Don’t Borrow Trouble

The last two days have been interesting.  I have found myself in the weirdest of moods and somehow my inspiration has fallen by the wayside.  I can’t quite put my finger on what has changed in the last two days, but I do know that it will pass.

We all have these moments don’t we?  Times when things aren’t “bad” or “good” and instead they hang somewhere in the space between two extremes and just feel “meh”.  It is part of the ebb and flow of life and while I tried many ways get out of this mood none of them worked.  So, after trying everything in my be-happy-arsenal, I just let it be.

I stopped trying to fight the inevitable feeling of blah and accepted it for what it is…a pause in action, momentum, and a chance to just be.  Does that sound too hippp-dippy for you?  Think of it as a break.  A break from whatever it is I needed a break from…sometimes even we don’t know what that is.

While I would like to say I am so good at simply being, I’m not.  I tend to fight the feeling especially when I am in moods like these.  A feeling that is hard to name and almost impossible to find the source of.  Yet, being the overachiever, I can do anything, go-getter that I tend to be…I had to know.

So, I began thinking about all the many reasons I could feel like this.  Is it the weather? Job frustrations? Personal issues? Worry about the future? Stress?  No matter what reason I gave it, none of them felt right and then I had to ask myself…

Why am I borrowing trouble?

I first heard this term from a co-worker a few years ago and if you don’t know what borrowing trouble is, it is worrying about something that hasn’t happened yet and creating undue stress, frustration, and anything else that is not needed in the moment.  That is exactly what I was doing.

Somehow I thought that if I could name it or find the source, then it would cease to exist.  That if only I could figure it out and wrestle it to the ground, I could somehow solve the mystery and get back to my bubbly, inspired self, and move forward with all the good stuff on my path.

I was wrong.

So, I settled with the feeling and decided to let it hang around for a bit, hoping that it would slowly dissipate.  Lucky for me it is working.  I am beginning to feel a bit better and hope that with some additional rest, listening to my body, and just being, I will be back to my regular self again soon.  In the meantime, I am remembering a very important lesson about not borrowing trouble and I want to pass it along to you.

When you find yourself worrying about something that is not in this very moment, you are borrowing trouble.  When you are wondering how something is going to happen and trying to think of all the ways it can go wrong, you are borrowing trouble.  When you are trying desperately to figure something out instead of allowing it to be what it is and letting go a little bit, you have the potential to be borrowing trouble.  And when you are feeling a feeling that you can’t quite figure out instead of listening to what it is telling you, you may be borrowing trouble.

There is enough “trouble” in the world without us looking for it, so why not take some time to just be in the moment and learn whatever lesson it is here to teach us, knowing that it will soon pass.

The good news about these moments and moods is that it helps us remember who we want to be, how we want to feel, and creates a sense of gratitude for the good stuff.  So, if you find yourself in a similar situation remember, don’t go borrowing trouble and in the words of Abraham Hicks, “hang on it will be over soon.”