“Instead of worrying about what you cannot control, shift your energy to what you can create.”
― Roy T. Bennett
When I was in my twenties I went on a big solo adventure. I started in Fiji, then went to New Zealand and finally to Australia. I spent roughly a month in each place and had the absolute time of my life.
Planning for my trip was a different matter though. I was so full of worry I almost didn’t go. I convinced myself I would never return alive. I was quite certain I was going to die in all kinds of ways that I imagined in excruciating detail. There was a big snowstorm the day of my flight and I secretly hoped I’d be granted one more day at home so I could say a proper ‘goodbye forever’ to everyone I loved (yes, it was all very dramatic). Once I got on the plane, surprisingly, my worry dropped like a stone. And even when I did all kinds of crazy things that would have made any casual observer worry for my safe return, I remained steady, capable and took each moment and each day as it came.
Parenting has been a similar journey. I almost missed out on being a mom because I worried about all kinds of things; mostly that I wasn’t ready, that I hadn’t done enough work on myself to take on raising a child. Since my daughter’s birth, I have worried over so many decisions that I coped with through excessive reading, researching, making endless lists and joining various parent-child groups. There have been some unexpected twists but mostly it has been the adventure of a lifetime. Once I am ‘in it’ whatever the worry was simply becomes insignificant and I recognize that there was no sense in worrying to begin with.
This week for my writing group we were asked to write a poem about the hands of someone we know. The poem that spilled from this prompt has that old stamp of worry all over it and that tells me that I am about to enter a phase where I have a choice: I can exhaust my energy with worry or I can drop the stone now and recognize that I can choose to shift my energy into a continual connection with my daughter, one moment and one day at a time.
What kind of role does worry play in your life? How does it catapult you into story-telling and drama? How does it exhaust your energy reserves? How can you recognize it and shift into moment by moment awareness instead?
