"Worry never robs tomorrow of it's sorrow, it only saps today of it's joy." Leo F. Buscaglia
Worry has been an ongoing theme in my life. Of course, as a parent, when you are raising children it is hard to ever find yourself free of worry. You worry over their physical safety and their happiness. Once I had a chronic illness I also worried if physical health would ever improve. Being resilient doesn't mean being free from worry, but it does help if we can realize that worrying doesn't change the outcome. It helps if we can realize that we are projecting problems for ourselves that may never happen.
Last night I had the chance to test my resilience. My son and his girlfriend are in England for 10 days and we are watching the indoor grandkitty, Arthas. It was a beautiful summer day and we had all the windows open. At 10:30 p.m., after a long tiring day, I was closing up the house for the evening. I went to the screened-in porch to tell Arthas to come in and there was a big hole in the screen and no Arthas; he had scratched a hole in the screen to escape. I had no idea how long he had been gone, or what direction he went. Calling him was fruitless because he likes to hide so you can't find him.
We searched for an hour. I debated contacting the kids in England to let them know, but I didn't want to ruin their vacation... nor did I want them to think we waited too long to tell them. I worried for Arthas's safety as a cars drove by. All kinds of terrible scenario's played out in my head. Then, I saw a neighbor who told me she spent three days looking for her cat who was hiding under a bush only to have the cat come home three days later. I thought to myself, "I cannot keep this level of worry and stress up for three days. My health is really going to suffer. I have a choice. I can worry and suffer, or I can assume the best and only deal with the worst if it happens." I chose to use my resiliency skills and let go of worry.
What a relief when I let the worry go! My pain had been building, but as the stress let up, my health health improved. And Arthas came home on his own in the morning, so all that worry was for nothing.
It is true what they say - we create a lot of trouble in our life that would never exist if we didn't worry.

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