Six days · About five minutes a day
Quieting Worry
Notice the mind rehearsing, shrink the future to the size of this minute, and come back to what is in front of you.
Your six days
- Notice the rehearsal — Free in your browser
- What the rehearsal costs
- Shrink it to this minute
- When it is loud
- A small retreat
- One day at a time
A taste of Day 1: Notice the rehearsal
Welcome. Worry is the mind rehearsing a future that hasn't happened. Over six short days, we'll practise noticing the rehearsal and coming back to now. Today, we only notice.
As a fletcher makes straight his arrow, a wise man makes straight his trembling and unsteady thought, which is difficult to guard, difficult to hold back.Traditionally attributed to the Buddha · Dhammapada, verse 33
F. Max Müller, 1881
The Dhammapada compares a trembling thought to an arrow that needs straightening. It doesn't say the thought is bad. It says it's unsteady, and that steadying it is a craft, like a fletcher's. The first piece of that craft is simply seeing when the mind has left the room. Worry usually speaks in what-ifs and then-I'll-have-tos. When you hear those words, you've caught it. No fixing is needed yet. Noticing is the whole job today.
Try the reflection
Sit comfortably and let your attention rest on your breathing. Wait for your mind to run ahead, to tomorrow, next week, a conversation that hasn't happened. When you notice it, silently say: rehearsing. Then return to the breath. Don't scold yourself for leaving. Each time you catch it counts as a success. Take three minutes.
One question to take with you
In a sentence or two: what was your mind rehearsing?
Day 1 is free. Days 2–6 are planned for the iPhone app, coming soon. This is reflection, not medical advice.