In the song, Three Little Birds Bob Marley sings, “Don't worry, about a thing 'cause every little thing, is gonna be all right.”

Some would sigh and think, “Yes, that’s right Bob.” However, others (you know who you are) have a very difficult time quieting their worries and adopting Bob’s laid-back philosophy.

As a mindset coach, I have found that “worrying” is a crafty form of self-sabotage, sort of like a mirage. It tricks you into believing that you are productive, proactive and creating safety for yourself. In reality, a worrying mindset is both physically draining and a huge source of time waste.

If we put “worry” under a microscope, you would see that part of the mind that focuses on problems, sees doom and gloom in the future and asks “what if this happens.” Feelings of worry, anxiety and fear are produced at an accelerated rate to make you hyperaware and on high alert. Flight or fright is the predominate state of mind. It limits clear thinking, confidence and appropriate action. Often it is reactive and ineffective.

Yet, worry is often seen as a positive attribute and is used as a strategy. If you worry you are perceived as conscientious and responsible. It means you are caring and connected with others. How many times have you heard the words, “I’m only telling you my concerns (worry) because I care.” Your friend or loved one is connecting with you by prompting you to worry. You agree, and start your own act of worrying to be connected and accepted.

Worrying as a core belief

Using worry as a strategy is interesting and in some ways, quite brilliant. The origin of this strategy comes from beliefs taught to us in childhood by our parents or primary caretakers. We learn from a very young age that worrying is a way to keep safe and avoid making mistakes. Mistakes and failures are taught to be avoided at all costs. We are instructed to become focused and anxious and by extension alert to danger.

Unfortunately, mistakes are not taught as a valuable learning experience that help your mind
and knowledge grow but rather as a painful experience necessary for survival. It is such a profound transfer of “lived experience” that we subconsciously internalize our parents worry mindset and beliefs. They become part of our personality automatically triggered when we are in new situations that are unknown.

For example, one of my clients “Sandy,” employs worry so much that she told me that “it’s just me, I’m a worrywart.” Sandy grew up with a mother that worried frequently. Her mother used the expression “I worry about you” with a pinched look on her face that resulted in Sandy creating a belief that to worry is to care.

Is worrying a productive way of parenting? Of course not. So why do we still do it? We know it’s draining, and often has physical effects like fatigue and lack of sleep. Yet, “click” and the worry part of our mind starts up, doing its work like a high achieving employee. We allow it because we subconsciously believe it is valuable. When I ask a client, “what is the benefit to worrying?” They will have a comprehensive list; most prominently, it keeps them safe from failure.

“Sarah” believed that worrying about money guards against financial ruin. In her growing up years, her father was a serial entrepreneur who invested the family savings into his business. His business failed and the family was put under tremendous stress. So much so, that Sarah’s parents broke up and her mum was always treading financial water. Witnessing that event and absorbing the negative energy of “worry” created a decision that would affect Sarah’s emotional state for the rest of her life. She believed that if you didn’t worry regularly about money and decisions made, you would put your family in danger.

Worry becomes a machine churning away beneath the surface, chronic and automatic. Unfortunately, logical thinking couldn’t necessarily penetrate when this part of Sarah’s mind took over.

Ancestral beliefs

The real-life consequences of worry can create circumstances that the very thing that the worry part was fearful of, things like financial danger. For example, Sarah’s worry about not having enough money caused her to make decisions based on fear. She would procrastinate on paying bills on time or hesitate to hire full-time employees for fear that she may not make enough to keep them. Logically, she knew this was preventing her from growing her business but she couldn’t make the move.

Essentially, Sarah was not living in the present but in the old memories of her parent's situation. As a kid, she adopted their worry and stored old energy and beliefs without even realizing it. She carried this old baggage forward as she grew older and became more like her parents. This body of beliefs is what I call ancestral beliefs. Some ancestral beliefs serve us well and others should be eliminated.

Many beliefs automatically update as we grow older because we learn new ways of approaching life, but childhood trauma can sometimes cause parts of our minds to get stuck. We get stuck in a time warp where worry is seen as a productive strategy to avoid danger and harm.

We are not our parents and we don’t need to live by outdated strategies taught to us when there was real scarcity and danger. It’s the twentieth-first century and we have less to worry about than ever before; the world has never been wealthier, healthier (we found the mRNA vaccine very quickly) or more educated. There really are endless opportunities if you change your fear to confidence.

I have learned that people’s minds do what they know. It’s not always good knowledge that we learn and, like a machine, negative impact beliefs can be retooled to work differently. Feelings like self-confidence, creativity and self-trust lie beneath the surface waiting to be restored. All the old fear-based automatic patterns like worry are no longer entrenched allowing you to embrace the possibilities, feeling that their potential is limitless.

Megan O’Neill is a Mindset Mentor and Certified Core Belief Engineering (CBE) Practitioner who, for over 19 years, has helped clients break-fee of limiting subconscious beliefs, fears and patterns. You can learn more about her effective change technology at www.meganoneill.ca

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