Should you worry that this blogger believes that worry never helps anybody? As I’ve discussed in this blog many times, worry wastes energy, takes us out of the moment, and distracts us from the awareness we need in order to react effectively to obstacles and problems.
Should you worry about these quotes about worry?
I have to admit that I’ve been worrying about our cat Joan’s recurring ear infections (which she’s had since we adopted her in August). Because I often assume the worst, I worried that her ear infections had come back for a fourth time, indicating that she had a food allergy.
Should I have worried about that? In case you haven’t noticed, the answer to that question is always NO. Worry never helps.
Also, the vet told us yesterday that both her ears look great. So I’m no longer worrying about doing a food trial with her, which sounded like it would be quite the trial for all of us.
Emotional Reasoning.
We take our emotions as evidence for the truth. Examples: “I feel inadequate, so there must be something wrong with me.” “I feel overwhelmed and hopeless, therefore the situation must be impossible to change or improve.” (Note that the latter can contribute to procrastination.) While suppressing or judging feelings can be unhelpful, it’s important to recognize the difference between feelings and facts.
My definition of “Emotional Reasoning” does NOT include examples of the negative aspect of that, as in “I do NOT feel that way, therefore it’s not true.” I’m reasoning that I could have written that definition with this example: “I do not feel adequate, so there must be something wrong with me.”
All this came to my emotional mind this morning when I read this news headline:
That is all emotional reasoning. I know that two of those statements are true, no matter what I’m feeling. And I have many emotions about the third statement, so who knows if it’s true?
Do you see emotional reasoning in any of my photos from yesterday?
While artfully couched in the iconography of the Christian nativity, the songwriters were making a political statement: a plea for peace, and a reminder of the ravages of war.
The song opens with the night wind speaking to a lamb, long a literary symbol of peace. Soon we hear the line, “A star, a star, dancing in the sky//With a tail as big as a kite.”
“The star was meant to be a bomb,” said Gabrielle Regney.
Later we hear the lyrics “A child, a child, shivers in the cold,” which Regney said is a reference to the “real children” who inspired the song.
And the line, “Let us bring him silver and gold” was a reference to “poor children,” said Regney — a reminder of the human cost of war.
But no matter how you interpret the song, Noël Regney and Gloria Shayne left no mistake about the central message at the climax of the song.
“The biggest part for them was the ‘pray for peace’ line,” said Regney. “That line, ‘pray for peace,’ was very big for both of them.”
The Year(s) of Living Non-Judgmentally 