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Areas › Worry and anxiety › What worry does
From outside this looks like apathy, which is why it usually gets met with pressure and the pressure never works. What helps is much smaller. Agree one step that does not need the ending to be known, and treat not knowing as the weather you act in rather than the problem to solve first. If you are the one stuck, choose the step you could still live with if the answer turned out badly.
will provide for them from an unexpected source (Quran 65:3). What comes next is not empty just because you cannot see it from where you are standing.
الطلاق
وَيَرۡزُقۡهُ مِنۡ حَيۡثُ لَا يَحۡتَسِبُۚ وَمَن يَتَوَكَّلۡ عَلَى ٱللَّهِ فَهُوَ حَسۡبُهُۥٓۚ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ بَٰلِغُ أَمۡرِهِۦۚ قَدۡ جَعَلَ ٱللَّهُ لِكُلِّ شَيۡءࣲ قَدۡرࣰ ا
and will provide for them from an unexpected source; God will be enough for those who put their trust in Him. God achieves His purpose; God has set a due measure for everything
Qur’an 65:3read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
A systematic review and meta-analysis across 26 studies with 1,199 patients found that psychological treatment reduced intolerance of uncertainty, the belief that not knowing is itself unbearable, in generalised anxiety disorder. So this piece of the problem does shift with work. The review pools varied studies and treatments, so it supports the direction without pinning down which approach to use.
Wilson EJ, Abbott MJ, Norton AR. (2023). The impact of psychological treatment on intolerance of uncertainty in generalized anxiety disorder: A systematic review and meta-analysis.. Journal of anxiety disorders doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
The certainty being waited for is not available, so moving without it is the only way out of the stall.
Once the surge is up it takes something like a quarter of an hour to drop, and nothing sensible said inside that window will land. Give it the time first.
There is a small gap between something happening and the story you tell yourself about it. That gap is the cheapest place to step in.
The worst symptom is not always the one that costs the most. Ask what actually stops you doing things, and start there.