Comments on: Unclutter worries from your mind

By: Topher

Topher — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 14:23:21 +0000

Chazz,
I know just what you mean, but you partly answered your question. It’s outside of your control and you have to make peace with that.
It’s no different than being in a traffic jam. It still impacts you but you can’t do anything to move the traffic any faster.
What you do have control over is your self and your emotions and perceptions.
When they screw up your bill (or someone cuts you off or what ever) instead of just letting what ever emotion or thoughts come to your mind, make the decision about how you will feel and think about it.
“My bill is screwed up again. How MANY TIMES do I have to fix their mistakes??!!”
or
“The bill is wrong again. At least I know how to fix it. I should think about what options I haven’t tried to change this.”
That’s the other side of frustration. Sometimes because we’re so upset we don’t look at or see that there are options ‘outside of the box’ that could solve these issues.

Good luck
Signed a fellow worrier.

By: Chazz

Chazz — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 20:01:10 +0000

That’s all well and good, but what can we do about the psychological worries that are inflicted on us from persons or things outside of our control? For example, every month DirectTV, or my cell phone company, or some other disorganized business entity screws up my bill and I am stuck wasting at least an hour of my time on the phone with these jokers trying to fix their mistakes. To compound it, I can only deal with these business at times that are inconvenient to me (i.e. MY normal business hours when I should be working), AND the icing on the cake is that their customer service is often outsourced to [ insert non-English speaking country] and very difficult to understand. This turns what should be a simple 5 minute phone call into a 90 minute ordeal.

I know the simple solution would be to drop the company and go with a competitor, but, as we all know, most times their competitors do exactly the same things.

I would love to hear some strategies for dealing with this kind of outsider-inflicted psychological clutter.

By: Its more difficult to "will" your feelings...than actions.

Its more difficult to "will" your feelings...than actions. — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 15:45:44 +0000

I agree with #1! (and feel compelled to contribute and expound further.) Is there an emphasis to deal more with how a person is feeling as opposed to getting into and defining the actual problem, which helps me move past the feelings and delving into my mind(which is only for trained professionals.) By defining the problem and trying to foresee all possible outcomes I have been successful not with “taming” but ignoring my racing mind. “If I dont do X(those royal icing flowers for the wedding cake or have enough of them,) the results are Y(I will have to rush to finish them which will make em’ look shabby or I’ll be short because of the ones that break during transport and I will have less time to work on baking the cakes and any potential problem that set of tasks will bring) which is making my stomach turn in knots, so I will make sure to do “X” right now and stop watching TV!