A Priceless Bit of Wisdom

Here is something I learned yesterday, and it's a very valuable piece of information; one that will help tremendously on my journey...

Anxiety is the result of living in the future (depression is often the result of living in the past). It is the consequence of my mind dwelling on future events - some eventual, some hypothetical. Many of my anxieties are caused by my imagination (and dang, do I have a good one!) playing out scenarios that may or may not happen. The point is...when I'm dwelling in an imaginary (or "what if") future, I'm completely absent from the present.

Does that strike anybody else as a revelation? Though that's probably a no-brainer to some people, it has changed my entire day. Every time I started to feel the slightest twinge of anxiety I stopped, asked myself what it was about, if there was anything I could do about it, and then checked back into the present moment. I've had a great day. It's amazing how sometimes you are just ready to hear something.

You know who I heard that from? My therapist. He's a lovely person with a voice like an NPR host. I feel like this little revelation was so simple, I should have been able to come up with it myself - or at least, maybe one of my friends could have come up with it and saved me some money!