"I Don’t Know What I Would Have Done Without Them"
The author wishes to remain anonymous
Edited by Shmuel Greenbaum
Printed with Permission of http://www.TraditionOfKindness.org

A Katrina survivor recently moved into the apartment complex next to my daughter. She could no longer sleep at night after being trapped for several days. She is African-American and I told an African-American neighbor about her. She had been praying for the opportunity to help such a person, so I took her to meet my daughter's neighbor.

The survivor was so touched that this comforting stranger came that she started to cry. The helpful woman offered to take her to her church and arrange for her to be taken to a doctor and to receive meals. She gave her tremendous encouragement. She was very happy to be able to help.

"It Will Be All Right"
From: Kindness: Making a Difference in People's Lives: Formulas, stories, and insights
By: Zelig Pliskin
Printed with Permission of Shaar Press

When someone is concerned or worried about the future, some people tend to give a general reassurance, "It will be all right." If the individual you say this to becomes calmer, what you have said was beneficial. But often global statements of, "Don’t worry," or, "It will be o.k." won’t relieve someone’s concerns, nervousness, or anxiety. When a person with much experience says, "It will be all right," the recipient of this statement knows that there is a valid reason for assuming that things will be well. When, however, this is taken as a dismissal of their concerns without facts or experience to back it up, it usually isn’t very helpful.

Address the specific issues that are bothering the person who is worried. Show him how things are likely to work out. Share your own experiences with him and the experiences of others in similar situations that worked out well. Do research and find the relevant reassuring data. Tell him your plan of action and how this can solve the problem. Explain how even if things don’t work out exactly as he would wish, he still will be able to cope with the outcome.

When speaking to a worrier, ask, "What exactly are you worried about?" When you first heard about someone’s worry, you might have assumed the worry was about one issue, but that wasn’t the worrier’s real concern. Regardless of how much reassurance you gave on that issue, it wouldn’t work. This person needs reassurance on another issue. By finding out what exactly is bothering this person, you will be able to really help him and not just say something that sounds good but won’t do anything for him.

One of my students told me this story:

I used to be a major worrier. I would try to lessen the distress of my worrying by telling other people how worried I was. I often heard such generalities such as, "There’s nothing to worry about." "Trust that all will be good." "Think good and it will be good." For many people this worked wonders. But not for me. I had to go underground with my worrying.

It was like a miracle that I met someone who told me that he too had been an obsessive worrier. He worried about anything that might possibly go wrong. Now he looked like anything but a worrier. As a matter of fact he was one of the most serene people I had ever met. When he described how he used to worry, it made me feel so much better. I was only an amateur compared to his description of himself as a professional worrier. He told me the thought patterns that had helped him.

"I think about the worst case scenario," he told me, "and I accept it. I think about potential solutions. I pray. I analyze the actual probabilities of what I worry about actually occurring. I increased my ability to focus on the present, which is much easier for me to handle than the future, which is always unknown. I began to visualize happy endings to the things I worried about. Since worry is only in my imagination, I create much more enjoyable pictures in my mind. I worked on gaining greater mastery over my emotional states. I learned to reframe the potentially negative into more positive evaluations. I sought to make the best out of problematic situations."

He spoke to me for several hours. The point that helped me the most was his sharing with me how he was an ex-worrier. I knew that what he told me was valid. I had living proof that the ideas he used actually worked. Since they worked for him, they would work for me. I now try to help every worrier I meet. Utilizing my own worrying as a resource to help others overcome their worrying has given me a positive reframe for all of the suffering I endured from worrying.

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