If you notice your worry-thoughts—really study them carefully for a couple of days—you’ll find something that may surprise you: almost none of your worry-thoughts have anything to do with reality. Here’s what I mean. Let’s say you make a cup of coffee in the morning, put it in a to-go cup, and rush off to work. You’re speeding along, happily sipping your brew, when suddenly you worry that you may have left the kettle boiling on the stove. That’s a reality-based worry-thought. It’s worth worrying about, for two reasons: first, your house could burn down; and second, you can do something about
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