How to make peace with worry.

The Make Peace with Stress method transforms every challenge into a catalyst for growth—even anxiety.

Learn how to apply this simple method. N.O.W. is an acronym:

N is NOTICE—step 1 is noticing your experience.

O is OPEN—step 2 is to open to the opportunity for growth.

W is WELCOME—step 3 is welcoming what you want.

NOTICE.

At its core, worry is fear. If you feel worried most of the time, it’s likely you’re rejecting or dishonoring your fear. Paying attention to what you’re feeling so that you can get the message fear is trying to send you is absolutely necessary to move beyond incessant worrying. It may be your intuition signaling an issue you can prevent or avoid or it may be something unfounded you can release.

NOTICE this: Ask yourself, what am I really worried about? Getting specific is super important. To clarify exactly what you’re afraid of happening, use if/then statements to drill down. If this happens, then that will happen. Keep going until you get to the heart of the matter, the real worry, the root of the fear.

OPEN.

Chances are you look at the world in ways that make it seem more threatening than it really is. You may overestimate the possibility that things will turn out badly, jump immediately to worst-case scenarios, or treat every worry-filled thought as if it were fact. You may also discredit your own ability to handle life’s problems. These types of thoughts are known as cognitive distortions. Source: helpguide.org

OPEN to this: Worrying is a pattern you can change, but only when it’s happening. Challenge your thinking by asking: What’s the evidence that the thought is true? That it’s not true? Is there a more positive, realistic way of looking at the situation? Is the thought helpful? How will worrying about it help me and how will it hurt me?

WELCOME.

You’ve noticed that you struggle with worrying and opened to the opportunity to change the patterns of thinking that are feeding your fear. But how? You start cultivating a new pattern. What you do gets stronger and more automatic the more it’s repeated, so every single time you notice yourself worrying, take that opportunity to be intentional about your thoughts.

WELCOME this: Use a mantra. Using a mantra is a simple way to train your brain to think what you want with greater ease, just like memorizing something until your brain knows it. Choose a few words that are focused on the new pattern of thinking that you want to welcome in, and repeat them over and over.