Worry and guilt are stealing your joy and your ability to be fully present in your life. To worry is to pray for what you don’t want. You worry about the future; you worry about the next five hours and the next five years. These worries occupy a very large share of your thoughts every day. 

Guilt is another culprit that occupies a lot of space in your mind. You build up a ton of worry in your mind and it is difficult to get yourself to stop. Often, these worries never come to fruition and you waste a lot of time concerning yourself with them. You also waste countless hours feeling guilty about things that you have said or done in the past. 

Even though you are unable to go back and change these things, you still play them over and over again in your mind. 

The time spent on worry and guilt gets you no closer to your goals and cannot change your past. 

You work yourself up to the point that you begin to feel physical effects. When you take a step back and evaluate your thoughts, you will surprise yourself with the absurdity of some of these thoughts. If it wasn’t so frustrating, it would be laughable that you so unwittingly fall into this trap. 

When you feel yourself slipping into the future or the past, stop! Bring yourself back to the now. The now is real and the now is something that you have control over. Give your full attention to the here and the now. The present is the only place where you can assert your most creative and resourceful actions to get the most out of life. 

While worry and guilt rob you of your precious time, they also steal the energy that you need to change your life for the better. If you focus on controlling your thoughts, however, you are also controlling your energy flow. 

Most people operate on an energy deficit and are uncertain about how to change or reverse this. 

Think of your current energy as a bank account where money flows in and out. If you have an energy deficit, your money is mostly flowing out. This mental picture comes from Carolyn Myss. She explains that each negative thought you have is a charge against your bank account. You have to focus on stopping these charges from occurring before you find yourself in a deficit. 

Let’s say you have $100 in your bank account. If you hold a grudge against someone, you’re paying $10. If you had a disagreement with someone that you can’t stop thinking about, there’s another $10. You’re concerned about a family member and can’t shake the nagging feeling – another $15 gone. Then there’s this guilty feeling about something that you shouldn’t have said yesterday. By fretting over that, you’re paying it $10. You’re also fearful of the future. Maybe you’ll lose your job. Maybe you’ll lose your relationship. By worrying about those two things, you’ve just made another $25 withdrawal from your energy bank account. Now, you only have $5 left in your bank account to finance the energy you need to accomplish something today. 

By expending your energy futilely on the future and past, you don’t have all the energy you need for the present to create the life you want. 

Worry is not only a waste of energy; it is the opposite of belief and trust. Worry is fear and fear cannot coexist with faith. When worry dominates your thoughts, you become stuck and you may be attracting the very things that you don’t want to your life. 

By focusing on guilt, you lead yourself to a victim mindset and it becomes harder and harder to change those thoughts. Let go of the worry and guilt that you harbor in your mind and focus on changing your thoughts and mindset to positive ones that will benefit you now and in the future.