theworryblog.com

Published with the author’s permission.

We worry a lot, and the things we worry about are unlimited. For example, the current hot issues - the war, the economy, immigration, global warming, health care - and the list goes on. If these weren’t enough, how about our personal problems, our jobs, our relationships, our families, our health, our future, our greed and our envies, and how about the endless choices we must make everyday. It’s enough to drive anyone bonkers.

Somehow we cope, however, and how we cope determines our quality of life. Some cope well and with a little good luck have relatively few problems. Others, not so lucky, have many problems. It’s a roll of the dice. The cards are dealt from a crooked deck at times and we’re never sure what kind of a hand we’ll get. Some kids get a great start - a good education, many opportunities - while others, like seeds that fall on unfertile ground, are left behind before they have a chance to develop their potential.

And if we are sensitive at all, we should be concerned about all of these things, but when our concerns turn into worries, then instead of a logical search for rational solutions we are faced with a quagmire of emotion and fear - and this is a clue to why we worry.

What is the basis of worry? Is it really the things themselves, the problems themselves which are endless, that cause our worry or is it something more fundamental? Why is it that some people, with the same pressures and concerns as ours worry not at all, while we wring our hands constantly? What do they know that we don’t? This would be important information for us, wouldn’t it?

What they know, at least subconsciously, is that worry grows from fear - worry has its roots in fear. Simple concern and the resulting solutions on the other hand have their roots in observation and action. Where fear is always a result of projecting the future, concerned action deals only with the present. Knowing that worry comes from fear, however, does not solve our problem. This is like telling us that our hunger comes from lack of food but doesn’t tell us how to solve the food problem! So how do we end the fear that prompts the worry?

Before we master anything including fear and its chronic, slow burning aspect called worry, we must understand fear. Many times, just by understanding a problem, completely, fully, we solve the problem with no further action at all. So how do we get to the root of this fear? What exactly is it?

What we should know about fear, to begin with, is the physical symptoms that fear creates. A meditator will study fear by isolating it from the object of his or her fear and observe only the physical symptoms of fear. They will learn about fear backward and forward just as they learn about all of their emotions. Once a meditator understands all aspects of fear, and when there are no further surprises regarding it, then they can take that understanding a little further.

As the fear is observed in more detail, a meditator will see that fear is the product of two very simple things; time and thinking. Without either of these in the picture, there can be no fear. When you see a tiger you run, it’s after a few steps that the fear takes over when you realize that the tiger can run faster than you can! The running is pure action based on observing the tiger, but thinking about being eaten is worry! So a meditator isolates the feeling of fear itself, not what he or she is fearful of.

Fear is always connected with the future - what is going to happen if this happens, etc. - and this involves the thinking process. It’s not that we shouldn’t think; it’s a matter of regulating positive thought and dismissing negative thought such as worry.

This is how a meditator practices; they uncover all the hidden aspects that keep us befuddled in life including many of our psychological attachments and psychological attempts to acquire security; for example, building up a reputation or seeking popularity or fame. Meditators do this because they come to understand that psychological attachments and securities breed fear - we become afraid that in the future, our attachments and our security, that which we love, will disappear and then where will we be? Therefore, a meditator takes attachments and security a little further and investigates them from a very dispassionate point of view, simply because these things are what foster our endless, subconscious fears. They are the basis of our fear.

Dispassion should not be confused with uncaring. Dispassion means not buying into the mindless emotionalism that adds grief and worry to our daily experience. Coming completely undone because one of our beloved attachments goes away is natural, but a meditator will at least understand how he or she sets himself or herself up for it and will be able to take a better overview of the situation. This is how some people simply don’t worry about things. Even if they are not meditators, they somehow understand life from a different perspective; they seem to have an overview seeing the forest instead of becoming trapped in the trees. If you are not one of these gifted individuals, you can become one. Meditation can take you there.

Compassion, that common bond that develops between people when we understand our universal problem, is the characteristic of so many of our historical spiritual leaders. This worldwide salve supersedes differences of religions and goes beyond winning and losing - and guess what, it replaces worry! When we stop worrying about ourselves by conquering our fear, we can see others, it’s that simple. And when we can see others and realize that their plight is no different from ours, our hearts naturally go out to them. This is the true basis of a meditator’s practice - universal, unconditional love which in essence makes their practice not so much a religion, but what the religions of the world are framed from.

And this is why worry is so good; because we can get over it, and when we get over it we get over ourselves, because it is our “self” that we fundamentally worry about. Therefore, the ending of worry is the none other than the doorway to compassion.