Thank you to Paul Henderson for this inspiration contest! At first I thought this might be TMI, I might have even worried that it was TMI. Then I laughed at myself and decided to go for it.
My mom was a worrier, it was bad. She worried about everything under the sun. I can remember thinking that if only she could chill out and stop worrying her life would be so much different! I swore I would never, ever be like that.
Fast forward, of course I worried. I don't mean just a little worry, I mean get in your way of enjoying life worry. I would be worried if a family member was a few minutes late, I would be worried that something bad was right around the corner, worried I would be late, worried, worried, worried. Sometimes it had me gripped so badly I wanted to just stay in bed with the covers over my head!
At a particularly difficult point in my life last year after my husband had his stroke, I almost worried myself into oblivion! Then I found it, the inspiration that saved me. A quote from His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama.
"If it can be solved there's no need to worry, and if it can't be
solved, worry is of no use."
It may sound like such a simple concept to some of you, yet simple or not, it truly saved me. I suddenly understood that all I needed to do was to let go of being afraid. Fear was not my friend at all, neither was worry. If there was a solution, it would come. If there wasn't a solution (which is rarely true) worry would only make it worse for me.
I printed it out and hung it at my desk at work. I carried it on a piece of paper in my purse. It went just about everywhere with me and I looked at it many times throughout the day.
I also came to understand that the more I focused on negative things, the more I brought them to me. Welcoming up the negative feelings and letting them go was the best thing I ever started doing. That and meditating on a regular basis.
I understand my mom a whole lot better and I am sorry she never understood how easy it is to let go of the worry.
A simple quote from a (not so) simple man saved me. If you ask me who is THE ONE person I would want to meet if I could, it would be the 14th Dalai Lama. Just watching him on a video I can sense his inner peace and his absolute joy in life.
Every morning at sunrise I am reminded that the sun doesn't worry, if it can't be seen because of the clouds, it is still there, doing its thing. And it will set, if I can see it or not. The next day it will happen all over again, no worries involved. Perhaps that is why I love to capture the sunrise and sunset in photos.
And now I think to myself
A life without worry is a life worth living!
Inspiring sunrise
Inspiring sunset
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