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Don't worry. Be happy...

Many people who know me well know that I struggle with anxiety and worrying too much about everything. A few weeks ago I stumbled across a journal entry written in 2005 (handwritten I might add - only a few weeks before I started my blog). I read over the journal entry and was so shocked that three years later I still struggle so much with worrying and letting my anxiety get the best of me. I guess I was hoping that with time my worrying would just disappear? Wishful thinking. The following is my journal entry:

October 17, 2005

"Worrying is like being in a rocking chair. It occupies your time but doesn't get you anywhere." This quote is so very true, but yet so many people still spend much of their lives worrying. Why is this? Is it an innate characteristic that when strong feelings are involved, rationalizing is nearly impossible? Or is it all a matter of learning self-control and being able to tame that voice inside your head known as your conscious? I am truly aware that worrying is not going to get me anywhere. It's not going to change my past and it's not likely to prevent things from happening in my future. Yet, still I worry anyway. The biggest struggle for me in regards to worrying is learning to live in the "now."


Worrying and over analyzing everything really got the best of me and made me depressed. For a few years I was taking medication to treat my anxiety. It definitely helped but anyone who has taken an anti-depressant or anti-anxiety medication might be able to relate to the way it made me feel. I've always been a high and low type of person (aka moody!). Some days I'm really high on life and other days I'm really down in the dumps and letting my worrying get me down. Taking the medication really helped to eliminate those low days which was great. On the same token, however, it also eliminated my high days and I just couldn't get as excited and happy as I did B.M. (before medication). So I decided to ween myself off of it. I also chose to go to counseling and sort through some of the skeletons in my closet and some of the things that I've experienced in my life, possibly leading to or at least contributing to my anxiety and then depression.

So what triggered all of this? First finding that journal entry buried in an old notebook and then today receiving an email with this quote:

Attitude, after all, is everything. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. After all today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.

Maybe I will always struggle with worrying and anxiety. I would like to think that it will get better and someday I will have found a way to deal with my worrying in a healthy and effective way. Somehow though, as I get older and stress becomes even more prominent, I don't see that happening. Uh oh... now my pessimism is showing. That's an issue for another entry.

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