Worry and restlessness are very similar so some of what I mentioned before fits in here as well. But there are other things, too, that can help you let go of worry. For example, think of yourself eating your food and enjoying the taste, or not enjoying the taste, doesn't matter, but you're eating the food. Where's that taste going to be thirty minutes later? How many people really think about the food that they had eaten thirty minutes later? Normally, you're caught up in something totally different, you're doing a different project or whatever else it is. Whether that food was delicious, whether it was terrible, thirty minutes later you don't think about it much at all.
Worry is often caught up with future and past. Every bit of your life right here, right now, what is it now, it's four o'clock. You came in, we started at nine o'clock. Where's that part of your life gone? That part of your life is gone and, hopefully, you've all benefited by it, that's what you're here for, but actually gone.
When we worry about something coming, is it always going to be in a state of coming? There's actually only one thing that's always in a state of coming... death. Everything else that you experience will be in a state of coming, and then you have it as the present state, and then it passes. Everything else that you are experiencing in your life: your eating, your sleeping, your going to work, whatever it is, it's in a state of coming, arising, right? We're talking about impermanence, arising, existing for awhile, and then passing away. You don't have to really do anything great to make things pass most of the time, they pass by themselves. So you really don't have to worry that the thing is going to pass. You may worry about it coming, but you don't have to worry about whether it's going to pass; they will all pass.
Now, reflecting on impermanence is one way to skillfully let go of worry. It's all going to pass. Everything's going to pass. Why should we waste our life worrying about something that's just going to come and go?
Now, this is not covering as to our decision of how to treat things. That's different. But when we decide how to deal with something that may be coming, worry only gets in the way of making a clear decision. You do have to consider what to do. For example, when buying a plane ticket, you consider the different airlines, who you want to fly with, what it's going to cost, whether you will fly on a Wednesday or a Friday and so on. So, you make a decisive thought about things in a process in your brain. But worrying about the airplane, worrying about the cost, worrying and worrying, that's extra, that's what you put on top of your decision making. And, no matter how much I worry about the cost of the airplane ticket that we're planning to buy in a couple days, it's all going to pass. A year from now, am I even going to remember what I paid for the airplane ticket this year? No, I will probably have another airplane ticket to pay for.
So much of what people worry about keeps people awake at night, right? You worry and you stay awake, you worry and you're agitated throughout your day. But everything you worry about is just going to come and go anyhow. So, to reflect on impermanence helps greatly with letting go of worry.