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Psychology for Living
Gwen Randall-Young August 04, 2004
A Happy Heart
There is so much we could worry
about: SARS, west Nile virus, the stock market,
and terrorism lead the list. It is hard to have
the same sense of security we may have had a couple
of years ago. While we cannot bury our heads in
the sand, we cannot live in fear.
There are strategies we can use
to calm ourselves down. Most worries we have are
about some future imagined catastrophe. “What
if…?” we ask ourselves. We imagine something
horrible happening, form images in our mind about
it, and then recoil at the ‘movie, we have
just produced in our heads. Rarely do the things
we fear ever materialize. When we engage in catastrophic
thinking, it is as though we are running constant
negative ‘television commercials’ in our
mind – which certainly disrupt, and may even
replace our regular daily ‘programming.’
The way to prevent this is, as much as possible,
to keep our thoughts grounded in the present moment.
If, in this moment, you are safe
and healthy, then enjoy that blessing. If you are
safe and healthy tomorrow, enjoy it again. Do it
every single day. It is probably a bigger tragedy
to squander our good days worrying about imagined
bad ones, than it is to actually suffer through
difficult times.
Gwen Randall-Young is an author
and Chartered Psychologist in private practice.
Her new book, Growing Into Soul: The Next Step in
Human Evolution is available through her website,
along with her other books and tapes.
******
www.gwen.ca
Gwen Randall-Young
Chartered Psychologist
www.gwen.ca
