Ahimsa Week 3: Worrying
Well, friends, it’s been more than a week. In fact, it’s been about a month. But in yoga we learn that if you fall out of a pose, it’s ok. Just come back into it when you’re ready. In fact, falling out of a yoga pose is a good thing. It means you’re challenging yourself and learning new things!
As a reminder, we’re in the midst of exploring Ahimsa, non-violence. The third aspect of Ahimsa is worrying.
Hi, my name is Brooke, and I’m a worrier.
The constant refrain in my brain is “… but what if…?” Yoga has gone a long way toward helping my anxious thoughts. Yoga helps me stay present in the now and avoid thinking too much about the future. Deborah Adele frames worrying this way:
“Worry is fear that hasn’t grown up yet; it is a misuse of our imagination. We both devalue and insult others when we worry about them”
(P.S. The same goes for worrying about yourself or your own life.) Worrying means we’re not totally trusting the person we’re worrying about, whether that’s a loved one, or ourself. Worry means we don’t believe that person has the skills or the wisdom to find their way out of whatever difficulty they face. Most of us feel that when someone we love is struggling we want to “be there for them,” “support them,” or “believe in them” but worry about them is the opposite of that. It’s dis-believing in them.
Catalyzed by our worry, we may try to help that person. Adele makes an interesting distinction between “help” and “support.” Help is hands-on. Help is doing your child’s homework for them. Support gives space, while being available for assistance when needed. Support is sitting at the table with your child watching them struggle with their homework and being available for questions when your child asks.
Trying to help others is usually well-intentioned, but is still subtly violent. Helping prevents the other person from learning lessons they need to learn in order to grow, prevents them from developing skills and confidence they need to move forward in life. Helping is an expression of worry and disbelief. By contrast support reflects a deep seated trust that the person has what they need to come through a challenge successfully. Support mediates fear by offering the option of a landing pad if necessary, but operates on the fundamental premise that the other person can do it!
“Nonviolence asks us to trust the other’s ability to find the answer they are seeking. […] It asks that we stop managing ourselves, our experience, others, and others’ experiences of us. Leave the other person free of our needs, free to be themselves, and free to see us as they choose.”
As a life-long worrier, this section of the book gave me an interesting new perspective. It helped me see worrying as exactly that quote above: a futile attempt to constantly manage not only my own experiences, but the experiences of everyone around me. In letting that go, I can have so much more freedom and ease, and offer that to others as well. I’ve tried to change my own thought patterns around worrying and helping. The past few weeks if I find myself worrying about my partner or wanting to help him with a challenge, I instead try to frame it as support. This approach not only gives me more freedom and less responsibility for someone else’s life, but I think has helped my partner feel more confident and free as well.
I’ll leave you with one last thought from Adele:
“What would happen in the lives of others if we could choose love over worry and carry this kind of trust and belief in our loved ones?”