The word worry derives
from the same word as strangle. Worry strangled some of my childhood joy. It still has
the power to knock me down and hijack my brain. It has the capacity to
literally strangle our life force.
Worry also deactivates
our frontal lobe, so we have no executive functioning, or the ability to
organize, plan, make good decisions, regulate emotions, and self-monitor!
Life is ultimately
unpredictable and uncontrollable (yes…this is what we are worrying
about). The worry makes us somehow feel as if we are “doing” something
about the fact that life is uncontrollable.
So what is the balm to
worry?
There is a teaching in
the yoga tradition called Ishvara Pranidana, which means “surrender to
your highest self”. It is cultivating a state of openness and
receptivity. It’s agreeing to surrender those aspects of your life over
which you have no control, and trusting that if you stay open and receptive,
that you will receive exactly what you need.
There is a lightness
that comes with surrender. And, it may even slow how we age. Non-attachment is a
common psychological characteristic of people who live to be 100.
So, commit to the
practice of surrender and release. To staying open to your life – nothing
is worth closing over. Let me repeat, nothing is worth closing over.
Relax and
release. Relax and release. Relax and release. We don’t have
to know everything about our future or how our own transformation is going to
work. What if you started to repeat to yourself, “life is working out
for me”?