Why Can't I Stop Worrying About My Grown-Up Kids?

Someone sent me this question recently: three grown-up children, one heading off to university, one getting married, and a mind that goes straight to the worst possible scenario at two o'clock in the morning.

I recognised it immediately because I used to believe that worrying was part of the job description. That it was simply what caring looked like, and that if I stopped worrying it would mean I had stopped caring.

In this talk, I share two stories: one about my own son during a frightening time, and one about a client who watched her son turn his life around in a way none of her worrying had ever imagined. We look at why worry is not information, why the thing we fear is rarely the thing that happens, and what becomes available to us when our thinking settles.

You can love them completely and not carry them around in your head at 2am. They have their own wisdom and their own resilience, and it is not your job to do all the thinking for them.

Transcript

Hello and welcome. I'm Sharon. This is a conversation about worrying. And every so often. Someone sends me a question. And now and again, One arrives that I recognize straight away. Because I've lived it myself. And this is one of those. I had a question sent in to me the other day which I will Start by reading. I was off. Why can't I stop worrying about my grown-up kids? And immediately I went. I know how that feels. So there was a little bit more. I got a little bit of background information that three grown-ups kids. The youngest is heading off to uni in September. And the other two are both working and one of them is getting married. So. . . I guess that's grown-up kids, Isn't it? The thing is. . . What she's talking about is that at 2 a. M. In the morning, Her mind goes straight to worrying about all sorts of different scenarios. When I first read this. The first thing that came to mind was. . . I thought I used to have, Which was, Well, You're a mum and you're supposed to worry. Because that's how I feel. Viewed things a few years ago, You know? I thought that was part of the job description. I didn't really think of it as worry. I thought of it as caring. And If I stopped worrying, It would mean that I stopped caring. That just was. . . How I saw it, You know, That it was a sign of my. . . The level of care I had about other people and my kids and so forth. I'll tell you a story first of all about something that I saw very plainly. So a few years ago, Quite a few years ago, Before I was involved in this conversation, This work, My son had a health issue, Quite a serious health issue. And which involved a really invasive in operation on his neck. And possibly further treatment, Radiotherapy, All those sorts of things. This is something pretty serious and potentially life-changing. My son has a partner. At the time he had two kids, The stepson. And he was a head chef. So busy lives, Small kids, And my son is heading for this. Operation. That's all I could think about. I wasn't just worrying at 2am in the morning, It was on my mind the whole time. My son lives about an hour away, So he's not round the corner, Which is probably good for him at that point. But I remember that I was so worried. I don't think I was very helpful. I didn't realize that at the time, But my head was full of. . . You know, Wanting to know how things went at the hospital, When he had his appointments, When he was going into hospital, What he should do, What he shouldn't do, Getting a second opinion. I mean, I'm sure that I drove him nuts. And He, And actually he was in hospital, It was very scary. He had some really nasty side effects which lasted quite a long time. I don't think I was. . . Much help. There's no doubt I cared. It's worrying, Really. You know, It didn't help. I wasn't able to see it when I was in it. But when I look back on it now, I can see that. I can see that. Because my head was so full of What ifs? Imagined. Scenarios about what might happen, What he should do, What would be best, All this sort of thing. I wasn't first of all, I wasn't present. I wasn't calm. And I had no access to any common sense that allowed me to Be helpful. Because the sort of things that I could have done And I did a little bit, But. . . Not to the extent that I could have, Was to offer more help at home to be around more for the kids to offer to take them to school or go shopping I don't know I could have been more available to him. And I didn't see this until years afterwards. When I almost embarrassed. Looking back. . . Having seen that's This. State of worrying we get into, Having seen just how unhelpful it is. Care isn't measured by how much you worry. It simply isn't. Stopping worrying doesn't mean that you stop caring. That's my first point. I'll give you another example. So I was working with a. Very recently. And she has a family. Again, Grown-up son, Married, Kids. Works together in the business and her son was going through a bit of a tough patch. So he was struggling with depression. And he'd actually started some counselling and my client, His mother, Was just doing exactly the same thing. In our sessions, All she talked about was her worries about her son. And there was lots of. Again what if this happens and he should be doing this and I'm not sure about the counselling and you know, Just a constant loop going on about this situation with her son. Lying awake at night, Running every scenario. So a few weeks into this situation, My client then shows up and tells me that her son has actually made. Change. He's made a major life change. About his work and where he's going to live. And completely turned his life around. As she put it, The. . . The son she knows. Know before the depression has suddenly shown up again and he's looking forward to this new chapter and he's really happy with the plans he's made and the whole family are behind him and everything has kind of turned itself around literally in a matter of a weekend, I think. What she realized was that first of all, None of her worrying had anything to do with his decision. The ideas and the decision he came to Not even anything that she'd ever considered happening. It came completely out of the blue. It surprised everybody. Surprised her, Surprised him. And just, You know, Seemed the solution, If you like, To what was going on in his life was something that nobody had imagined. It was so interesting because All of the scenarios that she'd been going through had, They were. Much more dire and worse and they were all not very positive outcomes. Which is interesting because we always seem to. . . What we worry and the way we worry and what we focus on grows. So when you're chewing stuff over at two o'clock in the morning, Worry gets bigger. You just end up disappearing down a rabbit hole or Negative. Outcomes. When in fact. . . What he actually did was come to a decision that was right for everybody, For him, For his family, Immediate family and the business, Everything. Afterwards. She was, His mother, My client was laughing and saying, That all along She'd forgotten. About the fact that he had his own wisdom, That he had his own resilience. She suddenly saw that her not even just her grown-up kids, But everybody has their own wisdom. Most of the time when we worry. We take it to the extreme. The things that we worry about generally, I find. Even if they happen. If the thing that we're worried about does come to pass, Very often it's not as bad as we'd imagined. And most of the time it doesn't anyway, You know. Most of the time our mind just goes into overdrive. Imagining the worst outcome and the worst scenario. Even if it does. Even when things, And sometimes they do, Change. Disintegrate, You know, When things go pear-shaped. We have what we need, We have. Ways of figuring things out. And even when you don't know. How you're going to sort something out. The problem isn't that you don't know, It's that you don't like not knowing. We don't like not knowing an answer to something. That's what our mind does. It wants solutions to problems. But most of the time, The problems that we. . . Think we need a solution for are things that we've made up. They're not even real problems. Their imagined problems. You know, Have you ever had that when? Maybe you want to have a conversation with someone about a decision you've made. That and you've decided that the other person isn't going to be very happy with your decision. So you run that conversation. Through your head a million times. And then you've eventually. . . Get around to get in front of that person and pluck up courage to actually open your mouth and say what you want to say. The reaction you get from the other person is nothing like you imagined Absolutely. You know, It's not even close. So that happened to me recently and I was worrying about something I wanted to bring up in a conversation with someone. And I. . . Was sure that I knew how. That person was going to respond. And of course I didn't know anything. I just made all these assumptions and. . . Done their thinking for them. In the apps. You know. Most of us are thinking most of our own thinking needs to be ignored. And then when we start thinking on behalf of other people, Well, You know, We're on a hiding to nothing. Worry! Isn't information. Okay? It's not fact. Worry isn't information about a situation, It's thinking, And thinking comes and goes. And if you can. . . Notice that. But worry is a bit like a storm. It's a bit like bad weather. You get caught up in it. You get caught up in a thought storm. But what do we know about weather? It does change, Even actually if it doesn't feel like it at the moment. It just feels like it's sunny all the time at the moment, Doesn't it? But you know what I mean. We know that whether. Moves through. And thinking moves through too, If you let it. And worrying is just overthinking something. It's imagination. It's worrying about the future. Imagining the future and it's using, Maybe it's using past experience and data to kind of reinforce that. But it's not happening now, It's not true. And when you're worrying at two o'clock in the morning, Which is really, Can be really. . . Can turn into a habit. I don't give advice really, But I'll tell you what I do is I get up and I do something and I make a cup of, I don't know, Tea or whatever, Your 2am in the morning drink. Is. And just Take your mind off it, Okay? So. . . I hope that's helpful. So, Yeah. Don't forget, You can love them completely and not carry them around in your head at 2am. They have their own wisdom, Their own resilience. And it's not your job. To do all the thinking for them. Don't forget, I work one-to-one with people. My program is all about living a life less serious, So less worrying at 2am in the morning for sure. And if you want to know more about how that works, Then just drop me a message.