Sacrament
Well-known member
I'm the kind of person who is constantly worrying, to a point where I can't really engage in mindful activities because my mind is so scattered. I have a girlfriend and a job I like (although it doesn't fulfill me completely, but it's money nonetheless), and I have a family who cares and friends who care too.
And then comes my worrying. Recently I read something that makes a lot of sense: being depressed = living in the past; being worried = living in the future. The secret to living healthily is to live mindfully, which is to say, to live entirely in the present, disconnecting yourself from the damaging parts of the past (or being at peace with them, rather) and doing your best to stop conceptualizing imagined futures where this or that happens to your girlfriend/boyfriend, your mother, your best friend, your dog, your job, etc. By living mindfully, you can focus on the things that need to be done right now, like working out, studying, improving skills, socializing, making your life better. Because worrying leads to procrastinating (because you tell yourself "what's the point, something bad's gonna happen to make that house of cards collapse anyway"), that leads to a vicious cycle where not only do you not do the things that are important for your everyday life and for your future, but you become stagnant, which leads to worrying about the state (or future state) of things.
To those of you who know how life-consuming it is to worry about things so much, how do you perfect mindfulness? What works for you in terms of just being there, breathing, taking care of all the things that will make your life better every day? I have books on it, and I've made progress in finding all these methods and coming up to all these life changing conclusions, but there's still a lot of room for improvement, because changing your life so drastically means disconnecting from years of mental processes that lead me to where I am today, yearning for change yet finding it so difficult.
Then again, life happens outside of your comfort zone, and there's no other way but to take the leap.
What worked for you?
And then comes my worrying. Recently I read something that makes a lot of sense: being depressed = living in the past; being worried = living in the future. The secret to living healthily is to live mindfully, which is to say, to live entirely in the present, disconnecting yourself from the damaging parts of the past (or being at peace with them, rather) and doing your best to stop conceptualizing imagined futures where this or that happens to your girlfriend/boyfriend, your mother, your best friend, your dog, your job, etc. By living mindfully, you can focus on the things that need to be done right now, like working out, studying, improving skills, socializing, making your life better. Because worrying leads to procrastinating (because you tell yourself "what's the point, something bad's gonna happen to make that house of cards collapse anyway"), that leads to a vicious cycle where not only do you not do the things that are important for your everyday life and for your future, but you become stagnant, which leads to worrying about the state (or future state) of things.
To those of you who know how life-consuming it is to worry about things so much, how do you perfect mindfulness? What works for you in terms of just being there, breathing, taking care of all the things that will make your life better every day? I have books on it, and I've made progress in finding all these methods and coming up to all these life changing conclusions, but there's still a lot of room for improvement, because changing your life so drastically means disconnecting from years of mental processes that lead me to where I am today, yearning for change yet finding it so difficult.
Then again, life happens outside of your comfort zone, and there's no other way but to take the leap.
What worked for you?
