Louise Thompson: Worrying makes bad stuff happen

Worrying is meditating on the thing you don't want to happen. Photo / Thinkstock

Worrying is a pointless activity. Fact!

Worrying is focusing on a fear that is not currently present. It's worrying about a thing that may or may not happen later.

Most of the time it doesn't even happen, but all that mental energy, emotional energy and headspace is gone, you can't get that back.

And here's another thing. Worrying actually makes the thing you are worrying about more likely to happen.

Yep, that's right.

How?

Well, firstly, worry makes you filter. Filtering is selective awareness of what's going on around you. Our brain is built to filter because otherwise we couldn't cope with the sheer volume of information around us. Here's an example of filtering. We got a new car a couple of years ago. I wasn't that fussed about what we got as long as it was small enough I could park it (ie. very small) and that it wasn't another unreliable money eating machine. We settled on a blue Mazda 3. Never really seen one before but it ticked all the boxes and we got a good deal. Then, when driving about in the shiny new reliable blue Mazda 3 a funny thing happened. They are everywhere. Every third car is a blue Mazda 3.

So many in fact that twice I tried to get into the wrong parked car (duh... that's why we now have a sticker on the back window). Blue Mazda 3s are super common but I honestly had never noticed one before I bought one, then I see them everywhere. Why? Filtering.

My brain is filtering for the thing I put my attention on so I see it everywhere.

It's how the brain works. So, if you are worrying about a thing, you are actually far more likely to find evidence for it as you have primed your brain to search for it.

That makes worries far more likely to become real.

Reason number two why worrying makes the thing you don't want more likely to happen is the basic law of attraction. The more thoughts you put out there by continually worrying about a scenario you don't want,the more likely the universe is to energetically bring that back to you. That might be too woo-woo for you but I can assure you it's the truth. The universe is programmed to bring you what you want. And it assumes that what you want is what you think about all the time.

Worrying is a repetitive thought pattern. Hence that's what you are far more likely to get.

So, whether you like the brain science filtering explanation or the more woo-woo law of attraction, you can see that worrying is bad. And pointless.

Worrying is meditating on the thing you don't want to happen.

So, stop it! Decide what you do want to happen, however unlikely that might seem, and focus your thoughts and energy on that.

It will make a huge difference to how enjoyable your day is and the outcome of your desire.

Have a great worry-free day.

Louise Thompson is a life coach, yoga teacher and corporate escapee. For more from Louise visit positivebalance.co.nz.