We all worry. Sometimes worry is a necessary motivator, at other times it depletes and immobilizes us. The following article explores the difference between productive worrying and unproductive worrying.

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AGONY

Although he denies it, I’m pretty sure my dad’s an alcoholic.

My mum’s a nurse and works nights so she doesn’t get to see how much he’s drinking. She’s also a Methodist and she doesn’t like drink. They argue a lot. I love them both but I get on better with my dad than with her, so I don’t want to snitch on him, but I’m worried he might get a liver disease or something. It’s my gap year and I was planning to go travelling, but I’m worried about what might happen to them when I’m away.

Aware that many of the audience at the Lincoln Men’s Conference he was addressing had suffered breakdowns triggered by extreme stress in the workplace, Tom Hodgkinson was hit by the truth that our current system of work is literally driving us crazy.

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Struggling to get motivated? Diane Southam shares some tips

Business woman and mother Byron Katie spent ten suicidal years locked in her bedroom suffering from a severe self-loathing depression, until, one February morning in 1986, she experienced a life-changing realisation:

I discovered that when I believed my thoughts I suffered, but when I didn’t believe them I didn’t suffer, and this is true for every human being. Freedom is as simple as that. I found that suffering is optional. I found a joy within me that has never disappeared.

Katie’s waking up to reality led to her devising what she calls The Work. Unaligned to any religion or tradition her method of self-enquiry teaches people to challenge their suffering through empowering them to question their fixed, stagnant views on themselves, on others and on life.

For more examples of The Work in action visit Byron Katie's website.

AGONY

My partner’s keen for us to start a family. What’s holding me back is that she can’t seem to stop shopping.

We have a joint bank account and although I have a reasonably well-paid job in the city (for the time being at least), we struggle to pay the bills at the end of the month because she’s spent a fortune on clothes, botox or ‘accessories’. Whenever I try to raise the issue of her overspending she flares up and accuses me of not loving her any more or of being tight. She says she wants to be a stay at home mum.  I’m the main breadwinner, but I dread to think what will happen if we have one less income and one more mouth to feed.