Unravel the Worry Knot: For Today Only
When I was growing up in North Carolina, I was exposed to some interesting expressions of worry. I learned that you could “worry someone to death”, that I could be “worried sick” about something, and that a dog “worries a bone”. Someone could be a “worry wart”, while someone else “fussed and worried” over the preparation of a meal.
I grew up to find that people carry “worry stones” as a way to focus their nervous ticks. Some cultures create “worry dolls” as a place to store their fears and cares.
So what is worry - and why do we do it?
Personally, I think worry is an unfortunate twist on a good thing. Part of what makes us unique as humans is our ability to learn from past adventures and project the lessons into the future. To our ancestors, survival depended on our ability to take what we learned from last year’s hard winter to prepare for the next hard winter. To remember where the big cats will be looking for dinner and not pitch camp there. This is the part that is a good thing.
The unfortunate twist is when you look back at the last hard winter and, instead of seeing how to make next year better, you get really afraid of the next winter coming up. Instead of, “Ah, that is the hunting ground of big cats so I should not camp there”, you start to be afraid that the big cats are everywhere, and no place is safe.
It is unlikely that our ancestors spent a lot of time worrying about the big cats. They just did what was prudent and moved. To spend time in fear of the big cats behind them might cause them to miss the cobra in the path ahead. What our ancestors understood, and what we seem to have forgotten, is that while awareness of danger can help you prepare, fear of it can paralyze you.
And fear is what feeds worry. Like wind feeds a wildfire, fear can send thoughts raging out of control.
I remember reading a particular commentary on the Yoga Sutras, dealing with the special yogic power of time travel. The commentator noted that time travel is not difficult. As humans, we are mostly reliving the past or anticipating the future - we are always time-traveling! The true “special power” is staying grounded in this moment.
Somewhere along the way, we stopped using these lessons from the past as a way to avoid problems in the future so that we can live in a peaceful present moment. Our fears toss us mercilessly from the past to the future and back again, too paralyzed and habituated to this state to simply get off of the time-travel ride.
For today only: Do not worry. I have also seen this precept written: Worry not. Having a mind that tends to think in puns, I immediately envision an actual knot. A worry knot seems a perfect metaphor for a mind in this state, winding tighter and tighter until all it can see is the problem - never the solution. In fact, the mind becomes the problem.
How do you unravel a worry knot? You don’t. Take a lesson from Alexander the Great, the fastest way to unravel a Gordian knot of worry is to slice cleanly through it with the sword of present moment awareness. Take a breath and take stock. If necessary, take action. But for today only, do not worry.
