The modern human lives in a constant state of worry and anxiety, always hurrying somewhere, and always being late for something.

This curious predicament of modern civilization is due to our hectic lifestyle and rushed way of living.

The way we live produces worry. For our mind we are in constant danger, even though we might live in the safest era humanity ever lived.

Buddhist teachings say that there is nothing wrong with us, it’s just that we live mostly through our mind, identify with it, and miss out on the present moment.

According to their teachings there are 5 ways, or steps, you can consciously take, that will help you understand worry a little better and eradicate it out of your life for good.

5 Buddhist Ways How To Eradicate Worry:

1. See worry in its real light.

First, if you want to deal with something you need to know what you are dealing with. That’s why you need to see worry as it really is.

So what is worry? Just like the many biases and programs of our mind, worry is a thinking pattern that primes us to expect danger.

This program helped us in the past, when we lived next to a hungry tiger, but today it’s just a waste of mental energy. it doesn’t really solve anything.

It’s not a bad program, it’s just not necessary to always run in the background of your mind. It simply wastes your RAM so to speak.

Worry is nothing scary, it doesn’t mean there is something wrong with you, it simply means that an outdated program is running in your mind.

2. Understand your ‘monkey’ mind.

As we evolved from more primitive organisms to more developed and complex species, our brain evolved 3 big parts, the lizard, the mammalian and the human part.

The human part of the brain has another more primitive part, this part is called “The Monkey Mind” and it differs from “The Human Mind” in various ways.

The monkey mind part is more primitive and run by emotion than the human mind part that observes with reason.

It jumps from thought to thought and it’s what continuously uses the worry program in the background of our mind.

You need to embrace this part and observe its chatter without judgment and emotional attachment, and it will be silenced. Hug your inner monkey. Show it it’s safe.

3. Accept that nothing is under control.

Most of our worry is fueled by the illusion of control we think we have over the world around us.

We believe countless things that give us a sense of bigger control, we think by wearing our favorite jersey we can influence a game’s outcome.

The reality is that all of this is an illusion created by our mind to cope with the fact that nothing is really under control.

We live on a piece of rock circling around a fireball in the midst of an ever expanding infinity. We try our best to know our place but all we know are just plausible theories.

The only thing you can truly control is how you surf the waves of the unknown. Accepting this fact, counterintuitively reduces all anxiety and worry about the world.

4. Step back and see the bigger picture.

There is always a bigger picture than the one we observe through our perception. There is always a bigger scale of things.

Worry is a product of being overly obsessed with small details instead of the bigger picture. Why? Because the bigger picture is always perfectly balanced.

Looking at the picture of reality from a small scale we can see tiny imperfections and bumps.

But when you look at the bigger picture there are no imperfections. There is just balance and divine harmony.

Whenever you catch yourself worrying try to think about the fact that there are over billion galaxies each with over billion stars, and you are on a planet within one of them.

5. Focus on the present moment.

Our mind is a powerful tool, but it is a tool that works with past and future information. It uses our past memories to predict future events.

Identifying with your mind and living through your mind you can’t help but be stretched between your past and your future in a state of constant worry.

But you are not your mind, it’s a tool given for you to use, as well as your body, your heart and your spirit.

The past and the future are just in your mind, what you really have and what you always had was the present moment, the now moment.

Try to bring your awareness to the present moment. How? Observe your breathing. You’ll see, in the now moment worry is immediately eradicated out of your mind.