Being worried is a very curious emotion.   It doesn’t make very much sense and it is very non-productive.   The other day, after I had been feel anxious at my work,  I began wondering why it suddenly appeared.   I am not normally a very anxious person,  but somehow thoughts started to get into my head which would not leave.

What I realized, after some reflection, is that anxiety is like a disease.   If you are in an environment where there is a great deal of negative thinking and action,  and you are vulnerable to negative thoughts and energy of others,  you pick up the anxiety as if were a cold or the flu.   What seems to happen is that when the dominant people (usually leaders) are negative,  then they send out a vibration that is felt by everyone.    When your mind is not extremely strong,  you pick up the vibration and then start making thoughts that are worrisome.    The thoughts usually do not have any basis whatsoever in fact, and the only thing they do is lead to is a kind of frozen state where you are unable to act.   The same can be true in an environment that is neutral, i.e., not very positive.     Your mind can just be free floating in worry.

For instance, you may be worried about what someone thinks about you because if they think badly of you,  your mind believes you will be excluded.    The worrisome thoughts are illusions.  You have no way of knowing if they are valid or not, but the result is that you cannot go forward with positive motion toward productive outcomes.    Your mind is like a helicopter hovering in the same place endlessly constantly repeating the same negative illusory thoughts never going anywhere.

Jesus has an interesting quote in the Bible.  He says, “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

In other ways,  we need to find a way to let go of worrisome thoughts and just focus on the problems and difficulties that are in front of us now.  You have to love the quote that tomorrow will worry about itself.    What He seems to be recommending for us to do is to get out of the negative illusions that we have about the future (tomorrow) and all of the bad things that might happen and deal with what is on our plate right now.

The important lessons for me about anxiety are that it is an illusion and that the overall culture of the environment is negative.    To get out of anxiety we first need is to let go of the illusion that is running the brain.   “I am not good looking enough to be liked.”  “I am not smart enough or competent enough to be hired.”     “The world is going to end next month.”
“My boss hates me.”   None of these thoughts have solutions.  The more we try to solve them the more anxiety we accrue.   The best thing is to let go of them.

The second step is to believe that you can do something positive right now that will produce a positive result.  Maybe it is just washing the dishes or taking out the garbage.    The size of the productivity doesn’t matter.   It is getting out of the negative future and into the present in a positive manner.

The second belief that changes anxiety is to be confirmed in the idea that every positive action has an effect on everything else around you.   The more we act in a positive manner, the more the negative anxiety producing environment changes into a confidence building one.

The difference between anxiety and fear is that fear is based upon a memory whereas anxiety is based upon an illusion and is picked up in a negative environment.