28 Quotes by David A. Carbonell

Worry predictions aren’t based on what’s likely to happen. They’re based on what would be terrible if it did happen. They’re not based on probability – they’re based on fear.

Your recognition that your worries are exaggerated or unrealistic doesn’t help you if you continue to avoid what you fear anyway. If you avoid the object of your worries, you will become more afraid of them. What you do counts for much more than what you think.

Chronic worries don’t get solved because there really isn’t anything to solve. The worry just gets repeated until it’s replaced by something else.

If you avoid the object of your worries, you will become more afraid of them. What you do counts for much more than what you think.

You get more worried as a result of your effort to stop worrying. That’s the heart of the trick.

Questions to Consider If you were told that a neighbor never worries about his kids, would you think that was a good thing or a bad thing? Would you like to be known as someone who doesn’t worry about your kids? If your significant other said to you, “I don’t think you ever worry about me,” would you take it as a complaint or a compliment?

We will also do better when we can recognize the worry thoughts as signs of nervousness and anxiety, the same as an eye twitch or sweaty palms, rather than some important message about the future.

Thoughts, however upsetting, foul, disgusting, annoying, and so on, are just never dangerous. It’s discomfort, not danger.

Moreover, when you interact with the external world, you get more involved with realistic rules of thumb. When you’re in your head, by contrast, you can imagine anything. This is why anticipatory worry is almost always worse than anything that actually happens in real life – there are no rules in your head, anything seems possible! In the external world, the rules of reality apply.