You see the proverbial “storm approaching”. It could be imagining a negative outcome with a client or colleague. The storm could be a pending doctor’s appointment to get test results. Perhaps it is looking at your bank account and wondering how you will ever afford to retire.
The cold winds of reality might be swirling around in your brain, waiting for the thunder and lightening to appear. Surely disaster awaits on the horizon.
And then—nothing. It was all bluff and puff.
Imagine: all that energy and worry spent for nothing. As the playwright Inge wrote, “Worry is interest paid on a debt you might not owe.”
Here’s the deal. When we craft stories of negative possibilities, we are weakening our resiliency muscle. Resilient people look at a situation from the viewpoint of positive expectancy. It could be that having an honest, careful conversation with a client or colleague could make the relationship deeper. Test results might eliminate many possibilities and point to a clear medical strategy. Evaluating financial resources now might open a window for making refined lifestyle decisions.
This is not Pollyanna thinking either. The skills of resiliency look honestly at both the upside and the downside of a situation, but spend the most mental energy in focusing on opportunity and learning regardless of the outcome. Not always easy. But always far more powerful.
PS: Closing off the 5th year of drought in California, I DO hope that big winds DO bring rain!