Break the Worry Habit

You do not need to be a victim of worry. Reduced to its simplest form, what is worry? It is simply an unhealthy and destructive mental habit. You were not born with the worry habit. You acquired it. And because you can change any habit and any acquired attitude, you can cast worry from your mind. Since aggressive, direct action is essential in the elimination process, there is just one proper time to begin an effective attack on worry, and that is now. So let us start breaking your worry habit at once.

A famous psychologist asserts that ‘fear is the most disintegrating enemy of human personality’, and a prominent physician declares that ‘worry is the most subtle and destructive of all human diseases’. Another physician tells us that thousands of people are ill because of ‘dammed-up anxiety’. These sufferers have been unable to expel their anxieties which have turned inward on the personality, causing many forms of ill-health. The destructive quality of worry is indicated by the fact that the word itself is derived from an old Anglo-Saxon word meaning ‘to choke’. If someone were to put his fingers around your throat and press hard, cutting off the flow of vital power, it would be a dramatic demonstration of what you do to yourself by long-held and habitual worry.

But do not be discouraged, for you can overcome your worries. There is a remedy that will bring you sure relief. It can help you break the worry habit. And the first step to take in breaking it is simply to believe you can. Whatever you believe you can do, you can do, with God’s help.

Here, then, is a practical procedure which will help you to eliminate abnormal worry from your experience.

Practice emptying the mind daily. This should be done preferably before retiring at night to avoid the retention by the consciousness of worries while you sleep. During sleep, thoughts tend to sink more deeply into the subconscious. The last five minutes before going to sleep are of extraordinary importance, for in that brief period the mind is most receptive to suggestion. It tends to absorb the last ideas that are entertained in walking conscious.

This process of mind drainage is important in overcoming worry, for fear thoughts, unless drained off, can clog the mind and impede the flow of mental and spiritual power. But such thoughts can be emptied from the mind and will not accumulate if they are eliminated daily. To drain them, utilise a process of creative imagination. Conceive of yourself as actually emptying your mind of all anxiety and fear. Picture all worry thoughts as flowing out as you would let water flow from a basin by removing the stopper. Repeat the following affirmation during this visualisation: ‘With God’s help I am now emptying my mind of all anxiety, all fear, all sense of insecurity.’ Repeat this slowly five times, then add: ‘I believe that my mind is now emptied of all anxiety, all fear, all sense of insecurity.’ Then go to sleep.

The procedure may be further strengthened by imaginatively thinking of yourself as reaching into your mind and one by one removing your worries. Imagination is a source of fear, but imagination may also be the cure of fear. ‘Imagineering’ is the use of mental images to build factual results, and it is an astonishingly effective procedure. Imagination is not simply the use of fancy. The word imagination derives from the idea of imagining. That is to say, you form an image either of fear or of release from fear. What you ‘image’ (imagine) may ultimately become a fact if held mentally with sufficient faith.

Therefore hold an image of yourself as delivered from worry and the drainage process will in time eliminate abnormal fear from your thoughts. However, it is not enough to empty the mind, for the mind will not long remain empty. It must be occupied by something. It cannot continue in a state of vacuum. Therefore, upon emptying the mind, practise refilling it. Fill it with thoughts of faith, hope, courage, expectancy. Say aloud such affirmations as the following: ‘God is now filling my mind with courage, with peace, with calm assurance. God is now guiding me to right decisions.’