43. All About Worry

0:00 Hey, what’s up everyone, it’s Jennie Dildine, the LDS mission coach and you are listening to the LDS mission Podcast, episode number 43. All about worry. I’m Jenny, the LDS mission coach. And whether you’re preparing to serve a mission, currently serving a returned missionary or a missionary mama like me, I created this podcast just for you. Are you searching for epic confidence? Ready to love yourself and to learn the how of doing hard things? Then let’s go. I will help you step powerfully into your potential and never question your purpose. Again. It’s time to embrace yourself. Embrace your mission, embrace your life, and embrace what’s next. Hello, everyone, and welcome to the podcast. Thanks for being here. today. We are headed straight into Easter weekend. And I hope that this weekend, you get to spend time with family or loved ones. I hope that if you’re on the mission, you have some people that are going to feed you some yummy ham, or maybe bring you an Easter basket or something. I hope that if you’re in college, that maybe you get to go crash at grandma and grandpa’s house, and maybe they’ll make you Easter dinner. I also know that for some of you it’s finals. So best of luck on all of that in this upcoming week. Most of all, I hope that all of us have a time to be able to reflect on and be so grateful for our Savior Jesus Christ who gave his life and who died for us that we can have our agency and that we can learn and progress and grow in this life. And that all of that progression and learning and growth can be consecrated for our good. I’m so grateful to my savior, Jesus Christ. And Happy Easter to every single one of you. Today, I wanted to be able to just mention one more time about I have an awesome opportunity coming up for preparing missionaries. I can’t wait to tell you more about it and to really talk more about it here in the next couple of weeks. So keep your eyes open for that. Today, we’re going to talk about worry. Isn’t that some fun? I have this experience this week where my daughter came home from school, my daughter, she tends to worry a lot about a lot of things. And right now she’s sort of worrying about the Pacer Test, where she’s gonna have to do an arm pain, she’s worried she won’t be able to pull herself up. She’s 10. But when I picked her up from school recently, I actually was like, how was your day? And she’s like, it’s not very good. I’m not understanding fractions. I’m not understanding how to compare fractions. My teacher said something about pizzas and how many slices of pizzas we want to have. And I’m really having a hard time understanding and they’re supposed to use the greater than and less than sign. And she’s just like, I just don’t know, I’m overwhelmed and confused. And I was like, Okay, well, I’m sure we can work on it and figure it out. And then I just watched her brain run off to the future. She’s like, and I can’t believe that I’m gonna miss school. Because if I miss school, then I’m gonna get bad grades. And I can’t believe that you’re taking me to Disney World, because then what if they learn more about fractions while I’m gone? And then she said, and then there’s only like a few more weeks left of school at all. And if I miss anything at all, then guess what will happen is I will not know fractions. And my teacher told me that the very first thing that we learned when we’re in fifth grade is fractions. And the first thing that we’re going to get a test on is fractions. And then what will my teacher think of me, and basically, it was very dramatic and big and scary in her mind. And she was going to be embarrassed and overwhelmed. And fifth grade was just going to be a bust. This is what our brain does, right? Our brains actually are problem solving machines. And so they want a problem to solve. Like my daughter in this moment was like, Okay, I wanted to keep the moment where it was like okay, we need some help with fractions. Let’s do that.

4:38 But when our brain starts to run off to the future, there’s no problem to solve. Okay, so that is can be a problem for us for a few reasons. And today I want to talk about what worry is where it comes from which I know you guys can all guess already it comes from our thoughts. My daughter was having a A lot of thoughts about the future, about all of the things that might happen. I’m going to talk about worry. And then I’m going to give you five tools to kind of combat worry, which work really well for me, which work really well for my clients, which also worked really well for my daughter when her brain started to go to the unknown. So the first thing that I want you to know is that worry resides in the future. Most of the time, I mean, sometimes we go to the past, and we worry about stuff that we did in the past. But most of the time worry resides in the future, meaning something’s coming that we need to be fearful of, that we need to be afraid of, and that we should be worried about. So picture like a test picture, we worry that maybe we’ll never get married, picture that we won’t be a good missionary, whatever it is, our brains like to run off to the future and get worried about that. Now, one thing I want you to know is that worry only exists in our minds. Because the future only exists in our mind. 10 Different people could be in a room, and we would all have an idea about what the future was going to look like. Even the next five minutes from now, none of us actually know the future. Our brain likes to make up stuff that it thinks will happen in the future, in an effort to prepare, and to problem solve for what might happen in the future. But none of us really knows. And in fact, sometimes the future is similar to what we thought it was going to be. And many times the future is entirely different than what we think it’s going to be. I was recently looking at some pictures of videos that our family took right before COVID happened in March of 2020. Even though all of us thought we knew what was going to happen in March and April and May, none of us could have predicted what was going to happen. It’s just good to know that the future is in our mind, right? Because if it’s in our minds, we have the ability to think what we want to think about the future. That’s the first thing where you resides in the future, and the future is only in your mind. The second thing I want you to know is that worry is what I call an indulgent emotion. And what I mean by this, think about the word indulgent as if, like we indulge with a box of chocolates, or or we binge, our favorite Netflix show, it feels good to our brain. And our brain likes to stay there. So when our brain likes to indulge in worry. It’s because our brains don’t want us to take action. If we’re just worried, think about preparing for your mission. If I’m just worried, I just don’t have to do anything. And this makes our brain really happy. Or if I’m just worried that I won’t find a person that’s a good fit for me to marry, then maybe I just don’t date. Because that’s hard. And our brain doesn’t want to do anything that’s hard. So I think of an indulgent emotion, because a lot of emotions are cleansing, like sadness is cleansing, even some emotions that don’t feel very good. When we move through them, they have a purpose. But worry, doesn’t necessarily have a purpose. It’s just meant to be indulgent to our brain to keep us stuck where we are. We’re not moving backwards. We’re not moving forwards. We’re just stuck where we are. I was coaching the lady and the other program that I work in called Be bold with Jodie Moore. And I remember she got on the call. And she was like, I’m just so worried because at some point in the future, my husband might leave me because of my weight. And then I’m worried because I might not be able to provide for my family. If my husband leaves me. I’m worried that I won’t have enough money. And I was like, Wait, hold on a second. So we’re worried about something that we don’t even know is gonna happen yet.

9:39 And she was like, Yeah, I guess so. I was like, well, we can we can worry about that if we want to but it doesn’t seem very useful. what’s actually true is it super indulgent for your brain to just stay here and be worried and maybe not get going on our weight loss if we want to do that or maybe not get going on getting an entry? occasion if we want to do that, or maybe not get going on feeling better about our ability to make money. Instead, our brain is just like, let’s just worry about that and sit here in the worry. That’s the second thing you need to note worry is an indulgent emotion, nothing wrong with it. Listen, we’re gonna feel worried from time to time because of our brain and our brain will run off to the future, like no judgment for yourself if you feel worried, but just know it’s indulgent. Know that you’re creating it with the way you think. And if you want to stay there, fine. And just know that your brain loves it, because you’re stuck and you won’t get moving. Okay, the last thing I want you to know is that worry pretends to be necessary. And what I mean by this is sometimes your lower brain that caveman brain will go into overdrive, warning you of dangers that might be ahead. And this is exactly what was going on for this woman right? It your brain tells you, you should be worried this will be really scary. And what our brain thinks is that if we can just worry now and be fearful now that that will somehow prevent pain in the future. But it doesn’t, even if we sort of worried that there was going to be a pandemic. I don’t know how we would have even known that. But the worry about the pandemic doesn’t prevent the pain of the pandemic, it doesn’t prevent the pandemic from coming. So our worry about our final pretends to be necessary, brings like we should worry about this. So it prevents pain in the future. But listen, it doesn’t prevent pain in the future, it only keeps us stuck. So just be on to your brain. It’s again, totally fine that you feel worried, no judgement, just pay attention to what’s going on. Again. The three things about worry worry resides in the future most of the time, and your futures only in your mind. Second thing, worry is an indulgent emotion. It’s an emotion caused by thoughts designed to keep you stuck, designed to keep you right where you are. Your brain loves it and worry pretends to be necessary. That’s the third one. It your brain thinks it’s useful to worry to prevent future pain. But it doesn’t, it doesn’t prevent future pain at all. So there are five tools that I want to offer to you today that will help you if you are kind of stuck in this indulgent emotion of worry again, where it comes from your thoughts. We can always change them, we can change your thoughts. We can think about things a different way if we want to. But sometimes it’s not useful to argue with our thoughts. Sometimes when we argue with our thoughts and think I shouldn’t be worried guess what happens is that our brain gets more insistent. And we become even more worried. Okay, so five things I’m going to tell you what they are, and then I’m going to explain them each a little bit. Number one, come back to the present moment. Number two, realize the worst thing is a negative emotion. Number three, I call this tool it might number four, give yourself a worried diet. And number five, imagine the best case scenario. Okay. So number one, come back to the present moment. I do this one a lot with my daughter. And I do this one a lot with myself when I start to feel my worries start to escalate into anxiety. So I’m sure you’ve heard this one before. But I will say to my daughter, I’ll say what are three things you can see? What are three things you can feel? What are three things you can hear? What are three things you can touch? And what are three things you can taste. And I might have missed one time is one of the senses. I totally might have missed one. But you get the idea. Go through all of your senses. And what this does is it stops your brain from running off to the future, trying to solve problems that we don’t even have yet and brings it back into the present moment. Because guess what’s true usually you guys in the present moment is everything is fine.

14:24 This is why this is so powerful. Is that right now, everything is usually just fine. Okay, so come back to the present moment. Name three things that you can see feel touch, hear taste. I think I got all of them. Okay. Number two, realize the worst thing is a negative emotion. Now this is kind of mind blowing to think about but I’m going to offer it to you now, which is the worst thing that can happen to any human is a negative emotion. Even if I fail Oh, my final, guess what, I have to feel some stuff, I might have to feel embarrassed, I might have to feel disappointed, I might have to feel frustrated. And that’s it. And then I’ll take, I’ll take the test again, or I’ll retake the class. Or even if we have to wait 10 years to find the person that is the perfect fit for us. The worst thing that would happen with that is we’d have to maybe feel a little lonely, we’d have to feel kind of disappointed, we’d have to feel sad, maybe all just emotions. Let’s say we don’t meet one of our goals on the mission. We kind of think that’s life or death. It’s not though, guys, the worst thing that can happen is the negative emotion. Maybe I feel disappointed. Maybe I feel frustrated, maybe I feel some shame. Maybe I feel some guilt. I’m not saying we should feel any of these emotions in association with these certain circumstances. But I am saying that if we if anything happens, we feel negative emotion. Even think when my grandpa died, worse thing, like, I’m gonna miss him. And then I feel sad. Now, it might sound pretty terrible to you to feel negative emotion and I get it. I mean, they’re not our favorite things to feel. But go back and listen to episode three all the fields, you’ll understand that if an emotion is just a vibration in your body, it’s not that terrible. The worst thing is a negative emotion. Okay, number three, I call this it might. When your brains like, we might fail, you fail that test, we might go into World War Three, something that people are talking about now, we might have to dip into our savings, we might have to take that class over, we might have to go home earlier than from our mission than we expected. This is what I want you to say back to your brain. Yeah, we might. We might have to go home earlier than we expected. We might have to take the class again. We might go to world war three. Okay. And then I want you to say, and then we will just figure that out when it happens. Like there’s really no sense in worrying about it right now. So whatever your brains like this might happen. This might happen instead of being like No, no, no, and finding it just be like, okay, it might happen, okay. And then we’ll deal with that when it happens, instead of worrying about it now. Number four, give yourself a worry diet. And what I think about this is sometimes if you have something that your brains kind of fixated on that it wants to worry about over and over and over again, what you can do is you can tell your brain when it brings it up in your mind. We’re not going to worry about that now. But I am going to worry about that at six o’clock tonight, for 20 minutes. Notice how we’re still allowing the worry. But we get a little bit more intentional and in charge of our brain. It’s sort of a way to show your brain like yeah, it is just a motion. And we are going to feel it later tonight. So but for now just chill out. So that might work for you as well. Give yourself a time and an allotted amount of time to just worry. One of the things sometimes I get nervous before I do.

18:39 Especially a live event. One of the things that I know about myself as I’m just going to be nervous and a little bit worried that I’m going to do okay, and that it’s going to turn out okay. And so what I’ve started to do is when my brain tries to think about it way ahead, I’m like, oh, no, guess what, we’re just gonna be nervous 10 minutes before, set aside a time to worry. And then when that time comes around, make sure you allow yourself to do that. The fifth thing is imagine the best case scenario. So often, our brain always likes to default to negativity. So what I suggest is that we give equal airtime to the possibility that it could turn out amazing. So when your brain is like, we’re gonna totally fail that test. We should be worried and just be like, No, what’s also true is I might ace that test Hello. Or like if our brains like we might not ever end up with the person that we feel like we belong with. Okay, well, that is possible. But you know, what’s equally as possible is that I might find the most epic person, the person that as my person tomorrow. That’s also possible you guys, none of us know the future. So give your brain something else to focus on. Show your brain that opposite could also be true. It’s so crazy that our brains hate the unknown, so much, that it would rather create a future that is painful and scary, then just not know what to expect. When the brain doesn’t know what to expect, it’s like, well, it’s probably going to be terrible. And what I’m offering to you is, it also might be amazing and perfect and wonderful. You guys, I hope this gives you a few things to think about with worry. Again, I’ll just go over the five tools, come back to the present moment. Number two, realize the worst thing that can happen is negative emotion. Number three, it might, but then we’ll figure that out when it happens. Four, give yourself a worry diet. And number five, imagine the best case scenario give equal airtime to the best possible outcome as well. All right, everyone have the most amazing weekend. Happy Easter to every single one of you. You know, I think about you every single day. Take care. Thanks so much for joining me on the podcast today. Listen, if you are learning a lot from this podcast and you like what you’re hearing, you will absolutely love hopping on a free strategy call with me. That’s where you and I meet up one on one and talk specifically about what is going on for you. I love teaching young adults the mental and emotional tools that they need to overcome orient anxiety, serve the successful missions they’ve always dreamed of and navigate their post mission experience with confidence. So go to Jennie dildine.com, and click on the work with me link. I would love to meet you. And I would love to get you some helpful tools and strategies to help you fully embrace whatever is next for you. And in the meantime, no matter which part of the mission experience you are involved in. Just know that Jenny, the LDS mission coach is thinking about you every single day