are very useful tools.

The problem is that so many people are convinced that their mind is too busy to do that. It’s too active, too creative, too different, etc.

Well, it is different in the sense that their mind is simply untrained. It bosses them around and brings them in all kinds of states, that are not useful. There is a lot of panic, thoughts and emotions that cause stress.

How to tame the monkey and really stop worrying?

It can be very hard to get out of our own thinking mind and it is very hard to get out of your head in general. The misconception however is that we need to become completely free of thoughts. Which is impossible.

There will always be thoughts, images, desires, emotions and feelings: and that’s ok. We even say that there is a ‘spacious allowing’ of what is and maybe we can appreciate what comes up as ‘it’ tries to show us something.
Allowing our fears, guilt, shame, resentment to be there. We expose them and even welcome them.

You can stabilize your mind and deepen your meditation practice through calm-abiding and focused-attention practices, something I teach in my workshops and retreats.

It’s about starting with gentle mindfulness techniques to enhance your focus, clarity and happiness. We’re not going to sit in silence for 8 hours a day, there is no point when you just start out your journey.

The path towards less worry is a path of developing more self-compassion and developing more awareness for whatever it is that triggers you.

From there, you can build on powerful strategies to cope with stress, anxiety and challenges.

Relaxation techniques, meditation and mindset coaching can support you in dealing with stress.

If you would like support, contact me here or via my socials.

Rachel Bonkink is an experienced meditation teacher, a certified mindset coach and she very succesfully organised and hosted over 100 worldwide yoga and silence retreats. She is the author of the book Flex Your Mind, giving a practical and down-to earth approach to stress management, based on Yoga philosophy. In a previous (working) life, Rachel was the operational director for a medical market research company in Belgium, managing teams of 100 people.
When she’s not hosting retreats, she can be found near the beach in Portugal.
Rachel can support you to conquer stress and self-sabotage and thrive to live your best life.
Contact Rachel.