Stop Worrying: What a Widow in Uganda and A Millionaire Have in Common

The moment you realize: I'm not living. I'm worrying.

Do you know the feeling of being in the middle of a beautiful moment – a free afternoon, a family vacation, a quiet morning – and yet not really being there?

Your mind is somewhere else. You're thinking about the conversation you still need to have. The situation that won't resolve itself. What might happen if things don't go the way you hoped.

Your body is sitting at the table. Your mind is already three steps ahead, producing an inner film, full of horror scenarios, negative outcomes, and worry.

I know that feeling very well. And I think you do too.

At some point on my own journey, I came across a book whose title hit me like a rock: "How to Stop Worrying and Start Living" by Dale Carnegie. I read it and thought: Jeese, Louise! That's me. I'm not living. I'm worrying all the time.

The book was published in 1948. And yet the stories in it, the situations, the people – everything felt so current. So now. So much like my own life.

What struck me most was that people back then worried about the same things we worry about today. Worry is as old as humanity itself. And yet we still barely understand what it really does to us.

That's what this article is about.

Table of Contents

• Worrying has a useful function – up to a point
• What unhealthy worrying really is
• An encounter that stayed with me
• This is universal – for the widow and for the millionaire
• How to stop the thought spiral: The fork in the road
• What really helps: Notice, let go, be grateful
• Frequently asked questions about letting go of worry
• You are not broken for worrying
  
  

Worrying has a useful function – up to a point

I want to start with something that might sound surprising: worrying is not inherently wrong. There is a healthy form of it.

When you notice that something is off – your child has a fever, an important deadline is approaching, a conversation is long overdue – that's a meaningful inner signal. It moves you to act. It helps you recognize a situation and respond to it.

That is the healthy function of worry. It tells you: here is something that deserves your attention.

But then there is a line.

And beyond that line, something begins that still feels like care – like responsibility, like taking things seriously – but is in reality something else entirely.

Beyond that line begins what I call unhealthy worrying.

What unhealthy worrying really is

Unhealthy worrying is when your mind produces scenarios – increasingly detailed, increasingly threatening – about things that haven't happened yet. And may never happen.

It feels productive because you're thinking about the problem. You're engaging with it. You're not letting it go.

But what is really happening?

You are occupying your mind with a negative potential. You are narrowing your attention more and more onto what could go wrong. And the longer you do that, the more your thinking gets stuck in that construct – without a single new idea emerging. Without anything feeling even slightly lighter.

That is the crucial point:

Worry does not protect us from what we fear.

If I worry that tomorrow's conversation will go badly, does that prevent it from going badly? No. If you worry that your company might lose an important client, does that stop it from happening? No.

And yet every one of those thoughts costs you something. Energy. Clarity. Presence.

Worry has gravity. What we hold in our thoughts for a long time affects us – physically, mentally, in the way we make decisions, and the way we relate to other people.

An encounter that stayed with me

I have been working for years with people in the Nakivale Refugee Settlement in Uganda. Last week, there was a woman whose story has stayed with me ever since.

She is a widow with six children. She tries to get by in the camp, washing clothes for other families, sewing garments, and earning a little money here and there. Since the USAID funding was cut, there is even less to go around.

One day, her children were crying from hunger. So she went to her neighbor, asked for work, for anything. The neighbor sent her away.

She came home and, for a brief moment, she found a quiet mind. And in that stillness, she began to feel hope again. Tomorrow I will go out. I will find something.

But that evening, the children began crying again. And her level of hope sank. The worry returned. Louder, tighter, more circular. Her blood pressure rose. And the more she worried, the less present she was with her children. She was trapped in her head and couldn't comfort them.

The worrying had cut her off from the very people she loved and was worrying about.

What moves me so deeply about this story is that this woman lives in a situation that is genuinely existential. The children are really crying. The food is really not available. And yet, the circular worrying brought no solution. It closed off her access to her own creativity, helpful impulses, and her inner wisdom.

In the moments when we most need clarity, unhealthy worrying fills our minds to the brim. And that is precisely the moment when all the doors seem to be closing – even though in reality they are wide open.

This is universal – for the widow and for the millionaire

I recently spoke with someone who had several million in his account after selling his company. He lay awake at night. Worried that his money wasn't growing fast enough in the stock market. That he would leave too little behind for his children.

It was an eight-figure sum, and this worry might sound absurd. And yet, it felt just as threatening to him as it does to that mother in Uganda who doesn't know what her children will eat tomorrow.

This is not cynicism. This is the truth about worry:

Worry does not arise from external circumstances. It arises in our thinking – regardless of what is actually happening on the outside.

That is both the frightening and the liberating news.

Frightening, because a full fridge, a stable business, a secure income do not automatically protect us from worry.

Liberating, because the place from which things can change is not out there. It is within us.

How to stop the thought spiral: The fork in the road

I have noticed that there is always this one moment in everyday life. A moment when worry arises. I feel it – in my body, in my stream of thoughts, in a sudden tightness.

And then there is a fork in the road.

One path goes with the worry. I can follow it. I can keep producing the horror film – more detailed, more frightening, more endless. Getting more and more confused and hopeless.

The other path is: pause. Notice. Ah, there is a worry. I see you.

Not fight it. Not push it away. Simply notice.

Because what I observe again and again – in myself, in people I work with as a coach, in women at the refugee camp in Uganda – is this: the simple act of noticing changes something.

Something softens.

The tightness that felt like a wall a moment ago begins to loosen. And in that looser moment, something appears – a thought, an impulse, a possibility that wasn't visible before.

This is not a technique. It is not a trick. It is simply what happens when the mind becomes quieter.

Related article:
Stopping the Mental Spiral When Your Mind Won’t Stop Thinking

What really helps: Notice, let go, be grateful

There are three things I want to share from my own experience and from working with many people.

Notice without judging

The first step is the simplest – and the hardest: realizing that you are currently worrying. Not as a failure, but as an observation. I am in worry right now. I feel the tightness. That sounds trivial. But simply looking honestly at what is happening often opens a small window.

Move forward instead of getting stuck

There is something childlike in worry: I just don't want to feel this way. What helps is a more conscious question: What do I actually want to experience instead? Where do I really want to go? And then – step by step – moving in that direction.

Gratitude as a counterweight

I know this sounds like advice from a self-help book. But I mean it sincerely: worry grows when we look at it. And gratitude grows the same way – when we look at it. Sitting down and thinking about what you are genuinely grateful for shifts something in your inner orientation. Not because the problem disappears. But because a more peaceful feeling takes over, the mind gets a little more space.

Frequently asked questions about letting go of worry

What is the difference between healthy and unhealthy worrying?

Healthy worrying is an inner impulse that moves you to act. It tells you that something deserves your attention. Unhealthy worrying goes beyond that: you construct increasingly detailed scenarios in your mind about things that haven't happened yet. No new ideas emerge, no solutions – only tightness.

Why doesn't worrying protect me from what I fear?

Because worry arises in the mind, not in reality. You can spend hours imagining how a conversation will go wrong without changing its outcome at all. What changes is your inner state: you lose energy, clarity, and access to your own creativity.

How can I stop worrying?

Not through willpower or suppression. The first step is simply noticing that you are worrying – without judging yourself for it. That honest act of looking often changes something on its own. Beyond that, gratitude as a conscious countermovement helps, as does the question: What do I actually want to experience instead?

Is it normal to worry constantly even when life is going well?

Yes – and that shows that worry has nothing to do with external circumstances. Worry arises in thinking, not in reality. A full fridge, a stable income, and a functioning life do not automatically protect us from it. This is simply being human.

You are not broken for worrying

I want to say this at the end, because it matters to me.

We all worry. That is part of a normal human life. I do too. Sometimes more, sometimes less.

There is nothing wrong with you if you sometimes sink into worry. It says nothing about your character, your strength, or your inner maturity.

There are only moments when you are in worry. And moments when you are in your real life, present with whatever IS.

And the more you learn to tell those two places apart – the more consciously you notice where you are right now – the easier it becomes to return. To yourself. To the moment that is here right now. To true wisdom.

The pizza box the dog dragged onto the carpet. The children at the table. The conversation with someone who matters to you.

Life is happening now. Not in the scenarios your mind is producing.

Listen to the podcast episode

Does this article resonate with you? In the corresponding episode of "Leichter leben" (in German), we go deeper into this topic – with concrete examples from our coaching practice.

Listen now

Would you like to write to me about where you see your fork in the road? Where is the moment when worry takes over for you? I read and respond to every message: [email protected]

Shailia Stephens is a Life and Business Coach based near Frankfurt, Germany. She guides leaders, entrepreneurs, and people at inner turning points back to inner calm and effortless success – based on the Three Principles by Sydney Banks.