Why Would You Worry?
Anxiety develops from a lack of actionable intelligence, compassionate support, and/or alternative balancing energies.
I’m struck by how much we are all willing (myself included) to run the What if…? program in a pessimistic context more than an optimistic one. And beyond that, how much we will stay stuck in Wonder without moving beyond the dizzy spinning in Head Space to the simple application of the practical. All the hocus pocus and mysticism — the intuition and creative power — don’t do much to affect the reality of our daily lives.
Gathering Intelligence
- Do you have facts?
- Do you know where to find the facts you require?
- Is there someone who has/ can find the answers if you can’t?
Without facts — specific information, data — you can’t make decisions or take meaningful action.
Inviting Support
- Who may have the information that you require?
- Is there someone you can ask for help?
- Are you trying to bear your burden in secret?
- Are you stuck in the vacuum of your own bubble where your perspective is skewed?
- Do you just need someone to be a sounding board, to listen while you process/ work through your options?
You are not alone. You are most likely to receive the answers to your prayers, the potential solutions to your problems, from other people. You’re here reading this, which means you have access not only to information but to people all over the world.
Taking Action
- What is the next most obvious step? Don’t jump ahead to Steps X, Y, and Z until you’ve chipped away at A, B, and C. You may only need to take one small step to start a chain reaction that creates momentum, that starts a domino effect that reveals an entire path forward to your goal.
- What’s the next most obvious step after that? Course correct if necessary. If your first option didn’t lead to much, that’s great — you have just gained a valuable insight into what will not work and you can cross it off your list. Anxiety feeds off an over-abundance of What if scenarios — the more of these options you can remove, the lighter you will feel.
- Are your intentions and potential courses of action grounded in the Present (or at least tomorrow morning)? If you’re time-traveling into Past or Future actions, you’ve slipped out of reality.
You might assume that Imagination likes to pal around with Intuition — but actually, it’s Fear that loves to engage the Imagination. Fear, Worry, Anxiety, the Ego, the Thinking Mind — the voices in this part of your channel reveal themselves by how much they love to invent endless variations on a theme.
Often the very first thing you need to do (or the next thing you can do) is a combination of all three of the above. The next right course of action may simply be asking someone who has access to the information you require.
A client came to me worried that he might not be able to get out of a contract…
Do you know for sure that you can not get out it?
No…
Have you dug into the details of the contract for any loop holes, time frames, etc?
Not yet…
Have you asked someone who knows?
I need to…
Another client came to me with three goals for the coming year, all of them involving travel and event planning, and had already convinced himself that he could not accomplish all three because he was fearful that there could be timing conflicts down the road which would force him to sacrifice one or two goals (possibly all three)…
Do you know the exact dates for each event?
Well, I know one of them is definitely in August… Not sure about the dates for the other two.
Do you know where you can find out? Is there someone you can ask who knows?
I can probably find the dates online…
Have you considered the possibility that all three events may be divinely timed so that it is effortless for you to attend all of them, without any scheduling conflict?
I guess I’m rushing into the worst possible case scenario, huh?
Another client is starting a business and worried that she won’t have enough money for all the start up costs. She’s not sure if she may need a bank loan, a partner or investor, or if she can cover everything with savings…
Have you sat down and created a simple plan, breaking down with a list of everything you need and how much each will cost?
Well, a friend of mine told me her total start-up was $ X,XXX.
Is she running the same kind of business?
Not really…
Do you know someone with a business model closer to what you have in mind?
Yeah, I do, actually. He said he’d sit down with me over coffee and let me pick his brain sometime… I’m just shy about bothering him.
Spinning
When your Fear and your Imagination start building a time machine in the backyard and taking you on a lot of trips through the Looking Glass, to Narnia, across Parallel Universes — congratulations, you’re the proud proprietor of your own inner Film Studio, complete with props, special effects, imaginary characters, and infinite potential dramas.
My closest friends know that when I say I’m spinning it means I’m paralyzing myself spinning scenarios that may have nothing to do with reality. It’s all story-telling spun like cotton candy so that it looks like it has greater mass than it really does. Once you take a real bite, or grab hold of it, it quickly shrinks. Or it’s a cocoon of wispy threads that, cumulatively, over time, can turn into a smothering straight-jacket.
We even have a Spinning Scale of 1 to 10 to describe how much we need to be unwound, unraveled.
Alternative Balancing Energies
- Are you having any fun?
- Are you taking breaks and getting away from what you’re working on?
- Are you allowing yourself to mentally escape or relax?
- Are you getting any physical activity?
So Much Air You Can’t Breathe
Worrying, over-analyzing, over-thinking, problem-solving, decision-making, weighing options — these are intellectual, logical, mental activities.
Intellectual ideas, information, data, and communication are associated with the element Air. We are currently living in the Age of Aquarius and the Information Technology Revolution — we are overwhelmed by Air. Collectively, we are hyper-connected. Individually, this can be greatly magnified for those with a lot of significant Air in their astrological charts.
Cerebral, elemental Air activities must be balanced with Earth (physical grounding in the third dimensional body and its environment), Water (emotional engagement, social interaction, simple joy), Fire (passion, expression, energetic release), and Spirit (the intangible synergy of holistic divinity).
An over-abundance of any of the elemental energies may bleed into and effect the other aspects of your life, and they make very poor substitutes for one another.
Image Credit Meredith Farmer via Creative Commons on Flickr
Contacting Your Spirit Guide 101
Free resources for Shift Your Spirits readers:
- Read the eBook by Slade Roberson especially for beginners who want to know who/what spirit guides are and how to communicate with them
- Listen to the mp3 preview of the Spirit Guide Attunement portion of the Talking to Your Spirit Guides class by Slade Roberson
- Try the meditation to Meet a Guide contributed by Jeff Lilly of Druid Journal
Comments
14 Responses to “Why Would You Worry?”
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Great new topic, as always, Slade.
It makes one stop and wonder about life’s decisions and how to make the best choices. I like the fact you mention that we are not alone in our conclusions and that people all around us can help us see the clear path to our destinations.
While I agree, with everything you have said, I have another “wrinkle” to add.
Besides, thinking choices out, gathering information and following step after step.. I have found that sometimes a decision made in a split second is just as important as a long thought out one. It just depends on the situation. I have made college choices, relationship choices and friend choices, all based on a good intuition or feeling.
I think we need to acknowledge that in certain scenarios, a fast and smart process of reasoning can work as well.
Peace.
Great article! I feel like it’s very helpful to know the limitations of the mind. It can’t see into the future or conceive of possibilities it hasn’t already experienced - that’s the job of our Spirit. Our spirit has access to the entire expanded view of our path. The mind projects worry as an attempt to control/ protect what it can’t and in reality doesn’t need to because we are always.
Like you said Slade, asking about the facts is key - what are the current parameters of this manifestation - what’s factually true now? Then tune in to your Spirit and trust that it has your best interests at heart and since it has access to the entire view of the path to where you want to be, - it can and will guide you there.
So, Thanks again for this reminder! I also enjoyed reading about balancing energies. I’m a gemini, libra ascendent and naturally very mental person. It has be KEY for me in the not so distant past to understand how to bring myself back down to Earth, step out of the mental game and work towards balance - engaging and activating the other energies.
Love and light,
Adrianne
Great post, Slade. I agree that a reality check can come in handy in these types of situations. I am a psychologist and energy worker/intuitive and in my work one of the first things I do is an elemental assessment of my clients. For example, in an anxiety situation, usually their air element is in excess and their earth element is deficient. I find it helpful to suggest grounding exercises, such as walking, baking bread, or simply getting the cold, hard facts on the anxiety producing situation. And I am also finding, as you said, that durign this transition to the Age of Aquarius, many people are experiencing anxiety due to an excess of the air element in our collective energy field. Thanks for describing it so well.
Blessings,
Mary
check out http://www.whatifup.com . we use this at church and have wonderful miracles manifesting. We are so conditioned to “what if” the horrors/ awful possiblities that we forget the other side of the coin…”what if” the miracles! We wonder what is going to happen “to us” and forget that we are creating our future right now with our thoughts.
thanks for the nudge to flip that coin!
Great article as always, Slade. As I was reading it, what popped into my head is that “thinking” and “consciousness” are two different things. It’s tempting to try for greater consciousness by thinking more, when thought itself can actually wrestle us away from what IS and totally over-complicate our situation.
The way out of “spinning” for me is always action - any action!
Blessings,
Andrea
Ken,
The split-second (intuitive) decisions you make ARE ideal — absolutely. Situations that are acted upon quickly are NOT a source of anxiety, are they? The majority of my articles are about the immediacy of intuitive decision-making and action — I would say that the majority of the decisions I personally make are indeed automatic and intuitive — this article is about those circumstances that have gone beyond that, where you have missed the boat on the intuitive and gone into over-thinking.
Adrianne,
The Gemini energy manifests almost as a kind of A.D.D. — the Libra, oh my yes, this article is very Libran — Libra wants to process all potential trajectories before making decisions.
Mary,
I agree with you totally — anxiety is usually an overabundance of air and/or a lack of earth.
Andrea,
Very good point — I like that insight — thinking more doesn’t equal or necessarily lead to consciousness.
I loved this article! And I find it very timely for me on so many levels.
In particular, I was thinking that we, in general right now, are “overwhelmed by Air”–mostly Hot Air!
There is so very much negativity going on in our world today. It is hard not to get caught up in all the drama and what-if-ness! For me, this lead to a great deal of “spinning!” I finally decided to stop stirring the pot in my life with it, (stopped allowing the media to help me keep spinning), which meant that I had to do something I didn’t think I could do: I stopped watching the news and keeping up with current events. This is unlike me. But I just could not handle all the negative energy being pumped into all this bad stuff going on in our economy right now!
At this time there is no amount of research, knowledge or control that I have or do about any of the dramas going on in my world on this level. So it is better to just get off the train and be in a peaceful place!!
I can’t believe how very much better and more at peace I feel being in the dark!
Barbara
When I first learned to read Tarot, I had a tendency to always instantly find the worst possible meaning for the cards in front of me. Fortunately, I quickly came across a book called What’s In the Cards for You that had me do an intuition exercise that helped me out of this habit, both with the cards and elsewhere. It asked me to imagine three possible readings: a really bad one, a really good one, and then one that was more realistic.
When I start spinning, finding facts and taking action are good cures. It also helps to start asking myself how likely the really bad scenario is to happen. Sometimes fears serve as a legitimate call to action. But sometimes fears are just the mind playing silly games. If it’s 99.9% probable that this will never happen, why worry?
Awesome. Loved the last bit about the elements and balancing. Such a great reminder.
So here’s another side I’m curious about… what if the spinning revolves around positive scenarios… two potential futures one can see evolving dependent upon one crucial decision? No anxiety as such, but just a constant back and forth as to which direction to go in… Future A or Future B?
Hi there.
Listening to you via this Libra’s hearing, making worry and decisions non-issues was actually lyrical and melodic.
Interesting article, Slade.
I was in a shamanic workshop a few months back and we were talking about the four elements - air, water, fire and earth and I realized there was too much air in my life. I am Aquarius with Libra rising too and working on the net all day and living in a big city means lack of Earth. The result of all this imbalance is a tendency to ’spin’ as you refer to it.
I have stopped doing that so much since I moved out of London and am spending lots of time in nature…
Barbara,
I totally recommend a News Blackout once in awhile. I did a near total media blackout for three full years before I started writing this site (no news, no TV, not even movies…) I think I’ve found a more healthy balance for it all now, but when the spinning gets really bad — start hitting power buttons until you can think straight again! You won’t miss anything, I promise you…
Rob,
I must say that I often advise people that classic, old school Tarot IS very negative, dark, and pessimistic. There are many more recent divination systems and modern adaptations or versions of the Tarot which aren’t quite so Dark Ages. I like your three-pronged possible interpretations for the cards — that seems like a good way to mitigate some of that gloom and doom with a bit of healthy, practical translation. Thanks for the suggestion. I’m sure there are many people reading this who appreciate that tip!
K-L,
About the choosing between Two possible positive paths — first, I’d ask Are you sure you can’t do both?
Other than that, I’ll repeat some of the best advice I’ve ever received regarding decision making of the kind you describe — all things being equal (all good, both potentially great) — it literally may come down to a coin toss.
Pick either path, totally at random if necessary, and begin moving toward it. This is the fastest way to reveal the “right” choice. If for any reason it’s not a good idea, you’ll know it — blocks, barriers, brick walls, and other alarms may pop up. You can then immediately course correct and try the other path.
You know you’ve made the right choice because it just keeps unfolding…
Sitting on the fence and thinking more without taking some kind of decisive action just keeps the whole game on Pause…
Barbara,
Libra doesn’t like to make a move until the Jury comes back. The Libra is definitely challenging…
Anna,
Honey — OMG — yes! Aquarius + Libra + information worker… That is a recipe for a big spinning AIR tornado, isn’t it? You are right — the immersion in Nature is a great way to balance and brink back some Earth.
Slade,
As per usual, you highlighted exactly what I needed to see - who not both indeed?
I was stuck in either/or thinking which is why I couldn’t figure it out… Oh how our minds limit us when we allow them to!
Interesting take on how too much Air makes it impossible to breathe, and the Tarot angle takes it even a bit further: Swords are the element of Air, and we all know the more we spin, the more Swords will show up on those cards. What is the Eight of Swords but a mental prison of our own making, the Nine but the sleepless 3am filled with worry, and the Ten but the the end result?
Just some add’l murmurs from someone else reading… and of course, I’m a Libra.