Now, this wasn't my first rodeo. I've had challenging periods in my life before, and I've (obviously) lived through them. But the anxiety I was feeling when imagining my inability to cope with the hypothetical future was staggering.
I finally realized this basic truth: I am always strong enough to cope with whatever is happening, but it's impossible to cope with what hasn't happened. I literally "can't handle" the thing I'm worried about for the simple reason that it is intangible. There's nothing there to handle.
It's like when something is funny in a dream, but if you're able to remember it when you're awake, it's not funny anymore. Your dreaming mind said, "insert funny thing here" so your dream self believed it was funny and laughed. Your wakeful, worrying mind says, "insert insurmountable obstacle ahead" and if you believe it, you'll think that there's "something" nebulous in the future that you will not be able to deal with--which is true of nothing, in reality.
Considering that I have been through all this before, you would think that it wouldn't occur to me to waste time worrying. But since it still does, at least I can draw from my past experiences to see that the worrying didn't help. For example, I'm going to be flying to California for a business trip next month, as I have done in previous years. I will need to leave in time to make my flight and to bring my ticket, my ID and a credit card for any expenses. I'll need a bit of luggage, which should include clean underwear and my laptop for work. Everything else is frills.
Now, if at some point in the trip some unforeseen bad thing happens, I know from experience that I will solve it on the fly, and that I will NOT--at any point--say "If only I had anticipated this happening, I would have been prepared!" I'm not going to say that, because it's not going to be true. Even if I guess the exact thing that eventually happens (my flight is delayed, the hotel catches on fire, the Big One hits California while I'm there) the worrying I've done over it will not make me any more capable of dealing with the situation. You make sure you have the tools you know you will need (ticket, underwear) and then you deal with whatever happens. Any time you spend anticipating things that could go wrong is a complete waste of time.
