The worrywort in all of us

I think everyone has some level of worry that affects all of us.  Some of it is legit and at other times it's useless worry.  I was reading the news(yes Matt, I actually read something) and this article caught my eye.  The article originally had the heading about being a worry wort and I never thought I was until my hubby pointed out some things that I do.  Most of my things are useless worry and it's very difficult to control.

When I was a little younger in years I used to have the hardest time falling asleep because I would replay my WHOLE day back and re visit every conversation.  The reason being I was so worried about offending people, then it would lead to obsessive worrying wondering if people took things the wrong way.  After being a mom I'm so exhausted at the end of the day I'm lucky to even remember what I actually did that day but there are many instances still where I worry about what I've said to people.  It's more so things I say to women than men.  The few times where I think I've offended a guy I go back and apologize and they don't even think twice.  But women they are different, they are complex.  We are so complex that we ourselves don't know what we're thinking half the time.  Hubby gets so frustrated when he can tell something is wrong and I can't even tell him because I don't know or I can't put it into words. 

What kind of life is it to stew in our worry about what other people think or thinking what you think they are thinking?  Things can be misconstrued in so many ways so why do we put ourselves through it?  One can not be truly happy if we are constantly worrying about every aspect of our life or lack of.  One point in the article mentioned that  "Worry is when your thoughts are stuck on the problem. Thinking is when you are focused on finding a solution. Worry is useless and counterproductive—thinking is progress."  I really like that quote in the article.  They go into a little further detail about that quote but action people!!!  Do something about the things we can change and get rid of the other stuff.

For me, I have my reasons.  I never had a lot of friends growing up and I was always scared that I would say the wrong things to drive them away.  I was very wrongly judged and sometimes those insecurities take some time and healing to get over.  I was an awkward kid and social conversations wasn't my strong suit.  But it doesn't mean that your life has to be controlled by these worries.  I think one of the hardest things to learn in life is to let things go.  Especially with the stuff you can't control.  Finding out how to let go is the trick.  We spend so much of our time and energy worrying about things we can't change we miss the bigger picture and stunt our growth for happiness.  The article has some really good suggestions in it.  Hopefully you can pick things out that might give you a boost.

I shouldn't really post at night because you'll get an insight of what I randomly think about.  Kind of scary huh?!?!