Worry Tomatoes

We have a worrier in our house. Her name is Sofia. It is something we've known about and dealt with for quite some time. Sometimes, her anxiety runs quietly in the background of her life and other times it seems like it can be absolutely suffocating for her. It's so painful to watch. In my own struggles with anxiety and depression over the years, I have found that being informed is sometimes our best weapon in moving forward confidently and non-stressfully in life. It's this exact reason why we are committed to helping Sofia now.

Recently, my mom shared a book with us to try out with Sofia after hearing about it from a colleague. I was nervous (go figure) as to how she might react to reading it together but to our surprise, she totally dug it! 

What to Do When You Worry Too Much takes a really straightforward approach to understanding that worrying gets worse when we feed into it...like a tomato plant. Seriously. It's the best analogy and one that made complete sense to our sweet kiddo. 

We had a garden this summer that happened to contain two MONSTEROUS tomato plants. Sofia was largely in charge of tending to these plants. I remember at one point she was completely taken aback at how big and over-bearing they were. She was proud of how well her plants had done, but a little stressed at how to handle a 6-foot beast. We also had more tomatoes than we knew what to do with! 

Thus, "tending to our worries", can have a very similar effect to tending a tomato plant...it can easily overtake our gardens; our lives. 

We've read a few chapters already and Sofia is on board. We couldn't be more pleased and I'm so glad to have a simple support to offer guidance and understanding. It is our hope that our kind, wiser-than-she-realizes daughter will develop a life skill set that will not only serve her but help her help others in the future. 

I'm confident this will be a successful journey. With so many people in our lives that love and support our kids, we have no reason to worry. ;)

And for this, I am thankful.