Worrying

Laura Crum posted about worrying. I commented and liked what I wrote so I thought I'd post it here. This is because it was so awesome the first time and because I am lazy.

I'm not really much of a worrier at all. From my perspective bad things just sometimes happen. Sometimes even if you played it completely safe you still wind up hurt. So I just live life and do what makes me happy and not worry too much because worrying is such a downer to me. That doen't mean I take uncalculated risks. I just think there is a differnece between observing unsafe situations and behaviours and creating "what if..." worst case scenarios in my head. In recognozing situations that may be unsafe you can logically work preventatively or reactively to imporve the situation. In the latter you may act preventatively and avoid the dangerous situation but you also end up stressing. And especially working with horses this is not a good side effect. Horses pick up on that and I think a stressed rider puts a horse on alert and increases the chanes of unpredictablilies.

So when I start to worry I fist ask myself why. I figure what it is about a given situation that is causing that fear. After I pinpoint where my anxiety is coming from I evaluate whether it is legitimate/likely. If it isn't and I'm being crazy I let it go and laugh at myself. If I do have true cause for concern I look at my options. Can I leave? Do I want to? How can I be as safe as posssible? Is it worth it? From here I can usually figure out what I want to do and how to do it safely. It sounds complicated and new-agey self-help-ish but it takes seconds and saves me loads of stress. Fear is important. It kept every single one of your ancestors alive in order to create you. It shouldn't be discounted but it shouldn't keep you from having fun either.