Worry Time
Make a time each day (or twice a day) to deal with your worries. 5-10 minutes can be enough time.
During this worry period, get a big piece of paper and worry creatively (use colour pens and pencils if you like). Draw pictures, design patterns or simply write – sentences, snatches of words, feelings, ideas and anything your brain is telling you. Try not to evaluate or judge what you are writing.
You can also write about anything you’ve been worrying about.
If you’ve written a list, read through each worry and see if it still worries you.
If there are problems in there that you would like to solve, ask yourself “Is there anything constructive I can do about this?” If there is something useful you can do, then make a plan of action. If there’s nothing you can do, then acknowledge that.
Reassure your brain at the end of the worry period that you will have another worry time later.
Throughout the day, when the worrying arises, you can:
Acknowledge it “I’m having a worry about X”.
Or if it’s a story that comes up again and again, give it a title and say “Here’s that XY story again”
Or simply say to yourself “Just worrying”
Try to let the thoughts and worries go on by and bring your attention back to where you are and what you’re doing
Don’t push the worry away. Let the worry come and go as it pleases, while focusing your attention on what is important to you.
When the worry period is over, do something that is meaningful to you and pay close attention to what you are doing (use all your senses) while letting your thoughts come and go.
Like everything, you will get better and better at this, the more that you practice .