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“Worry is the other of affection. Love is the absence of concern. No matter you do out of concern will create extra concern. No matter you do out of affection will create extra love.” ~Osho
I didn’t notice I used to be pushed by concern for many of my life.
I believed I used to be making decisions from love by being good, accountable, form, and profitable. Wanting again, I see how a lot of my life was organized round protecting myself secure, and that got here from a spot of concern.
From the surface, I appeared profitable, sensible, and simply implausible at grownup life. Within the quiet moments, which I not often allowed, I felt boring, disconnected, and like I used to be watching my life from the surface. I stuffed these voids and pushed away these emotions by doing. I had no concept that concern was within the driver’s seat. Worry spoke loudly and informed me:
Preserve your self small.
Watch out about talking up.
Attempt to be nearly as good as others.
You’re not good or ok and have to work more durable and do extra.
Love must be earned by proving your self.
And since I didn’t comprehend it was concern, I listened. I believed these messages have been the reality. I didn’t notice that I lacked the expansive, open energy of self-love.
The Second I Realized Worry Was Operating My Life
I didn’t acknowledge concern till it had fully consumed me.
In March 2020, I sat on my mattress, crying, shrouded within the disgrace of failure. My husband and younger youngsters have been on the opposite aspect of the door, and I used to be scared. I didn’t need to face them and be residence with them via the pandemic lockdown,with no college or work as respite.
I feared that I might fail them, and that I couldn’t maintain it collectively to be the calm, loving mother and spouse they wanted.Principally, I used to be afraid of how having the ability to deal with it. My alone time, as a lot as I used to be disconnected from myself and stuffed any quiet with noise and distraction, was after I recharged.
I had spent a lot of my life striving, pushing, proving, and performing, determined to be ok.
However regardless of how laborious I labored or how a lot I achieved, it by no means felt like sufficient.
That day, as I sat there, exhausted and damaged, a thought rose inside me:
“There must be one other means. I can not go on like this.”
After which, via the heaviness, I heard a quiet voice:
“The work is inside you.”
That was the second every part began to vary. I pulled that internal thread, and for the primary time, I slowed down sufficient to really feel.
I let myself be nonetheless. I let myself sit with feelings I had spent a lifetime avoiding. Unhappiness, failure, disgrace, guilt, and resentment all rose to the floor. And as I unraveled, my coronary heart began to open, and I noticed that I had been dwelling in a state of concern.
I had spent years pondering my means via concern, attempting to manage it with logic. However actual understanding—actual change—got here after I began listening to my physique and its quiet whispers.
Worry vs. Love
As soon as I discovered tips on how to join with my physique, I observed:
Worry is loud and demanding, whereas love is quiet and calm.Worry creates inside stress: “Hurry! Transfer! You’re late!”Love is affected person: “Take your time. The appropriate solutions are inside you.”
Worry feels tight, restricted, and on edge, whereas love feels expansive, open, and comfy.Worry comes with shallow respiratory, pressure within the shoulders, and a racing coronary heart.Love brings deep breaths, relaxed muscular tissues, and a way of surprise.
Worry lives within the thoughts, whereas love lives within the physique.Worry spins tales. Love is current.
Worry retains you small, whereas love invitations you to develop.Worry says, “Keep the place it’s secure.”Love says, “Step ahead. You possibly can deal with this.”
My greatest realization got here with realizing that love doesn’t power or stress or disgrace. I lived so a few years feeling like I needed to tread rigorously and never make a mistake, or else I might be in hassle or be found as a fraud. This stemmed from childhood, the place, because the oldest little one, I didn’t need to trigger issues for my dad and mom. I do know now that was straight out of concern’s playbook.
Shifting from Worry to Love
Worry will at all times be there. It’s a part of being human. It’s not all unhealthy. We need to really feel concern when there’s actual hazard. However we don’t need it to be our mindset.
Right here’s what I do now after I really feel concern creeping in:
1. Get out of the thoughts and into the physique.
You possibly can’t assume your means out of concern. As an alternative, I:
Shut my eyes.
Take a deep breath, inhaling via my nostril and sighing out of my mouth.
Place a hand on my coronary heart or stomach.
Discover the sensations in my physique—tightness, heat, buzzing, stillness.
Ask myself, “What am I afraid of?”
2. Discover the distinction between concern’s voice and love’s voice.
When making a call, I ask:
Does this thought really feel pressing, pressured, or heavy? That’s concern.
Does this thought really feel grounded, spacious, or mild? That’s love.
3. Transfer via concern—don’t push it away.
Worry doesn’t disappear simply because we want it away. As researcher Jill Bolte Taylor says, with any emotion, if we are able to sit in it for sixty to ninety seconds with out attaching a narrative or thought to it, the concern will go. This may be uncomfortable and takes some apply.
As an alternative of avoiding concern, strive saying:“I see you. I do know you’re attempting to maintain me secure. What would you like me to know?”
One morning, after forgetting my son’s backpack in school drop-off, I felt concern within the type of harsh self-criticism. It sat heavy in my intestine. I requested it, “What would you like me to know?” It informed me I used to be a failure. As I dialogued with it, I found that beneath the anger and stress was exhaustion—and part of me that wanted relaxation and reassurance.
4. Make small decisions from love.
We don’t should make huge leaps. Even small shifts—selecting self-compassion over self-criticism, presence over anxiousness, fact over avoidance—start to rewire our nervous system.
Selecting Love, One Breath at a Time
I spent years letting concern run my life with out realizing it.
I believed I needed to assume my means via every part. However the second I dropped into my physique, issues modified. I’m extra current, compassionate, curious, appreciative, and embodied.
Now, when concern arises, I now not attempt to silence it. I don’t struggle it. I don’t disgrace myself for feeling it.
As an alternative, I breathe. I hear. I discover the way it feels. After which I ask myself:
“Is that this concern talking? Or is that this love?”
And every time doable, I select love.
About Rebecca FellenbaumRebecca Fellenbaum is a licensed life coach, intuitive information, author, and entrepreneur. She helps girls who’ve “made it” on the surface really feel nice about themselves on the within to allow them to discover pleasure of their lives, youngsters, and households. Get her free information: Slowing Down: 9 Steps to Dwell With Intention to start out which means it if you say you’re doing superb. Discover her at rebeccafellenbaum.com.
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