Are you carrying around a huge bag of worries right now?

I’m having a lot of coaching conversations about uncertainly at the moment.

About how to navigate through it at a time of restructures, changing circumstances, and other unknowns, as well as how to help others navigate through it too.

One of the main questions has been how to start a conversation about it, in a way that’s useful.

And how to hold the worry of other people while you’re also holding your own.

I’ve been pulling out The Huge Bag of Worries by Virginia Ironside, and sharing the wisdom within it as a useful tool to explore.

I bought this book for our children when my dad died a few years ago. It had been recommended to me (perhaps by a teacher at their primary school?) as a way of getting them to talk about what might be worrying them, but they didn’t feel able to share.

It’s just as useful for grown ups!

Getting our worries out of our heads and down on paper gives us a different relationship with them.

It gets them out in the open, instead of swirling around our heads and bodies.

Once you can see what the worries are, it’s easier to see the patterns, to notice key themes, and to identify the ones you can take some action on, and those that are outside of our control.

And if emptying them all at once feels too much, take a look at one worry at a time.

As the book says: “There’s nothing a worry hates more than being seen”.

Are you carrying around a huge bag of worries right now?

And could giving them a new home on paper help you start to lighten your load?

Wishing you all a great week,