CLEARing Worry

The Scene

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Eli sits at his desk, refreshing his inbox.

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He already checked it five minutes ago, but his stomach’s still tight.

Nothing urgent is happening...but that’s the problem.

It feels like something might be.

 

He replays the conversation he had with his boss yesterday.

Did he sound annoyed?

Was there something in his tone?

 

He opens his calendar.

Everything’s in order.

But that only makes it worse.

 

It’s just a vague pull in his gut telling him something is off.

 

He checks the news.

He checks the weather.

He opens a chat with his wife but doesn’t send anything.

 

Something bad is coming.

He just doesn’t know what yet.

 

 

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The Claim

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Eli’s thoughts swirl, but the main one behind his unease is:

“Something’s wrong...I just don’t know what it is yet.”

 

Other versions of it include:

“I probably forgot something important.”
“What if there’s an email I missed?”
“Things are too calm right now. That usually means something bad is coming.”

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But the central belief is that worry is necessary to stay prepared, as if letting his guard down would invite disaster.

 

 

 

The Lie

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The thought that “Something’s wrong...I just don’t know what it is yet” feels like a form of responsibility.
Like Eli is doing his job by staying alert.

 

But that thought is shaped by distortion.

 

Let’s look closer.

 

Catastrophizing

Eli’s mind treats calm as a warning sign...like peace is the setup to a fall.

“Things are too quiet. Something must be about to go wrong.”

 

But if that were true, then safety would always be temporary and illusionary, and calm moments would never be trusted.
This isn’t vigilance. It’s a fear of relaxing.

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Fortune Telling

The vague anxiety in his gut gets interpreted as a prediction.

“Something is probably already happening—I just don’t know it yet.”

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If that were true, then every feeling of unease would be treated like a warning—even when there’s no evidence.

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But those signals are often wrong.
Relying on them isn’t clarity—it’s guesswork dressed up as foresight.

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Emotional Reasoning

Eli assumes that because he feels something’s off, it must be true.

“I wouldn’t feel this way if nothing were wrong.”

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But if that were true, then emotion would be treated as proof, rather than something to examine.

 

The feeling is real.

But it doesn’t mean the danger is.

 

 

What Eli is experiencing could be called hypervigilance.

Underlying all of it is the belief that constant mental scanning will protect him.

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But what it actually does is wear him out—while convincing him that rest is unsafe.

It confuses control with awareness, and awareness with fear.

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The Evidence

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There’s no urgent message in Eli’s inbox.
His calendar is normal.

No one’s avoiding him.
Nothing in the room is actually wrong.

 

What’s happening isn’t a crisis—it’s a pattern.

 

This isn’t the first time Eli has felt this background tension.

And it’s not the first time his mind has tried to fill in the blanks with imagined problems.

 

What’s different now is that he’s starting to notice it:
how quickly his body goes on alert,
how easily his thoughts chase a vague sense of dread,
how often the thing he’s worrying about never actually happens.

 

He can even think of a few recent times he felt the exact same way—convinced something bad was coming—and then… nothing came.

 

The tension passed.
The moment passed.
And life went on.

 

The facts don’t support the idea that something is wrong right now.

 

They support the idea that he’s caught in a loop.

And loops can be broken.

 

 

 

The Alternative

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The original thought was:

“Something’s wrong—I just don’t know what it is yet.”

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But that thought is shaped by distortion.

It confuses feeling with fact, and vigilance with control.

 

A more honest and empowering way to see it might be:

“My body’s tense, but that doesn’t mean there’s a threat.”

Or:

“This feeling has come before—and passed. I don’t need to chase it.”

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Eli doesn’t have to solve a problem that doesn’t exist.

 

He can let the worry be there without obeying it.

 

 

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The Role of Reason

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Reason doesn’t ignore worry.
It examines it.

 

It asks: Is this feeling pointing to something real—or just rehearsing a threat that hasn’t happened?

 

In Eli’s case, Reason sees no evidence of danger.

Just the habit of anticipating it.

That changes everything.

 

Because once he realizes there’s no emergency, he’s no longer required to respond like there is.

 

He can still take care of what matters—but without racing to fix what isn’t broken.

 

Worry often draws its power from catastrophizing and emotional reasoning.
It creates a fog where unease feels like proof, and waiting feels like failure.

 

But Reason clears that fog by slowing down the rush to conclusion.

And beneath it all, it’s Self-Control that helps Eli stay grounded.

 

Not by suppressing the feeling, but by choosing how to engage with it.

 

He can wait.
He can breathe.
He can act when it’s time—and rest when it isn’t.

 

That’s real vigilance.
And it doesn’t require fear to function.

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Embarrassment shows up in many forms for men. So let’s walk through one more scenario—and apply the CLEAR method to find our way through it.

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The Scene

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Noah lies in bed, staring at the ceiling.

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His day went fine.

No real problems.

But his mind won’t settle.

 

He thinks about his parents.

About their health.
He thinks about money, even though the bills are paid this month.
He thinks about his daughter’s upcoming school trip—and whether something might go wrong.

 

He’s not imagining disasters in detail.

It’s more like a constant scanning—like his thoughts are trying to “cover” every possibility just in case.

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He checks his phone.

Opens the weather app.

Then the bank app.

Then just stares at the home screen.

 

He doesn’t feel panicked.

Just restless.

Like if he could find what’s bothering him, he could relax.

 

But he can’t find it.
Because it’s not there.

 

 

 

The Claim

 

Noah’s core belief isn’t that something has gone wrong—but that something might—and if he doesn’t stay alert, he’ll miss it.

 

“If I don’t think it through now, I’ll regret it later.”
“What if I’m missing something important?”
“I need to stay ahead of the problem before it gets here.”

 

But underneath it all, the real thought driving him is:

 

“I can’t relax until I’ve covered every possible risk.”

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The Lie

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The thought “I can’t relax until I’ve covered every possible risk” sounds responsible.

 

It feels like Noah is being thorough, prepared, even protective.

But it’s not coming from Reason—it’s coming from fear.

 

Let’s examine the distortions driving it.

 

 

Catastrophizing

His mind quietly treats ordinary situations—like a school trip or a normal quiet evening—as potential disasters.

“Something could go wrong, so I need to stay ahead of it.”

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But if that were true, then no part of life would be safe enough to let go of.
Even calm moments would require a full mental patrol.

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Emotional Reasoning

Noah assumes his unease must be pointing to a real risk.

“If I feel this unsettled, there must be a reason.”

 

But if that were true, then every restless night would justify itself, even if nothing happens.

 

The feeling may be real—but it doesn’t mean it’s correct.

 

 

Fortune Telling

His worry is a prediction disguised as caution.

“If I don’t prepare now, something bad will happen later—and it’ll be my fault.”

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But if that were really the case, then inaction would always be dangerous, and rest would always be a risk.
That’s not foresight—it’s pressure.

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Mental Filtering

Even when things are fine, his mind filters for potential problems.

“There has to be something I missed.”

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But that only creates a loop where not finding a problem becomes the problem itself.

 

 

 

The Evidence

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Noah’s daughter is safe.
His bank account is fine.
There are no urgent calls, no overlooked messages, no hidden problems waiting to explode.

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The only thing keeping him awake is the habit of scanning for risk.

 

And it’s not new.

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He’s had nights like this before—where his thoughts circled around “what ifs” and tried to guard against every angle.

 

And over and over again, the imagined danger never arrived.

 

But even more telling: when something has gone wrong in the past, it wasn’t because he failed to worry hard enough.

It was just life.

 

And he handled it.

 

That’s the part worry always forgets—that he’s already lived through hard things, and he didn’t collapse.

He adjusted.

He responded.

He got through.

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The truth is: he doesn’t need to catch every possible problem before it happens.

 

He just needs to stay grounded when it does.

 

 

 

The Alternative

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The original thought was:

“I can’t relax until I’ve covered every possible risk.”

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But that belief is built on fear, not fact.

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A more honest and empowering way to see it might be:

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“I’ve worried like this before—and most of it never happened.”

Or:

“Even if something does come up, I’ll handle it better if I’m rested and clear.”

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Noah’s strength isn’t in mentally rehearsing every outcome.
It’s in knowing that he can respond—calmly, intelligently—when something actually calls for it.

 

Worry doesn’t need more thought.

 

It needs trust.

 

 

 

The Role of Reason

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Reason doesn’t demand total control of the future.

It asks for honesty about what’s real right now.

 

And what’s real is this:

• There’s no emergency.

• There’s no decision that needs to be made in the middle of the night.

• There’s no hidden threat waiting to punish him for resting.

 

Noah’s mind is trying to protect him.

But it’s using the wrong method.

 

Because real protection isn’t hypervigilance.
It’s clarity, presence, and strength when it matters.

 

Worry distorts reality by turning potential problems into active ones.
It replaces peace with pressure—then calls that pressure “being responsible.”

 

But Reason cuts through that distortion and reminds him:

 

He doesn’t need to live in constant readiness.
He needs to live in truth.

 

In this, Reason draws on Wisdom, which helps him recognize what is actually happening versus what’s imagined.
It calls on Self-Control, which helps him pause instead of react.
And it leans on Courage, not the loud kind—but the quiet strength to let go of the need to brace for every possibility.

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That’s how worry loses its grip.

Not by outthinking it, but by no longer serving it.