How To Worry Less About Everything
Money, health, success, relationships, work... what troubles you?
Everything is impermanent. We will begin here, because everything else I want to say leans on this. Our lives whoosh past with the swiftness of light. None of us know how long we’ve got left. Difficult things happen to us and to those we love. We get hurt.
As a way of trying to deal with these truths, we build up layers of self-protection -perfectionism, harshly judging others and ourselves, compulsions. Parts of us that worry. This self-protection ends up poking us (ouch) and other people (oops, sorry). It ends up, ironically, keeping us away from the good stuff.
Are you still reading? I hope so, because now I will move onto the good news. It is inevitable that difficult things will continue to happen, but it isn’t inevitable that we will be consumed with worry about them. It isn’t inevitable that they will cast their shade over everything bright, delicious, meaningful and marvellous about this life.
We can find good ways of living alongside or even right in amongst the difficult stuff. We can become lighter on our feet, and wiser about choosing the best path for us (the one with the fewest hazards, with breath-snatching views). We can access an infinite source of wisdom and compassion that’s just behind the panic or the manic planning. We can play!
This piece and my upcoming series is about how you can get better at living gracefully with impermanence.
On Tuesdays I will share pieces like this one on specific topics - how to worry less about the meaning of life, money, ageing, failure & more. On Fridays (for paid subscribers - do let me know if you can’t afford a subscription and I’ll sort you out) I’ll share a more personal story about that week’s topic, and then some practical theory and/or an exercise, often involving the crazy magic of Internal Family Systems (here’s my introduction to IFS with puppies).
Let me touch the ground before we go on, and say this. We are living in a time of many wars, climate change, systemic racism and other forms of oppression. These are not problems we can completely solve, and our own psyches are the same - we all hold pockets of deep trauma, and long-standing rifts between conflicting parts of us. How much we have to contend with depends on where we were born, what bodies we were born into and all kinds of other conditions beyond our control. I am not promising a ‘magic fix’ and I don’t want to minimise the impact of all these causes and conditions.
And. (I really believe in this ‘and’.) There are things we can do to tend to our own pain, to the suffering of others and to our ailing planet. We can heal. And we can do all that with exquisite gentleness.
Will you accompany me?
After decades of being a psychotherapist, a Buddhist minister and a still-everso-fallible human being, I’ve learnt a few things. Here are my anti-worry touchstones which I hope you will carry with you as we move into specific topics of concern over the coming weeks. Do take what you like and leave the rest, and if you have any questions or anything to add (we hold so much wisdom between us all) please let me know in the comments.
⭐ You are not alone. You certainly might feel alone, and in practical ways this may well be true right now. I also believe that there will be people out there who, if you told them, would deeply understand what it’s like to be you, and who would feel deep compassion for the parts of you that are suffering. I also believe that animals can offer us a reminder of this being-alongside-everything, and books, and gardens, and beloved objects like my handmade blue mug, and the golden sunrise that is happening right now as I look up from my laptop. If you are alive, you are not alone.
⭐ Your parts always have reasons for what they do. A basic tenet of IFS is that even the parts of us that cause absolute chaos are doing the best they can for us, in order to try and keep us steady. I see my workaholic parts as trying to help me to overcome a feeling of worthlessness. I see my ‘cowardly’ parts as trying to protect me from conflict. My worrying parts are the same - they think that they are protecting me from a host of scary things, and they don’t know what else to do. Being curious about these parts, and offering them compassion, is the beginning of change.
⭐ There is always hope of change. There is no guarantee that things will change as quickly as you want them to, or in the specific way you want them to, but change itself is guaranteed. Remember - everything is impermanent! I have witnessed miraculous recovery from addiction, the healing of decades-old wounds, the fresh blooming of love… I have also seen (and experienced) that sometimes the best change emerges from the most painful of times. It’s not over until the fat lady sings. I love that fat lady with the velvety voice.
⭐ The answer is always love. When I say ‘love’ I don’t mean something ephemeral, naïve or sickly-sweet. I mean the kind of solid ground that holds you up when everything is quaking and juddering. I believe that this love is both inside us (often hidden) and outside us (often stopped from entering us by our well-meaning protective parts) and that when we can shine this compassion on our prickly protection it begins to relax. This relaxing actually happens in a variety of ways and I’ll be saying more about this over the coming weeks.
⭐ We can get better at receiving love. There are practices, rituals and (gentle) disciplines that help us to open more love. We can also sometimes change some of our conditions to make this more likely. Who do we hang out with? How do we talk to ourselves? How often do we get outside? How much do we know about what supports us and what isn’t helpful? Maybe take a two-breath pause right now, noticing where the tension is living in your body, and imagine a little love soaking in. Experience any relief, even a teensy bit? See - we can effect change.
⭐ We can get better at offering ourselves and others love. When we get better at receiving love, we naturally want to pass this on to those who are suffering. This is why I write here at Going Gently. When we become more connected to ourselves and to all of our parts, we feel more connected to others, to other living beings and to dear Earth. We are not alone. We may also discover (hurray!) that offering things makes us happy.
If you have the time, revisit these six points every day this week (maybe write them on a post-it) and see if they begin to work some anti-worry magic on you.
So! I’m really looking forward to exploring the nooks and crannies of our flawed and lovely psyches with you as the weeks unfold. Don’t forget to bring your worries along.
Go gently,
Satya <3
Tell me: What do you worry about? How much of your energy does it take? Rather than worrying, maybe you funnel your ‘worry-energy’ into excessive planning or perfecting or working or self-criticism, or doing things to numb yourself out a bit? (If so, all my advice will apply just as much to you too.) Which of the list above might help you to find a different angle with these worries this week, or shed a different light on what happens inside you?
PS In this Friday’s piece I will tell you a story about my huge stack of journals and share the most precious jewel I have to share. I’ll also tell you how to unblend from your parts - the most important bit of Internal Family Systems and the key to accessing more compassion, curiosity and all those other good qualities of Self. Join me?
Mostly I worry about my health and what will happen to me when it deteriorates to such an extent that I won't be able to take care of myself. That's a dark cloud hanging over me every day, followed by a fear and dread forcing itself upon me through nightmares and dark visions in the hours when others are sleeping. I worry about my children, all adults now, and how they can take care of themselves as they face the onslaught of a frightening future. But I have also learned that love is the answer, the only answer, the love that you describe so beautifully above, and which I have practiced as self-compassion (so difficult) and tonglen. I am looking forward to the unfolding of your upcoming posts, thank you.
Tell me: What do you worry about? How much of your energy does it take? Rather than worrying, maybe you funnel your ‘worry-energy’ into excessive planning or perfecting or working or self-criticism, or doing things to numb yourself out a bit? (If so, all my advice will apply just as much to you too.) Which of the list above might help you to find a different angle with these worries this week, or shed a different light on what happens inside you?