How do you stop your mind from worrying when so much feels outside your control?
Over the past few weeks, my mind has been overwhelmed by worry. I’m worried about all sorts of things – rising inflation and markets crashing (will I be able to save enough for retirement?), aging (who will look after me when I’m old?), career choices (will I be able to shed my McKinsey skin and embody a more grounded, emergent way of being?). I’m not sure why all these worries are arising for me right now. Maybe this is what happens during that period of freefall in between jobs, when my time is completely my own.
In times like these, I can feel my own ‘inner manager’ – the part of me that wants to control outcomes by taking proactive action – kicking into high gear. I obsess over my budget and investment portfolio. I re-visit conversations with myself about whether to have children (but surely, one shouldn’t have a child only to make sure there is someone to make decisions for you when you are old?). I reach out to people in my network to discuss potential business opportunities.
And yet, so much is outside of my control. I can’t control the markets, or how future economic condition may affect my work. Even if I had a child, that child may not be around when I’m old. I could be in a car accident this weekend and my entire life could be turned upside down (I hope not, of course, but just to illustrate the point!) While we can take steps to try and steer the direction of our lives, we are ultimately floating in the current of a much more powerful river that will take us where it takes us.
So what to do with all these worries? For the past five years, I have kept what I call a ‘worry box’. This worry box is a small wooden puzzle box – one that is slightly difficult to open – that I bought in Bali during another big life transition. Over the past five years, I’ve written down the worries spinning around in my mind, placed them in the box, and turned them over to the Universe to look after for me. I find that, by doing this, they leave my head so I’m able to direct my attention elsewhere.
While I don’t revisit them regularly, I took them out on Monday this past week (the box was getting pretty full). Monday was a powerful day, astrologically – a full moon, a lunar eclipse, and my birthday during a time of major transition in my life. Full moons generally are a good time to release and let go of things, so I designed a small ritual where I read each worry out loud, thanked the Universe for looking after it for me, and then burned it. What surprised me most was that literally everything I had worried about over the past five years was a non-issue. The Universe had indeed resolved my worries about where to live, what job to take, and whether I had messed up a relationship (I had, but it was a good thing, because otherwise I would never have met R).
This week’s poem, by Denise Levertov, is about learning to stop efforting and relax into the gentle embrace of the Universe. I’m not always able to let go and trust in the way that hawks rest upon air, but it’s an aspiration I try to live into every day. I’ve already started putting new worries into the box, but I have more faith now that they will resolve themselves without too much action on my part. I hope this brings some comfort and respite for anyone else who may be consumed by worry this week.
