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| How to 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.
To eliminate abnormal worry, empty 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 waking consciousness.
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, utilize 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 visualization: “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.” Repeat that statement five times, meanwhile holding a mental picture of your mind as being emptied of these concepts. Then thank God for thus freeing you from fear. And go to sleep.
In starting the curative process the foregoing method should be utilized in mid-morning and mid-afternoon as well as at bedtime. Go into some quiet place for five minutes for this purpose. Faithfully perform this process and you will soon note beneficial results.
Upon emptying the mind, practice refilling it. Fill it with thoughts of faith, hope, courage, expectancy. Say aloud such affirmations as, “God is now filling my mind with courage, with peace, with calm assurance. God is now protecting me from all harm. God is now protecting my loved ones from all harm. God is now guiding me to right decisions.
God will see me through this situation.” A half-dozen times each day crowd your mind with such thoughts as these until the mind is overflowing with them. In due course these thoughts of faith will crowd out worry. Fear is the most powerful of all thoughts with one exception, and that one exception is faith. Faith can always overcome fear. Faith is the one power against which fear cannot stand. Day by day, as you fill your mind with faith, there will ultimately be no room left for fear. This is the one great fact that no one should forget. Master faith and you will automatically master fear.
So the process is, empty the mind and cauterize it with God’s grace, then practice filling
your mind with faith and you will break the worry habit.
One of the best illustrations of this strategy against worry was a scheme developed by a businessman. He was a tremendous worrier. In fact, he was fast getting himself into a bad state of nerves and ill health. His particular form of worry was that he was always doubtful as to whether he had done or said the right thing. He was always rehashing his decisions and getting himself unnerved about them.
Finally, he broke his worry habit by working out a little ritual that he performed every night before leaving his office. He reached up and tore off the calendar page for that particular day, rolled it into a ball and dropped that “day” into the wastebasket. Then he prayed, “Lord, You gave me this day. I did the best I could with it and You helped me, and I thank You. I made some mistakes. That was when I didn’t follow Your advice, and I am sorry about that. Forgive me. But I had some successes, too, and I am grateful for Your guidance. But now, Lord, mistakes or successes, the day is over and I’m through with it, so I’m giving it back to You. Amen.”
Perhaps that isn’t an orthodox prayer, but it proved to be an effective one. He dramatized the finishing of the day and he set his face to the future, expecting to do better the next day. By this method this man’s sins of omission and commission gradually lost their hold on him. He was released from the worries that accumulated from his yesterdays.
In this technique this man was practicing one of the most effective anti-worry formulas, which is described in these words: “But this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3: 13-14).
To break the worry habit, try this worry-breaking formula:
Perhaps that isn’t an orthodox prayer, but it proved to be an effective one. He dramatized the finishing of the day and he set his face to the future, expecting to do better the next day. By this method this man’s sins of omission and commission gradually lost their hold on him. He was released from the worries that accumulated from his yesterdays.
In this technique this man was practicing one of the most effective anti-worry formulas, which is described in these words: “But this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3: 13-14).
To break the worry habit, try this worry-breaking formula:
1. Say to yourself, “Worry is just a very bad mental habit. And I can change any habit with God’s help.”
2. First thing every morning before you arise say out loud, “I believe,” three times.
3. Pray, using this formula: “I place this day, my life, my loved ones, my work in the Lord’s hands. Whatever happens, whatever results, if I am in the Lord’s hands, it is the Lord’s will and it is good.”
4 Practice saying something positive concerning everything about which you have been talking negatively. Don’t say, “I’ll never be able to do that.” Instead, affirm, “With God’s help I will do that.”
5. Never participate in a worry conversation.
6. Mark every passage in the Bible that speaks of faith, hope, happiness, glory, radiance.
Commit each to memory. Say them over and over again until these creative thoughts saturate your subconscious mind. Then the subconscious will return to you what you have given it, namely, optimism, not worry.
7. Cultivate friendships with hopeful people. Surround yourself with friends who think positive, faith-producing thoughts and who contribute to a creative atmosphere. This will keep you re-stimulated with faith attitudes.
8. See how many people you can help to cure their own worry habit. In helping another to overcome worry you get greater power over it within yourself.
9. Every day of your life conceive of yourself as living in partnership and companionship with Jesus Christ. If He actually walked by your side, would you be worried or afraid?
Well, then, say to yourself, “He is with me.” Affirm aloud His promise, “I am with you always.” Then change it to say, “He is with me now.” Repeat the affirmation three times every day.
2. First thing every morning before you arise say out loud, “I believe,” three times.
3. Pray, using this formula: “I place this day, my life, my loved ones, my work in the Lord’s hands. Whatever happens, whatever results, if I am in the Lord’s hands, it is the Lord’s will and it is good.”
4 Practice saying something positive concerning everything about which you have been talking negatively. Don’t say, “I’ll never be able to do that.” Instead, affirm, “With God’s help I will do that.”
5. Never participate in a worry conversation.
6. Mark every passage in the Bible that speaks of faith, hope, happiness, glory, radiance.
Commit each to memory. Say them over and over again until these creative thoughts saturate your subconscious mind. Then the subconscious will return to you what you have given it, namely, optimism, not worry.
7. Cultivate friendships with hopeful people. Surround yourself with friends who think positive, faith-producing thoughts and who contribute to a creative atmosphere. This will keep you re-stimulated with faith attitudes.
8. See how many people you can help to cure their own worry habit. In helping another to overcome worry you get greater power over it within yourself.
9. Every day of your life conceive of yourself as living in partnership and companionship with Jesus Christ. If He actually walked by your side, would you be worried or afraid?
Well, then, say to yourself, “He is with me.” Affirm aloud His promise, “I am with you always.” Then change it to say, “He is with me now.” Repeat the affirmation three times every day.
