Tag: worry

Breathe and Let Go

~ Linda Wright

Worrying is a habit that I try hard to break. Breathe, I tell myself and anyone else who tells me they are worrying. I was trained at a young age by my mother who was a world class worrier. It was a survival tool to think about the what-ifs in order to avoid catastrophe. Children need to be taught not to crawl through the bars at the zoo to pet the leopard. As an adult who has learned to avoid most potential risks, I not only don’t need to spend my time and energy fretting about things that might could happen. I’m often asked about why I don’t worry more and it’s not that I don’t worry, its that I try to stop worry from turning into an obsession. It seems to me that most of the things I have worried about in the past never happened and if they did worrying didn’t stop them from happening. That logic, however, is not enough for me to call a halt to anxiety, so I breathe deep and seek more positive uses for my imagination.

Day 9 (of 31 days of free writing)

A Few More Words About Mother

~ Linda Wright
 

On a prompt from the New York Times, I took the challenge of writing six words that described my mother. It wasn’t easy; she was a complex woman. The words I selected were: problem solver, determined and compassionate caregiver. These were all qualities of my mother and the ones that predominate in my memory now that she is no longer alive.

I could have just as accurately chosen other words to paint a picture of her: stubbornly opinionated and judgmental; sharp-tongued and intolerant especially of those she loved the most, or adults who did not care for their children; parsimonious; and an obsessive worrier.

She was also a gardener who never purchased a plant, fertilizer or insecticide; a self-taught botanist and ornithologist, who wanted to know about her friends… the birds and flowers; a humanist who learned to speak a few words of Portuguese when she was 90 years old so that she could converse with the Brazilian-born care givers in the nursing home; an unapologetic freethinker who l lived her life a reflection of her moral convictions; a confidant for many because she approached people with openness and love; a Canadian who considered herself a citizen of the world and a defender of the planet; a controlling woman who took charge of the health and welfare of her husband and daughter; a defender of children and people who were oppressed because of their race, ethnicity, gender, and physical or mental health problems; and a woman who felt intimidated by others who had more formal education than she.