Reality Check: Worry, Control and Superpowers

Last time, I mentioned the catchphrase, “Worrying about things over which I have no control is my superpower.” We know it’s a joke. But jokes can contain grains of truth, and for some, that joke hits uncomfortably close to reality.
If you know that you worry a lot and you’d like to change that, then the following perspective from Choice Theory might be useful.
Dr. Glasser calls many of our choices “organized behaviours.”
These are behaviours we’ve used before, we know how to use them, and they are immediately available to us. We don’t have to think about them; we just do them.
Glasser also suggests that we have an internal signal; he calls it a “frustration signal” that gives us information. Essentially it says, “I don’t have what I want. Do something!”
Let’s say that you just learned that Harry, your beloved godson, is moving. He’s taking a job in the far north and he doesn’t know when he’ll be back, if ever.
What do you do? Harry is generally a sensible and thoughtful young man. You can understand his reasoning. And you know you can’t control what he does anyway. Logic says that you would applaud his initiative, encourage him on his chosen path, and take steps to maintain your relationship despite the distance.
And yet, instead of embracing that logic, you find yourself engaged in the organized behaviour of worry. You fret. You wonder, “What if things go wrong? What if he gets hurt? What if his family needs him here? What if…?”
Choice Theory suggests that behaviour has four components: Acting, Thinking, Feeling and Physiology. For example, our worry behaviour might manifest as queasy stomach (Physiology), worry (Feeling), “what if” questions (Thinking) and obsessively looking up crime and accident statistics for Harry’s chosen destination (Acting).
But we’re still frustrated. We want Harry to be happy staying here, and we are not going to get that. What we’re doing is neither satisfying for us nor helpful for Harry.
Here are two approaches that could be worth a try.
One is to recognize that although organized behaviours are hard to change, we are creative and we have some control. It’s easier to control our actions than the other components, so that’s the place to start. Thus, when you have the urge to look up bad things about Harry’s destination, change that.
What would you do instead? It may not be effective to say, “I will stop looking up crime stats.” But you can substitute. When you get the urge, choose something different.
Phone a friend (Talk about something other than Harry.) Read a book. Do some work. You can look up information on Harry’s destination, but instead of seeking out the bad stuff, look for features, benefits, things to see and do. You might even plan a future vacation!
The second approach is to take a close look at what you really want. You have some control there. You might strongly believe that you want Harry to stay here, but you also want Harry to live a satisfying life. We are often presented with competing options. If you can’t have both, which would you choose? What’s more important?
You may realize that seeing Harry flourish, even if it’s elsewhere, is more satisfying for you than having him perceive that he is trapped here with no hope of building the life he wants.
There are so many things we can worry about. These two approaches: changing our actions and carefully rethinking what we want can be helpful for many different situations. Choosing those approaches could even become our new superpower!