1 hour of worrying as daily formal practice

Today on Skype I mentioned something to Kenneth that he liked and he asked me to write about it on this forum.

Kenneth talked about how we tend to overuse thought and that this isn't making us happy.
Whenever we aren't focussing on something, when we're doing stuff that hardly requires our attention, our brain switches to a default network that produces wandering mind and lots of dukkha.

I knew what he meant. One day I was washing the dishes, lost in worrying thought. When I suddenly remembered to pay attention, it literally felt and looked like I had been blind the past ten minutes and I had regained sight just now. A darkness lifted, revealing hands, water and dishes. I felt the warmth of the water again and heard the sounds around me. Amazing!

I have noticed that wandering mind can lead to creative ideas, but most of the time my top ten worrying hits are playing like a broken record.

So here's what I came up with: What if my daily formal practice consisted of an hour of worrying in stead of insight or concentration practice? The rest of the day could then be spent meditating.

Now, without kidding: I'm still doing formal insight practice an hour a day, and I'm disembedding as much as possible throughout the day, but I also reserve time to let my worries flow freely. I talk about them with my wife or a friend, write them down, I actively look for a solution ... When I can't find a solution during that dedicated timeslot, it'll have to wait til the next day.

When I found myself disembedding more and more the past months, I had some worries about falling into the trap of spiritual bypassing. I guess this is my way of taking care of that and of putting a favorite quote of mine into daily practice:

'Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the things I can,
and wisdom to know the difference.'

Genius! Instead of dedicating our entire day to worry and relegating our practice to one lonely hour a day, we can turn the tables; dedicate some brief period each day for worrying and then, having completed that important assignment, spend the rest of the day being attentive to the moment by moment experience of our lives. What a wonderful idea!

That's a fantastic idea! There's use to be had from doing this with other types of thought too, it's useful for seeing through limiting belief systems and other unhelpful viewpoints.

@Tommy
Exactly! Also, when there's no particular worrying going on, I use this time to scan whatever is (re)appearing in my mind and I take notes to see what needs to get done in my life. (I recently read and enjoyed "Getting Things Done") Doing this regularly allows me to be relaxed a lot more, because I know I won't miss anything when I spend the biggest part of the day in meditative mode.