SAY BYE-BYEđź‘‹ TO WORRY
Your most intimate friend
Most of us are familiar with worry. In fact worry might be your most intimate friend. We tend to spend more time with worry than we do our partner, family members, kids or friends. Worry is often so intimate that it’s present inside of all of the activities that we do. It’s there when we shower, while we exercise, as we’re working, and while we are getting groceries or pumping gas. Subtly, or not so subtly, in the background is the thought, “will things work out” or “will things be ok”? It’s like we are deathly afraid of how all the details of life will orchestrate themselves and we can’t seem to let it be. Our best attempt to not feel totally helpless or powerless is to worry. Somehow we think if we worry about whatever it is we are worried about then we can control how it all happens. However because we know we can’t really control it, we stay in a perpetual state of worry, which you could also call stress or overwhelm.
In order to let go of worry we also have to let go of whatever outcome we are attempting to control. Whatever thing we want to happen or not happen, the timing of something, and the flow of the details in between, we have to let it all have its own will. We must give away our hope, agenda, insistence, and demand for the thing to happen in any particular way, or at all. This is where it feels tricky to us because we perceive potential loss or lack. If things don’t happen how we desire in our minds for them to happen, at the bare minimum we perceive inconvenience, and beyond that, that something might be lost. That loss could be of anything. A new possibility coming to birth, a relationship, how someone views or sees us, money, time or other resources, objects of our desire, a job, a project, our health, other’s health, and on and on. We will do whatever we can not to experience loss of what we desire because loss feels like death, failure and can lead us into hopelessness, depression or despair. So rather than facing the potential of all of that, instead we choose worry, because worry feels easier to feel compared to feeling the death of our dreams and desires.
The thing about worry though is that it hijacks the shit out of us. We fall out of presence and into thinking about all of the things. We are not available for what actually matters to us, who it is that we want to be and our chosen state of being. We lose touch with the magic of life and ourselves. On a physiologically level our body gets to experience the chemical cascade of worry, which looks like the inability to digest our food, sleep well, or feel energized, and we experience pain and tension in the body. Then we get fixated on trying to fix all of these bodily expressions without addressing the core essence which creates their arising, which is worry. While moving towards feeling loss, lack, or death of our dreams feels like a less desirable choice, you must ask yourself if it’s really worth the cost to keep avoiding your sense of feeling lack of control over all of the happenings of your life.
THE OTHER SIDE OF WORRY
Mystery revealing itself
We tend not to think too much about what is on the other side of worry. Mostly we either wait in anxious anticipation, or we take massive action because we can’t sit still, and then we hope for the best. The “best” being whatever our chosen preference is for the desired outcome. The funny thing about being human is that we have such a small perspective on things, and despite our tiny viewpoint we think we know what’s best to happen. It is a form of self-deceit that is mostly unconscious, because the majority of us have good intentions for what we desire. However those good intentions, and our ideas of what those intentions look like when they are manifested at the physical level, interferes with our seeing. It distorts and filters our perceptions. We then create judgments or assumptions about what we are seeing rather than simply seeing it. Those judgments and assumptions always feel bad because they are coming from our tiny little vantage point that thinks it knows what it’s looking at, all the while it’s missing 99.99% of the picture.
Big picture here is that we have no idea what, the details or the timing of how things are supposed to occur. We have ideas of how we would like it to all happen, but our knowledge of the actual reality of it stops there. If we don’t recognize the limitation of our vantage point, of our filters and the distorted picture we have based on our preferences, then we will fall or push our way into control. We will feel anxious. We will experience overwhelm. We will complain about being stressed. All as avoidance to feel how much control we don’t have over things.
Not having control over things does not mean that you are without power. In fact it means the opposite. Surrender is the ultimate power. This is what you discover on the other side of worry. When you stop avoiding feeling potential loss, a sense of powerlessness, or inconvenience you arrive into a state of presence and openness for life to reveal itself to you. Presence in the ever present moment of revelation, meaning you come to know what it’s like to be in the unfolding rather than trying to managing the unfolding. When you are no longer trying to control something it frees things up to respond and move, and what I really mean by that is that it frees you up to respond and move. You become less rigid and fixated and more able to be a part of the unfolding. This is also where the power of intention shines. You can still intend for whatever it is you desire to intend, but rather than forcing the flow of it, you are in the flow with it. It’s not two opposing forces, but one force moving and responding to itself. You are not separate from what you desire, you are one with it, but as soon as you place what you desire out there onto a happening, object, event or person, you relate to it as separate from you and you have to figure out how to control or manipulate it in order for your preference to be experienced or expressed.
The other side of worry is acceptance and peace. It is a relinquishment of thinking that you know and a becoming present to what actually wants to happen, rather than what you think you want to happen. You let things breathe, which ironically also means you breathe. You experience life force returning to its unimpeded flow. The intelligence that is life organizes itself with you included. It still doesn’t mean that you will get what you want or that your desired preference will occur in the timing you desire, or even at all. It does however mean that you breathe, you are at peace and in acceptance, your body receives easeful chemical cascades that allow it to function well and you get to be in the dance of the unfolding of the mystery revealing itself.
Dr. Amanda Love, Chiropractor, Network Spinal Analysis & Somato-Respiratory Integration, Boulder, Colorado