Living Life Poetically: The Psychology of the Worried Mind
This is part one of a short two-part poem series looking into the psychology of the worried mind. A poem on the psychology of the calm mind will follow. “The Psychology of the Worried Mind” personifies a mind that’s worried. Put on your imagination hat for a second and imagine being able to psychoanalyze a worried mind. This poem is the result of doing just that. If you happen to be worried about something, perhaps it will give you a glimpse into your mind. Moreover, this inspection may lead to reflection, a deeper understanding, and a renewed path to peace. The Psychology of the Worried Mind The worried mind seeks…
You May Also Like
“If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.”
“Money is ultimately not enough compensation for investing your time and energy. There has to be a sense of purpose, meaning and fulfillment. “
“You can either experience the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. The choice is yours.”
“To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.”
When you want to physically get somewhere, you need to choose a form of transportation that’s mobile–something that moves–like a car, bike, plane, or your own two feet. You wouldn’t sit yourself on the floor and expect to go from point A to point B. Now let’s apply that same concept to when you want to get somewhere nonphysical. In other words, you want to reach a professional, mental, or health-related destination. This quote, by Yann Martel, implies that having doubt is the same as deciding to sit down on the floor expecting to reach a physical destination. The opposite of doubt, however, is faith. Faith is like the car,…
“Successful people have fear, successful people have doubts, and successful people have worries. They just don’t let these feelings stop them.”
Successful people are fearless, successful people act without hesitation, and successful people have no worries. Each one of these statements is false. However, we tend to subconsciously assume they’re fact. This quote, by T. Harv Eker, reminds us that our idea about successful people are most often wrong. They do have worries, doubts, and fear. Yet they forge ahead in spite of these feelings. If you’re waiting for these feelings to go away as a prerequisite for success, then you may find yourself waiting indefinitely, and you may find success always out of reach.
“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.”
It’s easy to assume people who show courage aren’t afraid–that they lack fear. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. There’s fear in all of us, and this quote, by Mark Twain, reminds us that fear is not necessarily absent in the midst of courage. It’s there. However, what is also present is a resistance to or mastery of fear. This means overcoming fear with faith (resistance) or using it as fuel (mastery) or both. So courage doesn’t absolve all fear but, in a way, it can be created and strengthened by it. It doesn’t have to be about choosing one or the other but deciding how we redirect…
“If you hear a voice within you say ‘you cannot paint,’ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.”
We all have that voice inside our head that says we can’t do something. And so we don’t do it, which only proves the voice in our head was right. This quote, by Vincent Van Gogh, is about silencing that voice the best way we can–by doing the thing it says we can’t. “If you hear a voice within you say ‘you cannot paint,’ then by all means paint.” By simply doing that thing, we literally invalidate the word can’t. And that is just the first step. Once we do that thing, we may get to do it well.
“A bend in the road is not the end of the road…Unless you fail to make the turn.”
Life is full of twists and turns, which can make it difficult to stay on course when you have a one-track mind. Having a one-track mind is like constantly going straight and never bending the wheel. This quote, by Helen Keller, reminds us that without making the turn–being willing to embrace change–we’ll inevitably crash. So what if we embrace change? What if we choose to round the corner? Who knows where we might find ourselves and what new direction the road will lead.
“The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity.”
This quote, by Ameilia Earhart, reminds us that when we’re faced with something scary, the hardest part of it is usually deciding to face it. To act. So often, we avoid facing this decision altogether. Unfortunately, the longer we don’t decide to act, the further that action drifts away from happening. We must be reminded that the actual act (outside of a decision) may not be easy. It will take tenacity. However, once we do make up our mind, it has an effect. It can give us a dose of strength and courage amid fear and uncertainty, which we won’t discover until our decision to act is made.
You May Also Like
“God will not look you over for medals, degrees or diplomas but for scars.”
“Letting there be room for not knowing is the most important thing of all. When there’s a big disappointment, we don’t know if that’s the end of the story. It may just be the beginning of a great adventure.”
“Don’t live the same year 75 times and call it a life.”
“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”
This quote, by James Baldwin, serves as a reminder that we cannot expect something to change if we’re not willing to face it. We may not be successful. “Not everything that is faced can be changed.” However, without endeavoring to make the change, nothing can be changed. Therefore, it’s much better to be unsuccessful after having faced change than to not face it at all.
“Embrace uncertainty. Some of the most beautiful chapters in our lives won’t have a title until much later.”
Many authors start to write a chapter without knowing what it’s going to be called. They decide that later. The same can be said of life. We don’t know what each chapter of our life will become as we’re writing (i.e. living) it. We can only look back at the pages later and define each time period. However, we often try to define our life chapters before they’re even written. But this quote, by Bob Goff, reminds us to embrace the uncertainty. We don’t have to know what our life chapters will become or what they’ll be called. And that uncertainty doesn’t necessarily forebode a terrible ending. It is actually…
“You can’t fall if you don’t climb. But there’s no joy in living your whole life on the ground.”
In this anonymous quote, we’re reminded that with climbing, or taking action, we risk falling–i.e. failing. On the contrary, without climbing and without taking action we significantly reduce our chances of ever falling or failing. No one wants to get hurt. So it would seem living our life on the ground and not climbing at all is our best option. Sometimes, this is the wisest decision we can make. But it can’t be the decision we make all the time. Occasionally, we have to step out of our comfort zone where it’s possible we might fall in order to see and experience the possibility of something greater that we’ll only…
