Future

At the end of the first week I was given an extra challenge. This challenge consisted in making a SWOT analysis of my self. A SWOT analysis consists in making a list of my strengths, my weaknesses, my opportunities and my threats. This is for me to complete during this week. At the end of the week I might share with you my SWOT analysis. They also give us a list of questions to helps us complete the table.

Without further ado, here we are at day 8 of the challenge. Today's question is: What worries me about the future?

I used to worry a lot about my future. last year I had trouble sleeping because of this. I used to stay awake and think about how I could not see a future for myself. I didn't even allowed myself to dream about my future. And I guess that this was like a snowball, the more I thought about it the less I slept and the less I slept the more I thought about it and felt worse. 

While talking with my psychiatrist about this he made me see that I don't need to worry this much with my future. I just need to worry about what I'm doing at the present. Worrying about something that didn't happen is not good for me and only causes me stress and anxiety. I know what I want and I know how I want things to go, but why worry about if things don't go the way I want them to go? When the time comes I'll have more than enough time to worry about it. 

But this doesn't mean I don't worry about my future at all! I still have my worries. I just don't let them take control of my life like in the past. I still worry about finishing my PhD. A lot. I still dread the moment when I'll have to present my thesis. More than having to write it! I still worry about if I'll ever be happy. Or if I'll ever get out of this depression! I worry about all of these things and I let myself worry about things that are going to happen in a short time. 

We can't control our emotions but we can control our reactions to those emotions and we can decide if we're going to let them control us or not. And that's what I've been learning to do and that's what I've been doing in the last two weeks and I guess that's why I've been feeling so much better. I'm not letting my emotions control me. Everytime I can I'm going to control them and I'm going to take control of things. I feel this powerful now! So I'm not letting myself worry about the distant future. I won't. I still have a lot of things to worry between now and then. And even with these things I'm trying to not worry a lot and let things be the way they have to be.