How To Let Go Of Worry

I read in the Good Vibe University recently that when you pray for courage, what the Universe gives you is a situation where you get the opportunity to be courageous. Likewise if you pray for strength, you'll be thrust into situations that require strength.

It's better to skip all that and go for the good stuff: pray peace, love and harmony. Not pray for, but pray it. That means be it, feel it, do it, embody it. You don't need circumstances to give you that experience - you choose it, and then you feel the heck out of it.

It's a handy little tip anytime we get hung up on needing circumstances to give us what we crave. Circumstances don't give us anything - we do that. We get to make up the meaning of whatever happens. I think it was good ole Bill Shakespeare who said, "There is nothing either good or bad that thinking makes it so."

So there.

Except when we are confronted by things that feel BIG. Like, really BIG.

Like the wine dudes whose businesses face bankruptcy if something doesn't shift. That feels pretty big. The consequences are pretty yucky.

Aren't they?

It turns out we can castrophise about anything - big and small - and it all ends up in the same pile of useless emotions that don't deliver anyway.

When has worry ever delivered a better result? Nope - never. It just gave you a bad night's sleep.

So how the heck do you ditch worry?

Here's how I do it. Or rather, did it last week.

Rob and I have been in Melbourne doing our latest - and last - round of IVF. We're both fairly emotionally engaged in the outcome. We would like the opportunity to be parents.

But between the procedures and waiting for the test results there is plenty of time for 'what ifs' to sneak up and strangle you with worry, doubt, and all sorts of nasties.

Hanging in the never-never land of waiting, I turned to the only technique I knew to let go of the worry - one that I learned when I was going through cancer treatment.

Faced with chemo and surgery with no prognosis to really give any comfort, I was left with two options: live in fear or live in faith.

Living in fear seems to be the default setting for most. Living in faith however requires one critical acknowledgment:

This is to know that no matter what happens, even death, that you are truly ok.

To experience this as knowledge in your every cell brings great peace. It means that anything can happen - bankruptcy, disease, miscarriage, and even death - and that at the end of it, you will be completely, and utterly ok. You can handle it. This knowledge comes from the awareness of your true essence as energy - when you break down all your atoms you are just energy. And energy is not created or destroyed it simply changes form and vibration.

Knowing this gives you the freedom to dream and anticipate what you desire. You can let go of worry.

When I was going through chemo the closest I got to this sense of peace (because I admit it was extremely challenging to get there) was to focus in the here and now, to appreciate every little last element of beauty and gorgeousness around me - because this was evidence to me that I was ok - I was completely fine, right here, right now.

So last week when I swung to imagining 'what if' the IVF process didn't work and what that meant - to live a life without kids - I dropped the worry and anxiety and came back to where I was. In the Barossa, with fabulous people, gorgeous food, in a stunning location. Life is good. Right here, right now, just as it is. And I felt some peace.

Your can never really predict how things are going to turn out - often they turn out much better than you imagined, if you let them. Disappointment doesn't figure in this world if you believe that everything that happens is serving your highest good; even the stuff that feels soul bitingly painful at the time.

As it turns out, it looks like our IVF attempt was unsuccessful. And through the gut-wrenching grief that has had me sobbing so hard that I ached all over, I can sense the peace too. I know I'll be ok, that we'll be ok, that a life so spectacular is happening right here for us right now, and I can really feel that. When I'm done being sad, then I'll be asking questions with my coach as to how to make some good-feeling sense of this experience. How to learn and grow from it, how to invite miracles into my life once again.

Right now, I'm not worrying, I'm feeling my feelings fully, and I know that whatever is happening is for my highest good.

And that feels so much better than worry.

Coach's challenge:What do you worry about? Could you let go of that worry and focus on the present? and do you have any advice for me on this particular manifestation? I invite you to share your wisdom, insight, and advice.