I’m learning to put away my scary, sad, or upsetting thoughts (I call them collectively, “fear thoughts”) the very moment they arise in my mind. What I call “fear thoughts” are all the little (or big) nagging and negative memories or possibilities that seem to pop into my mind out of nowhere. I used to give them on-the-spot great importance and attention, thinking they were urgent warnings that needed immediate action and thought–portents even–that I needed to attend to in order to fend off the looming bad stuff coming at me out of my past, or pushing into my future.

 

Whenever I had fear thoughts (a lot of the time), no matter what I was doing (sleeping, working, playing, loving, whatever) I would immediately start to time-share–i.e., I would ponder and analyze them while continuing to do the interesting present stuff. And of course, I would soon no longer be focusing on whatever process I was doing in the present moment, but instead would be replaying all those fear thoughts (whether big or little doubts, angers, resentments, put-downs, mistakes, guilts, whatever.) I would work them and work them over in my mind, poke them and prod them and examine them and project them every which way I could, rehearsing a self-righteously indignant and defensive range of responses and explanations and attacks.

 

Needless to say, I spent most of my present moments working over fears and negativities based in the past and the future.

 

Now why would I do such a thing?

 

Why would I make myself miserable in a perfectly good present, with oppressive thoughts about the past or future? I’m sure I did it because I thought that intensively analyzing my fear thoughts was my best defense against their future potential offense—in other words, I believed self-analysis to be a necessity. I endlessly massaged my fears and doubts in hopes that mental manipulation would gradually protect me from potential pain.

 

To the contrary, not only did all this unhappy work carry me away from whatever perfectly interesting present process I was involved in; worse, my tiniest little anxieties would get all blown up from all the attention I was giving them, growing eventually into monster fears. Even the smallest, least significant little worry would gradually puff itself up and up, growing tentacles that extended and burrowed deep into the underground of my subconscious, hiding there in darkness, to emerge later, powerfully, in a multitude of new ugly forms, angers, actions, and emotions.

 

Whatever I pay attention to in my life grows bigger within it. These days, I attend more strictly to my most positive impulses, my most loving thoughts, my enthusiasms, my highest aspirations, my goals, my values, and my happiest processes. Let them grow bigger!

 

Whenever fear thoughts arise out of nowhere, I brush them aside, like ephemeral cobwebs, because I want to leave room in my mind for the positive things with which I would rather fill it. With my higher power’s help, I push the unhappy thoughts away and fill my mind with better, higher, happier thoughts, and into those more peaceful thoughts I put my energies and time and power.

 

Best of all are the times when I have no thoughts at all, but am caught up in the flow of some present-oriented involvement. (Zen masters say, “An empty mind is a divine mind….”)

 

The happiest lives are those lived fully in the present. The unhappiest lives are lived in the sad, worrisome and angry thoughts about a threatening, punishing past and future.

 

I like the old saying, “I’ve had a lot of troubles in my time, and most of them never happened.” I also like Jesus’ teaching, that “Sufficient unto the day are the troubles thereof.” He also taught, “Consider the lilies of the field. They neither toil nor spin, yet Solomon in all his glory was never arraigned as one of these….” And again, Jesus assured us that we cannot add one hair to our heads by worrying….

 

All the good things that will ever happen to me, all joy, all achievement, all the giving and receiving that will ever happen in my life, my creativity and delights, will only happen in the present moment, or they’ll never happen at all.

 

Fear thoughts are never about the present. They’re always (only) about the past and future, which are just concepts—they aren’t real things, they don’t exist. “The past” and “the future” are abstract nouns. They’re nothing. The present, on the other hand, is something you can experience, somewhere you can be.

 

If I stay in the present, I have no fear thoughts at all. (And it’s perfectly possible to work in the present on reasonable and necessary everyday plans and future goals, without dwelling on bad stuff….)

 

In meditation/prayer, I hand over my fears and negative emotions–en masse–to my higher power, to deal with however he sees fit. I feel especially humble and grateful to be able to do this, knowing my fears will be attended to in the best possible mysterious wonderful surprising ways for all concerned, which I certainly couldn’t have thought of myself. I let all of them go. (“Let go, and let God.”)

 

He waits for us to ask him because he seems to want us to be at choice. And although asking is humbling, in every other way it's quite a bargain.

 

I don’t ever need to analyze, worry, fret, plot, project. Instead I can relax, and focus on having a loving and positive present, do my best, and turn my life over to my higher power, trusting that he is now transforming my past into something useful and good, and carrying my most positive and productive present into a powerful, joyous, and giving future.