I am going through my email right now and I feel a little overwhelmed. It seems like everyday there is another chunk of emails  in my inbox and they all add up when I let a week go by without deleting them. More than half of these emails will not be opened because they are no longer serving my interests or are frequent promotions for products that I do not need. It takes about a minute to select these emails and then I just click delete. Easy enough, but it’s only a short term fix! In a week, there will be another list of emails and the cycle of deleting continues.

These emails are taking my attention and energy away every time. For a more significant impact and long term change, I have to unsubscribe. This means I have to individually go into each email, click ‘unsubscribe’, maybe take a survey, etc. and then it is complete. That can take longer than a minute and much longer if I committed to unsubscribe from every email list that is no longer serving me. However, I will see an impact next week when my inbox has less emails and most of them are of interest and help to me.

You’ve likely experienced this with emails, but you also experience it with negative thinking and worries. You might frequently find short-term fixes for your negative thoughts and worries about the future, but that just deletes them for the moment. They will keep coming back because you have not yet done the work to ‘unsubscribe’ from those negative thoughts and anxious worries. You have to take time to find out where those thinking patterns and fears are coming form, then decide if they are still serving you. Finally, you make a committed decision to unsubscribe and change.

-Angela Zender, anxiety coach