Canadian-born Dr. Jonathan Ellerby, Spiritual Program Director for Canyon Ranch in Tucson, has dedicated over 20 years of his life to exploring spirituality, healing and consciousness. He has a new book, Return to the Sacred, and on May 22 at 7pm will be in Toronto for a talk and book signing at the new McNally Robinson bookstore.

Here, Dr. Ellerby discusses why too much worry can hold us back, and how we can start to change our behaviour.

Q: What are some of the signs that someone's a worrywart?

A: One of the first signs is a preoccupation, not only with things we can't control but with the future – what some people might call uncontrollable thinking. They're constantly trying to solve things, predict things, anticipate things. Another symptom, when it gets a bit more extreme, is that they don't sleep very well, and are easily distracted. Their attitudes can become fearful. At the heart of worry is the very attitude of fear. If you weren't fearful that things wouldn't work out, you wouldn't be worried about them. And yet there's a cycle because the more we worry, the more we feed the fears. Worry is a kind of process where we're looking for solutions to problems that haven't even happened – so we're anticipating problems.

Q: Are worrywarts always thinking about the worst-case scenario?

A: Exactly. There's an implicit pessimism, even though most worrywarts would not describe themselves as pessimistic. They would say they're doing it out of love, like "I love my kids and that's why I worry." Or they would say they're doing it out of ambition, like "I want to be successful and that's why I worry about my work." There's all kinds of reasons why they worry, but that hard truth is that it's fundamentally rooted in fear and the desire to control the future.

Q: What creates worrywart behaviour?

A: A variety of things can lead to a person being a worrywart. Negative experiences in the past is one of them, but it's absolutely not a precondition. If you take six people you know – three who worry and three who don't – is the difference that the three who worry had a bad childhood or trauma in their lives? The answer is no. We find, for some reason, there is a predisposition for some people to be more focused on the positive or negative. Conditioning is also a factor. If you grow up in a family where constant worrying and planning is seen as an actual strategy for coping or being in a relationship, then we model that. Worrying was the language of the house. Some people even embrace their worrying as a sign of responsibility: "If I didn't worry about this, who's going to make things happen?" But there are a million ways to accomplish our goals, and worry and constant planning are not necessarily failsafe. I think the desire for control is the biggest factor.

Q: What do worrywarts most commonly agonize over?

A: It can be anything and everything. There are worrywart specialists and worrywart generalists. I think everyone has a bit of worrywart specialist in them. It's the part of yourself where you can't seem to pull yourself back from compulsively checking, double-checking, worrying, anticipating a particular situation or outcome, but you don't do that with everything. Maybe it's just when it comes to work or relationships or certain projects. Then there's other people who really do worry about everything. They worry about their kids, health, what other people think, how they look. Worrying is just a way of being.

Q: Do worrywarts seek help or just embrace it as a part of who they are?

A: I find that worrywarts typically seek help at crossroads – usually when the crossroad is significant enough that it overwhelms their ability to justify their worrying, or they're feeling the cost. So, for example, they want a divorce and they're worried that if they stay in the relationship it's going to kill them, but they're worried that if they bring it up their partner is going to react, and then they're worried that their family is going to judge them, and then they're worried they're going to be alone forever, and then they're worried about their financial situation. The worrying clouds the thinking, and people realize they're not getting anywhere.

Q: Are you seeing a rise in worrywart behaviour as a result of the economic situation?

A: I am, but I also see people who are realizing the limits of worrying precisely because of the financial crisis. They're realizing that all of that worrying to have a perfect future and a perfect plan didn't really make it any better.

Q: So they spent a lot of time and energy worrying about something they ultimately have no control over?

A: Correct. And that goes back to reevaluating the role of worry in their life because they're encountering the cost.

Q: When someone comes to you with their worrywart tendencies, where do you start?

A: I look at things from a spiritual perspective, so I include psychology, mind-body practices, and also spiritual philosophies and practices. The first thing I try to draw people's attention to is that they are creating their experience of life through their worry. If you look for things to complain about, you'll find them. You could go to the best restaurant in the whole world, but if you're worried that you're not going to get the best seat, you're not going to be treated well, that maybe you should have gone to a different restaurant – if that's all you're thinking about, you'll find ample evidence for it. So we amplify what we focus on. Perception follows focus. If I'm focused on everything that can go wrong, I'm going to see it. If I'm focused on everything that's wrong with me, I'm going to see it. If I'm focused on everything that could go wrong in my relationship, I'm going to see it. The problem is – while those things may be real potentials – I can turn them into possibilities by putting energy into them. If I worry that my partner is not trustworthy or faithful, and even if they are trustworthy and faithful, if I constantly accuse them and act like this relationship is temporary, if I constantly have one foot out the door, I'm sending them a message that says "I'm pretty much acting as if you've already done this so you might as well go ahead."

Q: So it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy?

A: Absolutely. We are not passive observers of our life; we are creating it by the way we show up, even by the way we think, each and every day. If you live fearful of people not respecting you in your workplace, and you engage people from a position of fear because you worry about your position and appearance and job security, all they experience is someone who's insecure and fearful and who wants to work with that person or employ that person? It's a co-creation of experience that comes through worrying.

Q: So where do you go from there? Are there any concrete exercise or tips?

A: First: Learn to pay attention to your attitudes, and when you become self-aware change the attitude. Change the story. If you find yourself looking for the negative, look for the positive. If you find yourself jumping to conclusions, try to be more curious and open-minded. If you're looking for evidence of the worst-case scenario, look for evidence of potential and opportunity. And finally, remember that you can learn from everything. The idea embedded for people who worry is that there's a perfect reality out there, and that if they worry enough they'll create it – which just isn't true. As much as we can detach ourselves from perfect outcomes and just be open to learning from whatever happens, the less we worry.

Second: Adopt a regular spiritual practice and learn how to apply its lessons to your daily life. Think of something you do that helps you to feel your best experience of yourself and life. And it could be yoga, meditation, going to church, golf or gardening. What makes you feel most centred in yourself, makes you feel most connected to the world around you, and gives you a sense of ease or peace and natural feeling of joy? Then, once you know what that practice is, there's a few steps:

One, do more of it. If painting is your source of peace and connection, do it every week. Do it twice a week.

Two, make a list. Get out a piece of paper and make an inventory of how you feel while you're doing it: I feel peaceful, kind, loving, at ease. What is unique about the way you conduct yourself during this activity? The answers are going to be things like: I'm patient, creative, focused on one thing at a time. They should be very behavioural descriptions. A guy who loves playing hockey with his friends on the weekend might observe: I'm good humoured, quick to forgive and part of a team.

And three, apply your answers to one and two to the rest of your life. That's the secret to turning a hobby into a spiritual practice, and that's the secret of turning a spiritual practice into an antidote for worry, stress and fear. If you go to yoga once a week and feel calm and peaceful, that's wonderful. But if you get to the parking lot and you're aggravated because someone parked too close to you, what's the point of doing the yoga? So you're at peace for 45 minutes, but you're a jerk for the rest of the week. That's not a spiritual practice. If you're patient when you're golfing, be patient with your family. If you're creative when you're scrapbooking, be creative when you're communicating with your partner.