May 01 2008
The Worry Box
Do you find it hard to concentrate at the task at hand because you are anxious about other things? Are you distracted at work by your worries? Do you have trouble sleeping at night because you are worried about your finances, your kids, or your job?
If you find yourself unable to put your worries aside easily, this exercise may help you put your anxieties out of your mind when you need to do so.
This is a visualization exercise; however, I will provide an alternative exercise for those who are not good visualizers.
Visualization Exercise:
Find a comfortable position to sit in; then, close your eyes. In your mind imagine being in your favorite room within your home. Now imagine that there is a large box in the middle of the room in your favorite color (my favorite color is pink, so I will use a pink box for this exercise).
Go over to the box and take off it’s lid. Place the box’s lid on the floor next to the box. Next, take all of the worries you have about your family, your job, your finances, and whatever else you are anxious about and place them into the box. Take each worry and place it carefully into the box, making sure not to leave any of your concerns in your mind.
Once you have taken every worry you have in your mind out of your mind and placed it into the box, pick the box’s lid up off of the floor. Carefully put the lid back onto the box.
Next, imagine you have some ribbon in another color. Take the ribbon and wrap it around the box, so that the lid is secured to the box. Tie a bow on top.
Now that you have a nicely decorated box, think of someplace you can put your box. Think of someplace out of the way, maybe deep in a closet, maybe in your garage, maybe in the trunk of your car, or anywhere else you can think of where your box of anxieties will be out of the way.
Once you have decided where to put your box, pick it up and carry it to its destination. Put your box there and leave it there.
Your worries are stored safely inside your box. You do not need to think about them or worry over your concerns for a while now. You can go about your day, doing the things you need to do without worries distracting you.
You can retrieve your anxieties when you feel it is appropriate to think about them again, but for now, you can leave them stored safely in your box. And remember once you’ve taken your worries out of the box again, you can always restore them by following the directions to the exercise.
Alternative Exercise:
If you have trouble with visualization exercises, you may want to try this exercise to take your mind off of your anxieties.
Get a box, it doesn’t matter what kind of box - it can be a shoe box, appliance box, small box, or large box. Take slips of paper and write down your anxieties; write one worry on each slip of paper. After you have written down a worry, place it into the box. When you are finished writing down all of your anxieties, put the box’s lid back on top of the box.
Store your box somewhere that is convenient for you to get to, but somewhere that is also a place you don’t visit often. For instance, you might want to put your box on a shelf in a closet, inside a desk drawer, or under your bed.
If you wish, you can decorate your box to make it an appealing place to store your worries while they are out of your mind.
Writing your anxieties down and putting them into a box may help you get your worries out of your mind. Remember, you can always take the slips of paper out of the box when you think there is an appropriate time for you to review your concerns, but until then, you can rest easy, assured that your concerns are safe within the confines of the box you stored them in.
Here’s to a worry-free day!
