Member-only story
The Anatomy of Worry
And how to turn it off…
As I’ve got older, I worry.
This is frustrating for me and a bit of a shock. I sailed through my younger years insouciantly, completely bewildered by people who stayed awake at night worrying. One of life’s natural optimists, I would shrug off the purveyors of doom and gloom. Worry, I reasoned, was a pointless exercise which solved nothing, so why do it?
I’m fiercely envious of my younger self. I also think she was right. When I stood in the playground, listening to a catalogue of anxiety from other Mums about their children, I can remember thinking that none of their worrying was going to change anything. It couldn’t make their children more hard-working or intelligent or focused. It couldn’t change their job situation or their parents’ health. It just made them miserable. I managed to maintain this healthy attitude well into middle age. Then the children grew up, the menopause happened, and something changed.
I’m not what you would call a generalised worrier, mind. Even now, I have a remarkable capacity to keep the gloom and misery of the daily news out of my head. I’ll read it every few days, just to keep up to date, but I don’t agonise over it. My worries are focused closer to home. I worry about my family and money and my to do list. And just at present, I worry about…
