Two Ways to Deal with Worry

Q: Doesn’t the Gemara say there are times when it’s permitted to complain?

A: “De’agah b’lev ish yashchenah — Worry in a man’s heart depresses him” (Mishlei 12:25). The Gemara (Sanhedrin 100b) offers two explanations of this pasuk, which represent two ways to deal with anxiety. One way is to remove it from your heart, and the other is to share it with others. The first way to deal with worry is the way you deal with hiccups. Don’t wait. Control it as soon as it begins, because if it continues it will be difficult to get rid of. When hiccups start, you have to hold your breath and wait till it passes. Once you let it get a grip on you, it will be difficult to get rid of. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. That’s what worry is, too. Once it starts in your mind and you let it hang around, it finds a toehold and doesn’t let go. Therefore, as soon as possible, knock it out of your mind. The earlier you battle against worry, the more you’ll succeed. That’s one p’shat in yashchenah.

The other p’shat is “Yesichenah la’acherim — He should tell it to others.” Now, this doesn’t mean that you’ll get rid of it merely by voicing, by articulating your worry. And it depends with whom you’re sharing your complaints. Say you have a nervous wife, and when you tell her your worries, she’ll become even more worried and make you more worried. But if you speak it out with wise people who will give you wise counsel, they’ll explain to you why there’s nothing to worry about. So, if you worry in your mind, seek out some wise person and discuss your worries with him.

Many people go around laden with problems that are really nothing. They make mountains out of molehills. “My mother-in-law said this to me” — and the daughter-in-law is boiling now. She can’t rest. Actually, it’s nothing at all. The mother-in-law wasn’t thinking. The next minute she forgot what she said — but the daughter-in-law is still boiling with anger, and it’s ruining her life. A lot of people are like that.

Or she goes to somebody and says, “What should I do with my mother-in-law?” If she unloads to the wrong person, it can make things worse. But if she unloads to the right person, a wise person says, “What did your mother-in-law do to you? Did she tell her son to divorce you? No! So, what did she do? She said something about your cooking. What about it?”

Yesichenah means speaking to the right person, a wise person, a person who will give you perspective, a person who will help you see that it’s nothing at all. Someone sensible. A person who will look at it from a different perspective and may be able to console you. With a few words, he can erase your anxieties. But merely expressing your emotions only exacerbates them and makes you feel them more keenly. It’s like talking about food — the salivary glands begin flowing, and the gastric juices start flowing. The more you talk about food, the more the juices flow. So too, the more you talk about certain things that excite the emotions, it only excites them more. Being silent can cause them to fall asleep, and maybe in a few minutes it will pass, and you’ve avoided a crisis. However, a few quiet, kind words can be a balm. It’s a tremendous mitzvah.

Let’s say a man comes home very upset from an experience in the office, and his wife says, “It’s your fault — I always tell you that you don’t know how to behave with people,” it only makes things worse. But if she says, “It’s not so bad. He didn’t mean it. Don’t worry about it. It’ll pass by. Everybody knows you’re a good man,” she’s a lifesaver. That woman is worth her weight in diamonds.

Or when a wife is going crazy with the children and her husband says, “The house looks very nice. The children are well behaved. And it’s all because of you,” his few kind words will spare them an evening of commotion. To some extent, his wife’s feelings will be soothed.

Kind words are certainly important. But you have to be careful not to be too profuse with words because once you start saying a lot of words — even well-intentioned, kind words — it might cause the other party to say, “But, but, but!” Therefore, say a few kind words and stop. That’s all.