Last night, a friend made a helpful distinction between worry and contemplation. Worries, she said, are repetitive thoughts that are not typically productive and are focused primarily on things that could go wrong. A test is, do these thoughts make me feel more or less at ease? Contemplations, on the other hand, are thoughts of curiosity, exploration, and considering new possibilities.
Which made me think if we feel that our thoughts are becoming worries, one way to change that pattern is to choose to expand the focus. If worry is leading us to narrow our options to only negative outcomes, it might be helpful – within our thoughts – to create a new thought pattern that is intentionally curious and explores an option or possibility we were’t considering.
In other words, if the GPS of our thoughts is leading us only in a direction of worry, we can turn off that GPS for a moment and contemplate new routes. We can choose to explore, rather than predict; be curious, rather than uneasy; and open ourselves to possibilities that worries are never interested in exploring.
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