The roots of the word “worry” comes from an old Anglo-Saxon word, Wyrgan. It originally meant to strangle, choke, or tear at the throat with teeth. It was used of animals who would attack other animals, such as dogs biting the throat of sheep. We can still see this use when we speak of a cat worrying a mouse. Cats play with their prey before they kill it, sometimes throwing it up in the air or slapping it back when it seems about to escape.
Yesterday morning, bright and early, our cat Barney proudly brought a big mouse into the house and let it free in the hall. Having safely confined Barney in another part of the house I was surprised to see the mouse sitting on a shoe, licking itself, apparantly unbothered. Without too much difficulty I managed to catch him in a plastic container and release him outside, much to Barney’s disappointment.
Our modern use of the word worry started out life in a similar way to this animal meaning, as “to cause mental anguish”. It later developed into its more common modern days sense of “to feel mental anguish”. Reflecting on the early morning cat and mouse tale, I felt that the original sense has much to tell us. We frequently worry ourselves, cause ourselves mental anguish. We have a lot of input into the process, and can sometimes return to an issue, just like a cat playing with a mouse. We can generate negative thoughts, imagine catastrophies, increasing our anxiety by developing scenarios which may never actually occur. In this way we “play” with a situation which may be simply registering in the body as a physical feeling and refuse to let it just be that.
As one meditation teacher reminded us, we should always notice the “add-ons” – the stories we bring to an experience. We may be feeling nervous about starting out on a new process, but then we add on stories about our worth or how our past has developed. We may be shy making friends, but then we add on a commentary as to how we will never be happy. We may have made a mistake and then exaggerate it into something that reflects our whole life and conduct.
One way to do this is to try and stay in the present, with the raw experience of the situation, and not add to it by remembering past qualities or mistakes, or move to the future by picturing certain outcomes. We can try and stop “playing” with our problem, like the cat does with the mouse, stop returning to it again and again, stop worrying it. We can try and let the situation just be, rather than returning to it, mistakingly thinking that this is a better way to “fix it”. We can let it go free.
We need to examine that notion of “fixing” ……. We need to question our concepts about how we want things to be and what we want people to become. If we can let go of some of that, we can see more clearly what we can and cannot do. We can learn not to obsess about all the problems we cannot solve, but to sort through them to find the one or two things we can actually do that might be helpful. It is better to do one small helpful thing than punish yourself for the many things beyond your power and ability to change or affect. Some problems can be solved, some cannot, and some are best left unsolved.
Judy Lief, The problem with problems
I came across this nice story set in the Middle Ages: A man sees a worker passing by with a wheel barrow and asks what he is doing. “Can’t you see, I’m pushing a wheelbarrow,” the man replies. Another wheelbarrow man comes by doing the same thing and he too is asked: “What are you doing.” He replies, “Can’t you see, I’m building the Cathedral at Chartres.”
Mindfulbalance 