We can worry about things or let them go. I keep hearing I should ”Let Go and Let God.” Maybe I’m only able to handle the “Let Go” part right now–at least I can handle the letting go occasionally more often now than I have in the past.

Letting go feels dangerous, as if I have dropped something only to let it shatter. Putting it down, on the other hand, offers me enough peace to fall asleep at night.

I feel my brain spin, about anything, and I start an inner mantra that says, “Put it down.” I can visualize this gentle letting go as whatever worry I’m carrying is no longer being carried as a heavy weight. My muscles actually unclench. My shoulders lower. I remember to breathe.

I am practicing putting everything down: worry about the divorce, money, being lied to for months, whether I’m still being lied to. I worry about STDs from my husband’s affair and the lump in my armpit and my son’s nightmares. I worry about my mom coming to visit and I worry about Mike. I worry that I’m not going to make it through. All of that makes me so tired. And then I worry myself out of sleep.

Now, when the worry machine begins to whir, I put it down. I just think “Put it down” over and over until I do indeed just put it down. I don’t carry the anxiety or all of the desperate planning for what I’m going to do when it all falls apart as I expect it too.

Will worrying stop it from falling apart? No. Will exhausting myself help anything? No.

I am putting it down. And every time I pick it up again, I put it back down. It is helping.

Do you have a mantra or other strategy that allows you to step out of worry and into the present moment?