Louise Thompson: Believing in things unseen

Worry is a fear of events unseen. It robs us of joy in the present and actually makes us less able to handle what comes up. Photo / Thinkstock

Our worries often seem so real it's as if they have happened already.

The client has cancelled.

The kid got hurt.

The car broke down.

You missed the park.

The money ran out.

The presentation went really badly.

The concern we feel about these things as we sit watching the children play on the swings, or in a tense boardroom, or on the way to our destination in town, can make us feel anxious, as if these things are already real. It feels bad. We feel worried and anxious. And how many times does the thing we have worried about not happen? All the time - a huge amount of stress for nothing.

When you get on a plane to a sunny tropical destination do you know how the plane stays up in the air? Like really? Hats off if you have a degree in aeronautical engineering but I am willing to bet 99 per cent of us don't really know. Could you actually explain it? No, you just know it does, and that's more than good enough. You trust in the process. You can't see it, or define it, but you know it's all happening and the plane is going to make it to Club Tropicana. Or how about when you get home from work and flick the telly on. Do you know how the electricity works? Could you actually explain it? No, you just know it does, and that's more than good enough. You trust in the process. You can't see it, or define it, but you know it's all happening. And it does.

All day, every day, we are putting our trust in things we can't see. We can't define them. We are trusting in intangibles. We have a huge amount of faith in stuff we can't see and we can't explain. It's an awesome capacity, really helpful. It helps us to glide through life, get things done, stay calm, take stuff for granted. It can be a very positive force for good.

Endless worrying is like using this force in reverse. By worrying about some future event that may or may not happen we are asking ourselves to once again have faith in something we can't see, but something that makes us actively anxious.

A lot of the time feeling relaxed or feeling anxious comes down to the ability to believe something unseen. It comes down to faith versus fear, essentially. Faith in the fact something good is going to happen (the plane stays up, the telly goes on) or fear that something bad will (the job gets lost, there will never be a carpark in this rain). Either way, you have to believe in something you can't see: faith or fear. Fear or faith.

We can choose to believe in an unseen outcome that's good and relaxing, or one that's not so good and anxiety inducing. It's a choice, not a certainty. Trust and faith require we believe we are big enough, brave enough, strong enough to handle it whatever the outcome. Which you are.