Worry Wart

January 18th, 2008 by Jen

Yes, I am one. I tend to worry about people more than things. I worry about what people think of me. I worry about the things people do to sabotage themselves. I worry about how the guides’ ruthless compassion will be received. I worry that my friendships tend to strain under the weight of expectations that I am Spotted Eagle, and that I can be held to such a lofty standard. I awakened this morning and realized immediately that I was worrying. There were a host of little devils inside my head, badgering me about the difficulties that several close friends are undergoing. I rolled over and groaned, “I don’t want to be thinking about this!” Grandfather appeared at the bedside. He smiled comfortably. “Then stop resisting what is for them,” he said. “Breath. Relax! There is nothing to do. Nothing you can do. Nothing you ought to do. And when there is something for you to do, the Universe will place it before you. But take care. Not every request is one you should answer. Much of what people are convinced they need cannot serve their growth. Most of their suffering is self-induced. And it serves a useful purpose. It is there to make out-of-power thinking uncomfortable for the thinker so he can stop engaging in it.” I will call it an epiphany, but not in the sense that it was a revelation. I know this stuff like the back of my hand. I suppose the a-hah came in simply seeing, in a now moment, how my perception (that the suffering of my friends was wrong) was driving the behavior (worrying about them), and that it was influencing my choices (to believe it is my job to solve their problems for them and make them feel better). In the six years I have been at this “job,” Grandfather has been telling me that my greatest strength lies in being a Sacred Witness to the journey of those around me. He has never wavered from the idea that we cannot know what, if anything, to do for others until we can learn to be present with their pain. Otherwise, what we do will very likely result from our resistance, and chances are good that what we do for them will violate the sanctity of their sacred path of evolution.

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