Is it a worry of is it a problem?
Every day we are bombarded with bad news. If I look at the headlines just today I'm warned of global warming, racial violence, war, new strains of COVID, interest rate hikes and a looming recession. There are a lot of reasons to feel stress, so how do we keep our equilibrium with so many reasons to worry?
People who are skillful at not allowing potentially stressful events to affect them emotionally are good at two things:
1) differentiating worries from problems
2) differentiating what is within and outside of their control.
A problem is something that is factually happening right now. Whereas worry is thinking about negative things that might happen at some time in the future.
For example:
"I can't make my mortgage payment this month" is a problem. Whereas, "If interest rates keep rising I may not be able to make my mortgage payments" is a worry.
Although problems are not pleasant, they are often solvable when you can identify what is within your control. For the above example: I could call the bank, I could work overtime, I could sell something or borrow money from a friend. What I can't control is the interest rates or the amount I have already spent.
Because worries represent future possibilities they are harder to define and plan for. And, despite how much time is spent thinking about worries, worry is actually an avoidant process: Worriers often believe that the more they think about a worry the better equipped they will be at dealing with it coming to pass. However, worry often stays in an unhelpful cognitive loop-the-loop of "what if??" thoughts, rather than the more helpful (if somewhat scary) process to investigating the facts and finding out if the worry is realistic or not.
For the above example, a more helpful process would be to estimate how much interest rates might rise, and what that means in terms of your monthly budget to work out if you have a potential problem or not. Once you find out if you are likely to have a problem you are in a better position to plan for it. You might decide to sell, to redefine your spending priorities, or refinance, for example.
Additionally, many people worry about things that are largely outside of their control. Global warming, though a problem, isn't one that any one individual can solve. So, please do the best you can to lower your carbon footprint, but continually thinking about all the horrors that may come to pass if the seas keep rising is like running a scary end-of-days movie on repeat in your head. It won't make you any better at being environmentally responsible and it certainly won't help you enjoy the natural beauty that is around us currently.
Stressful things happen to everyone. So, next time you find yourself getting stressed over something, try asking yourself: Is it a worry or is it a problem? And is it under my control? And see if this helps you manage your stress a little better.