Welcome to the Cells Inside series.
This time I want to talk about the worrier.
The worrier,
Not the warrior.
Although this part of us is definitely fighting against things.
The worrier.
And it's so helpful to label as the worrier and to recognize it as part of ourselves because when we forget that it is not who we are or we forget that it's just an orientation living through us,
Life looks like nothing but a field for anxiety and concern.
So how can we begin to catch the worrier in action?
How can we see that that's what's living through us?
The first thing you might notice about the worrier is that the worrier seems to always have a pessimistic assumption about what will unfold.
It is always looking at future events or unfolding events as heading towards a bad outcome.
Or we could say the worrier believes that life,
The universe,
Certainly other people are not trustworthy.
We may have been impacted as young beings by some kind of crisis or terrible event and so we have a deep imprint,
We're marked by a sense that things can go wrong.
Which of course they can.
But that's not the whole picture.
The worrier believes that its strategy is useful.
The worrier believes that constant planning is helpful.
It believes its cost of anxiety to us or the anxiety it carries is worth the averting of future danger and the degree of control it can exert in keeping us safe.
So it doesn't recognize that what it's doing actually causes us,
Most of the time,
Much more dissatisfaction and suffering than it does actually help us.
If it's the case that this part emerged when we were young and under-resourced or under-supported by family members or friends,
Then we could imagine that this young part that worries doesn't know how to process the truth of the unknown.
That takes a certain emotional and spiritual maturity.
The worrier does not know how to exist in the openness of not knowing.
To not plan itself is a cause of anxiety for the worrier.
So it has no alternative.
If there are events up ahead of us that of course are out of control,
If the worrier is animating us,
That's what it will do.
Because ambiguity and just waiting and letting life unfold is not something the worrier has the skill for.
We need to appreciate that our worriers are working to keep us safe and may have,
At certain times in our life,
Been vital or very helpful.
This part is looking out for our wellbeing,
In essence.
And if the worrier is held in awareness,
The worrier may change a bit,
It may mature,
Or it may have some offspring.
Let's say a new version could be born.
And that is,
Instead of the worrier,
We receive the ability or the part of us that can simply do prudent planning.
It has concern for those in our lives.
It has an appropriate measure of concern about future events.
Not too much of that,
Not too little.
You'll notice,
For example,
In a family system or in a group of friends that spend a lot of time together,
The field,
The field of the world,
The field of the world,
The field of energy will want someone to be the worrier.
If especially nobody is holding responsibility or concern,
That energy will tend to come up in one person and that will allow some other people to be really laid back.
So this is not an energy that we can totally do without this reflective,
Compassionate concern for navigating what's on the horizon.
But it doesn't have to be through the unbudging and exaggerated pessimism of the worrier.
This part not only has a mental unstable energy that we feel,
It makes our nervous systems kind of jagged.
It's probably not helped by how much we,
In North America at least,
Love our coffee and our caffeination.
The worrier tends to be ungrounded.
So what that means is when the worrier is living through us,
Our feet are not connected to the earth.
We really don't have a sense of physical grounding.
And there's a way in which that confirms its own belief.
The worrier feels unstable.
It feels that it's not being supported.
It feels it's on shaky ground because it doesn't have any ground at all.
It's not rooted in the body.
It's not rooted in the feet touching the earth,
The backside touching the chair,
Et cetera.
So there's lots to be said in many ways to approach working with the worrier.
I hope that this helps you at least begin to glimpse and recognize this as an energy that lives through you and not who you are,
And not the only option you have in navigating through this mystery and gift of life.
So please take care.
