“Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother.” – Kahlil Gibran

Being saddled with doubt and worry is a detriment to your health. Both harangue with uncertainty. They stagnate forward motion. Doubt makes you uncertain and worry causes anxiety. Each stem from and exude fear.

Doubt crops up when you expect events and relationships to follow your plans yet fret they will not. As you enter a party, doubt undermines your confidence. You distrust people will like you. Doubt assumes and expects the worst. It surrounds itself with negative naysayers. To challenge the ebb and flow of life, emboldens cynicism. Furthermore, it feeds the bitterness of disbelief. Luckily, the antidote to doubt is faith.

Worry, on the other hand, harps on anxiety. Like doubt, worry craves a situation (like getting the job) will work out and makes you afraid it won’t. You agonize as you constantly forecast gloomy weather. Worry has you embedded to a specific result. You fixate on a particular outcome. This leads to dread. You fret and suffer with a trembling despair you will ever work again, for example. Worry takes over your common sense, logic and the laws of probability. To banish dark worry, respond to it with the light of hope and optimism.

Plenty of stress and misery comes from both the ambiguity of doubt and the anguish of worry. It is a vicious, unhappy and crazy cycle of doom and gloom. If you continue to delude yourself you can control anything but your own reactions, the more out of control you will feel. I know this powerlessness feels like defeat, but don’t allow doubt to raise your suspicious antennae and entangle your mind. Instead, accept life on its own terms and counter with your best self.

In place of rehashing the past and predicting a dismal future, await life with wonder. Live in the present moment. 

Behind every fear you have, is a lack of love and faith.

I understand my doubt and get beyond my worry when I trust in love and my beliefs.