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Is worry a thought or a Behaviour?
Worrying is a form of thinking about the future, defined as thinking about future events in a way that leaves you feeling anxious or apprehensive. Worry perseveration is associated with a tendency to deploy goal-directed worry rules (known as “as many as can” worry rules; AMA). These require attention to the goal of the worry task and continuation of worry until the aims of the “worry bout” are achieved. Classifying Worries There are two main types of worries; practical worries and hypothetical worries. Today, I leave you with this Scripture found in Matthew 6:34, “Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” We may not be able to stop trouble in the world, or trouble in our lives, but one thing we do not have to do is worry about it.
How does worry work?
Worry is generally regarded as a form of verbal mental problem solving about potentially negative future events. Normal worry is generally short-lived and leads to positive problem-solving behaviour. Worry becomes unhelpful when it is about a number of things, is very frequent, and is difficult to control or dismiss. Worry is motivating us to ideally prevent the bad thing from happening or at least prepare for it – Kate Sweeny. Watkins outlines three mechanisms for this. “First, by worrying about something, we are more likely to think of reasons to take action and be motivated to do something. Set up your worry time Your worry time is an allotted time during the day in which you are allowed to worry. It is usually advised to make this a 15 minute period, at this time it is probably a good idea to include news-reading in your worry time. When you notice your anxious symptoms, you think that you can’t cope with the situation, and therefore become more anxious. This is the start of the vicious cycle of anxiety. If you feel anxious, or anticipate feeling anxious, it makes sense that you will do things to reduce your anxiety.
What is the root of worry?
The word worry comes from the Old English wyrgan, which originally meant strangle, and changed over the years to mean first harass, and then cause anxiety to. Worry is an indicator of our level of faith and trust in God. Whenever we choose to worry about something, we are in effect saying, I’m not sure God will do anything about my situation. Once we identify worry as a lack of trust, then we can turn it over to God. While the Bible never explicitly says that worry is a sin, we can conclude this based on Scripture. That’s because most worry or anxiety is a failure to trust God and His goodness or to believe what He told us. Jesus is saying that worry demonstrates a lack of faith in God. Therefore, worry is actually a sin! Worry demonstrates a lack of trust in God’s love because it implies that God doesn’t really care about our needs. It shows lack of faith in God’s wisdom because it implies that God doesn’t know what he’s doing.