The Secret to a Worry-Free Life

Worrying takes up an immense amount of our daily mental space and often robs us of enjoying the present moment. We explore how most of our worries never materialize, yet they steal our time and energy.

• Treating worrying thoughts like an unwanted song on a playlist that you can skip
• Taking action on worries when possible rather than ruminating endlessly
• Using techniques like worry dolls, journaling, or prayer to symbolically set aside concerns
• Creating physical and mental sanctuaries where worries aren't allowed to intrude
• Learning to compartmentalize serious concerns without letting them consume all joy
• Finding freedom by questioning "Who would you be without that thought?"
• Recognizing when empathy becomes unhelpful by taking on everyone else's worries
• Understanding that worrying about the future steals from experiencing the present

Free yourselves from worry and take only the necessary actions you need. Be joyful and see you in our next episode!

Chapters

• 0:00 Worry's Daily Mental Theft
• 3:35 Worry Like a Playlist You Control
• 9:44 Worry Dolls and Alternative Solutions
• 15:00 Creating Mental Sanctuaries
• 21:30 Learning to Live Despite Health Worries
• 25:50 Freedom From Worry's Prison

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Worrying. I think worrying takes up so much of our time every day and we don't really realise how much it's actually robbing us of our lives. Yeah, and it takes up so much mental space as well. It's like our mind can be so full of worry that we don't have time for other things and we literally can't can't allow for anything. Most of us can think of one thing that we worry about every day. Yes, the same thing, say. If you add that up over in the next five years or ten years, you know how many it might. It might have taken a whole year away from your life, I know. Just worrying about it, yeah, something that you really I mean worrying in per se is okay if you think, oh okay, I've had like a warning. It's like a little timer that goes off, but then how long do we have to worry about it? How long? So that's what we're going to be chatting about in this week's episode on get real with the english sisters.

Speaker 1: 1:12

Join us and thank you so much for always subscribing and following the show. Yeah, and do come and say hi on instagram too, where you can have all the latest updates, and come watch us on youtube, where you can see the video to where you can have all the latest updates. And come watch us on youtube where you can see the video. Yes, we've got our shiny blouses on, haven't we do? Yes, indeed, we do have our shinies for the new year. Yes, new year still keeping joy, I'm not going to worry as much. No, that's a good, good new year's resolution.

Speaker 1: 1:41

Definitely because I found in my personal life yeah, me too the more I worry, I mean, most things I worry about they don't even they don't come true, most of the stuff, yeah. Then afterwards, when you you actually why did I worry so much? When the time comes, you think, oh gosh, that wasn't even worth it. Yeah, most of the time it wasn't worth the worry. I mean, is it ever worth worrying about something? Not really, I don't think complete worrying. I think when the thought comes in your mind that you're worried about something, then you say, what can I do about it? Yeah, yeah, that's when you have to take action. And if there is something you can do about it, well, then you do it. And if there is something you can do about it, well, then you do it. You do it, yeah, but then the worst thing is when you don't do it and you just continue worrying about yeah, and sometimes there's nothing you can do about it, because it's a health issue, or it's something that you cannot address that in that day, or it's a fight you've had with someone and you can't solve it, so there's no point worrying about it. You think I'll do it, and you just go and do it and you say sorry, or you. It's easier said than done, though, isn't it? We do know it's so easy, but it's all about being in the present moment. Again, it is. We have to take charge of our own minds. We have to be able to direct our minds into a more helpful state of mind for ourselves. That's what it is.

Speaker 1: 3:13

I'm thinking about one of the um, the short stories we wrote in stress free in three minutes in our book, and it's your favorite playlist. Would you put worry into your favorite play? Would you put a song into your favorite playlist that you hated or that made you worry, that made you feel ill every time, physically, mentally? If you think of your thoughts like a playlist, why on earth would you torture yourself with something you did not enjoy listening to? I think the answer is people say I don't want to torture myself, but that thought just keeps on coming up and there is nothing I can do about it. That's what people would say. That's where you're wrong, because there is something, yeah, about it. You can make it stop, just like you would stop at a red light and you wouldn't go through it. Yes, that's right, you can make it stop. Stop that, if you. If, when I'm listening to a playlist, if I'm listening to some music, and then suddenly something else comes on, I don't like, I stop it, yes, and I put a, I change it to the music that I like, which at the moment is taylor, swift, right, okay, anybody, it could be anybody. I go back to who I want to listen to, so you can do the same with your own mind. You can't just let your mind go nuts on you. So you've got economical issues and then maybe some health issues and then maybe family issues, and it can all add up and all this worrying. Ultimately, in the end, it's it's not healthy, is it?

Speaker 1: 5:05

I remember the other day, some insect bit your husband, yeah, and he started staring at it and really worrying. Yeah, he was worried, he was so worried. So then I got bitten. I got bitten a few days after, recently, and I was looking at it and it was getting me worried, just like what happened to georgia. Yeah, and I was thinking here I am worrying about this. No, stop it. Put the cream on it, take an antihistamine and you're going to be fine. Yeah, it's nothing. It's nothing. You were worried because you got stung by the bees, yeah, and I had no allergic reactions, I know, but I just think it's our minds.

Speaker 1: 5:46

Just go to these places, yes, and if you do not know how to control them and put them in check of your own mind, you will be in trouble. You will be in trouble and a lot of the times, these things happen just when you want to rest the most. Your brain will start when you want to go to sleep and you want to have a good night's sleep. So how can you like? If you, you know, what would you say? How can you?

Speaker 1: 6:14

The other day, I was watching the the empress and they came up with the netflix yeah, the netflix one and they came up with these worry dolls and apparently they originated in um, guatemala and little children. They're given to little children and they're as cute as anything. Little dolls, they're nothing to do with anything. You know bad, and you have this little doll and you tell your worry to the doll and then you put it under your pillow oh, that's so sweet, and then that's it. So you're free of your worry, you're free of it.

Speaker 1: 6:50

So what you can do with your mind, as we've learned as hypnotherapists, is you can say to your worry I've heard you, I'm listening to you, it's okay, you're going to be okay, we're going to deal with it. We'll deal with it if we can, like tomorrow, if it's a health issue, if it's possible, I'll make an appointment or I'll do something. I have to do if I have to do it. If I don't and it's just waiting, because a lot of the time with health issues you know it is just or you put them off. So then if you find yourself putting stuff off, you can, you can ask for help. So you can ask a friend or a family member. You can say look, I'm, I'm, I'm procrastinating, I'm worried about this thing, but I'm not finding it really difficult and I'm procrastinating with it. Can you have procrastinating? Can you help me, like, can you? You know, check on me, check up on me and either help me make the phone call or make the appointment or, you know, ask me if I've done it so that I'll do it.

Speaker 1: 7:50

And because sometimes we just we're like these people. We're not computers, no, we're not, we're not. Well, we are in a way, yes, because you can program your mind. Yes, only if you know how to, only if you know how. Tools, absolutely yes, it's all a question of knowing. So, I mean, we're adults, so we don't have these little dolls, or maybe we still do if you, if you belong to that culture and you can buy them online.

Speaker 1: 8:19

Really, yes, the little, tiny, little, uh, traditional little dolls, you can make them if you like making stuff and you place all your worries into that little doll. And, yeah, you have have one for each worry, but I would just have one for all of them. Yeah, seems easier, but the actual symbolism of it is that you are putting them away, aren't you? Yeah, or sometimes, if you like crystals, or you've got a little favourite thing that you like, a little soft toy or anything, I would just say, you know, use the imagery of it. Or a power of prayer, you know, if you're religious, wonderful, you know, you, you send off that prayer and you can, you can sort of like, help yourself, relieve yourself of some of your worries. So let them be, so that you can let them be for the evening, for the night, put them to one side. Yeah, I think that's where journaling helps, because you can write it in your journal and then you say, okay tomorrow, and you close the diary. Yes, after sleep.

Speaker 1: 9:20

We used to do that when we were little, didn't we? We would write a diary. Yeah, our mothers used to. Our mom, I would never. I would always edit it, though because she was scared somebody would read it. Yeah, never true, it was true. Who would ever read it? Nobody. Because you were scared somebody would read it. Yeah, never true. So if it was true, who would ever read it? Nobody. But you just was just me and you.

Speaker 1: 9:35

I would certainly not go snooping into your diary. I was not interested and no one would have read it. But I don't know. It's just these things. I wouldn't actually really say what I really felt I do.

Speaker 1: 9:47

If I look through my diaries, though, I would worry a lot. You, I would write down my worries. I'm so worried about my math test, I'm so worried about this. No, I would. I would write things like that. I'm worried, I would say things like that, but I mean really, I suppose, really personal things I wouldn't write just in case someone read them. Yes, obviously, yeah, if it was something really personal, if it was something really personal, what can be that person when you're a tiny, you know, when you're like nine? Well, I wrote them till I was older. Yes, yes, so did I actually, but so did I Not just when I was nine. No, no, you're right. No, it's true, if I need to read notes, you have to go and have a look at them and see what. But I used to mostly write how great it was, a bit like a gratitude journal really. Most of the time I would say how grateful I was, how much I love my family, my husband, when you were older, when I was older, yeah, like as a teenager, teenager, I can't remember I'd have to go and have a look, but I do remember worrying about people reading. Yes, so that's another worry that you don't want to add on to the worry list. Yeah, and if I just told a little doll, it would have probably been better, really. Well, yeah, because the doll's not going to say anything, is she?

Speaker 1: 11:00

We did actually used to sleep with our dolls, didn't we, all of them. Yeah, none of them would be left out. No, the bed would be covered in them and they were hard Like. They were like hard plastic dolls, lovely, soft ones. No, no, even the actual, like teddy bears. You know, I remember they were quite tough. They were in our days. They weren't like these lovely and soft and plush like they are. No, they were quite hard. They had like hard little arms and wire inside and they used to stick all over you but you'd stuff them all in under the bed covers.

Speaker 1: 11:35

I remember, you know, every single toy I ever possessed would get cold. Yes, if we didn't. Yeah, it was probably a way for having comfort as well from them, from the dolls, sometimes pretty uncomfortable, it uncomfortable. I do remember those little hands. I remember my doll that was quite big and hard. It was a doll I'm talking about. It was, yeah, this gets worse. We were little. When we were like five, we used to play with it. This is getting worse. We, we were six, we had dollies that they had in those days, so that not so much now. There was barbies as well, but barbies are pretty well. Yeah, tough, they were tough, little, to use the same word. No, they were tough and it was. It was difficult. It was difficult sleeping with them Because I remember it would take ages to warm up.

Speaker 1: 12:33

It was cold for ages because the rooms were cold as well. We didn't have central heating when we were really tiny, no, but later on we did, but they were still cold. But I remember when we used to sleep with them we didn't have central heating. The central heating came when we were quite older, really Like 10 or something.

Speaker 1: 12:49

Goodness me, I can't remember the days before central heating. Oh I can. It was bloody freezing, was it? I just can't remember that. Was it that room with the wallpaper? We had that green flag the first time we had central heating in there? How on earth would the rooms warm up? It was just freezing cold. Did we have an electric little heater or something? Nothing Gosh, it must have been. Goodness me. No wonder people used to have to wear hats in bed, like the woolly hats and things. We didn't have hats, but I don't know what we had. I don't think we had. I think we might have had a little radiator in the room. Yeah, I think so. We had electric radiators and things like that. There must have been something in there to warm up that house. Because the house was big, it must have got really cold.

Speaker 1: 13:42

I do remember the the big, you know, big deal about this central heating was a big deal, that mum and dad made a big deal about it. And there was this boiler room right upstairs. Yeah, then the man came and put all the radiators. Oh, yeah, I remember that, but kind of, yeah, a bit younger. Obviously I was a year younger and I just probably didn't didn't remember it. Yeah, I do remember the house feeling nice and cozy afterwards, oh gosh, what a difference. We were just used to cooler temperatures. Yeah, I mean, the babies used to see like, like my husband, his, his sister, who was who's like 15 years older than he is, or 20 years older, she's much, much older.

Speaker 1: 14:26

When she had her children. She remembers that they used to sleep in woolly hats and coats, the babies, the babies would be all wrapped up like if they were in the street. Well, what about? You would put the prams outside to let them sleep in the garden. Yeah, you would actually put babies to let them sleep in the in the garden. Yeah, you would actually put babies and let them sleep, especially if it was a nice cool, you know, not cool. It was like a nice winter's day, even in the winter, though you would put the baby outside. Yeah, I remember mum. She would sometimes leave, you know, we would. She was a child minder and she would look after a lot like five babies at a time, and then one would always be parked like outside the front door and, and you know, you're just sleeping. Sounds terrible, sounds terrible, but it was like the fresh air. She was saying what they do in sweden or something, or in denmark, in these nordic countries, they will leave them outside in the freezing cold. Yeah, because they're all wrapped up in there. Yeah, they're all super wrapped up and everything, but yeah, so obviously it was different times.

Speaker 1: 15:25

Anyway, we are going off topic here, but anyway, what's the point of worrying about worry? Yeah, exactly, you know, worry, think about better things. Yeah, if you think you have, you know, your mind, your mind, your mind needs space. It needs to be freed up. It's like all cluttered with worry. It's like your iPhone space or your whatever it is space, your computer space. It needs to be freed up so that you can have space for things that you really want to think about and enjoy and listen to.

Speaker 1: 15:58

I think, and I think a lot of the worry is like past worries. It's it's it's things that aren't, that they don't even concern you in in the future. They're like regrets that turn into worry because it's, ah, you regret, and then you worry about the regret of not doing it. There is, you know, you are taking up valuable space in your mind which you could be enjoying yourself or helping other people. I was gonna say, yeah, a lot of the times, by helping others, you feel less worried about your own anxieties. Yeah, and it's extraordinary how that works, and that's why volunteering is really good idea as well to help relieve, yeah, or doing something you feel as if you're helping people with. Yeah, yeah, yeah, obviously, yeah, even if it's not volunteering. If it's helping your neighbor or you think you're being useful to, to, yeah, whoever yeah, your family, your friends, whatever it is, it makes you feel less anxious as well. So, whatever it is. So, even as you know, we may not have the little worry dolls, but we can sort of like, pretend and get rid of that worry. Yeah, I mean you can even just hold a little handkerchief in your hand or something and say, okay, I'm gonna put this under my pillow tissue, put your worry in there under the pillow. Under the pillow or, you know, in another room, I would say, keep it at bay, flush it down the toilet. That's why you have to have your like.

Speaker 1: 17:36

I think the your room you sleep in has to be a bit of a sanctuary. Yeah, so't it? Yeah, I agree. So you have to leave your worries outside of it. I mean, I love my bed.

Speaker 1: 17:49

I absolutely love it. You know, it's like my sanctuary, it's just I love. That's why everything around it, you know I have to make it, that's why I'm obsessed with the bed, linen and everything. It's always my happy place. The minute I enter it I feel, oh yeah, I love it. Yeah, yeah, I really do. And I you don't, you don't, you don't love it as much.

Speaker 1: 18:13

I'm not as I like it. I like going to sleep in it and doing things in it. But the, the actual bed, the. I don't spend a lot of time in my bed like you do.

Speaker 1: 18:25

No, I go to bed at 12 o'clock or when one o'clock in the morning, or if I've set an earlier bedtime, which now I tend to go to bed a bit earlier, like at 11. Yeah, because it's because, if you go to bed too late, then you want to get get up. Oh, I know I work online and I've got I don't with people I don't want to get. It makes me get up earlier if I go to bed earlier. Well, of course it does. Yeah, that makes sense. So you mean you don't want to get up too early. I do want to get up earlier now in the winter. Oh right, okay, you want to have a longer day day? I want it to be sunny outside, but lucky, it's mostly sunny. Yeah, me too, even, like on a sunday. I want to, like, enjoy my sunday. Yeah, I think, oh no, it's all right.

Speaker 1: 19:09

I used to want to sleep in more and I didn't care about the light so much, but now, yeah, I'm older, I like to see the light more. You did care about the light. You're always moaning about how early it was and how dark it was In the evenings, but I didn't care if I slept until 12 or something. What really? Yeah, I used to sleep in loads. I remember always caring about that. Maybe you were different. I always used to sleep in until 11 or 12. I didn't care. Yeah, I always used to think oh no, it's my day off, I'd sleep in too much and I'd be annoyed. Yeah, if I sleep in too much and if I got a headache I don't get headaches that much oh, no, yeah, because you don't sleep in that much? Probably no, but sometimes I do.

Speaker 1: 19:52

I do recuperate, like if I've been out on a night out, if we've been out, I do sleep in. Yes, obviously we've been out, I do sleep in, I do. Obviously you get up 10, 11, I suppose if you go to bed at two or three in the morning, that's normal, yeah, something else? Yep, absolutely it is. So is that what you do to control your worry at night? What do you do? I try not to worry, and at all about things. Now, yeah, I've become very philosophical about things and I just think If there's something I can do about it, I'll do it and I don't go to the worst situation, like the worst scenario. I think I'm like worried out.

Speaker 1: 20:39

I've done so much worry in the past goodness me, yeah, but I now, especially with health, and that I just take it very for just one day at a time, kind of thing. I'm not gonna. I mean, I've had new reasons to worry now with my son's you know health, but even with them, like before, I would have been worried, sick about your sons. And now I, I don't worry like that. I just no, thank goodness. You did used to worry. I used to be so empathetic about people and I'd worry more than the necessary about other people as well and about their health. Gosh, yes, and now I, I don't do that anymore. No, thank goodness, yes, goodness, and I'm much freer and happier from it. Yes, absolutely, and in the end, most of it turns out it's always okay, and if it isn't, there's nothing you can do about it. Anyway, that's life.

Speaker 1: 21:29

So I must say, yeah, that is true, yeah, even though, like you know, I've had my son's diagnosis. He's recently been diagnosed with bladder cancer and that was pretty scary, really, really scary as a mom. He's so young, he's 27, and I thought, gosh, how am I gonna ever overcome this worry now? And it's just constant, because then it's another test and then he has to do. You know, it's just, but I've managed to somehow, somehow take it day by day, you know, and and and sort of live from for my health experience as well. Just understand that. You know, these things are what they are transitory as well, aren't they? I, I hope they're transitory and I hope they go away. And I mean, he's had an, he's had an operation and everything, and.

Speaker 1: 22:26

But then you, it is easy to go down that spiral, isn't it? With things like cancer, you know, you worry and worry and worry. You can go down. So but I I've managed to put it, like uh, to one side and only think about it when it's necessary. When he comes and he talks to me about it, then I'll think about it, or when it's the next test or something. But I've managed to somehow separate things in my mind so I can still have a lovely hot chocolate and really enjoy that hot chocolate without it overtaking.

Speaker 1: 23:00

I think it's something I have learned to do. It's something, it's a skill. You learn how to do this through things that happen to you in life, yeah, and through the tools that you have. Obviously, yes, yes, through the tools. Yeah, absolutely yeah, you have to go, you have to do it, don't you? You, you think how else would you manage to do it? Well, yeah, you, otherwise you don't. You don't manage that. What you said.

Speaker 1: 23:28

It's not easy to do these things. No, with loved ones, with yourself, with, with you know, anybody else? You, you end up just having a whole day of worry. And what's the point? There is absolutely nothing that you can do. Most of the time, you can follow the doctor's orders and everything, but that's it.

Speaker 1: 23:47

Then you, your, your duty is to to live your life, your life and thing, with worry as well. It's if you, if you're worried about I say if you're worried about your son you're not able to enjoy your son as he is now. No, it's always thinking of the future, worrying about something that might not even happen. Another test when is the next test? You're not, you're like. You're like stealing the moment away.

Speaker 1: 24:14

It is difficult to do, I must admit. It's harder when it is one of your kids, you know, that is affected. It is, it's tough. However, it is possible to do and I am living proof of this. It really is possible. So you can do it, you can put aside, you can enjoy yourself as well and, you know, keep things separate.

Speaker 1: 24:36

I think, yeah, and not go down the spiral. Yes, yes, and I think everyone has their own journey as well. So if we, if, if you're a person that's very empathetic and you're taking on everyone else's problems and journeys, it's going to be far too much for you to handle, and it's not a good thing, it's really. It's just. You just have to be like thinking I'm just free and like just now, in the moment, am I okay, right now, in the moment, sitting on this chair, talking to you? Yes, yes, I'm fine, there's nothing Otherwise.

Speaker 1: 25:14

You're like Always you're in the future, aren't you Always in the future? But also you're like imprisoning yourself. You're like like enslaving yourself in in this thing that's not even real. So like you're incarcerating yourself in a thought that's not even real. It's an imaginary thought that you're not. You know who would you be without that thought? You would be, you would be free, you would you be. Without that thought, you would be free. You would be free without that thought. So, absolutely so, free yourselves, free yourselves from worry. Free yourselves from worry and obviously, take the necessary actions that you need to take and just be joyful, absolutely. See you next week, next week, next episode. Lots of love and smiles from the English sisters. Bye, bye.