Unfortunately, due to the way many of us have been raised by our parents as well as societal programming that perpetuate false ideas around love, we believe that when someone worries about us, it means they love us. We equate worrying about someone to caring about them. This is one of the biggest misconceptions that most people on the planet today hold. In fact worrying is harmful and in many ways is quite the opposite of love. But before I explain the differences between genuinely loving someone versus “worrying” about them, let’s first take a deeper dive into the psychology of what is really going on with us on a mental and emotional level when we are worrying too much.
Worry and Our Toxic Attachment to Pain
We need to first closely observe how our mentality is responsible for this toxic habit of being chronic worriers. It usually goes something like this: We worry about something bad happening to us and then it happens. Then we feel justified and validated in having worried about it beforehand by thinking “I knew it!” So we believe that worrying allowed us to “see it coming” so wasn’t it better that we worried about it so that we could prepare for the inevitable negative outcome? So we technically believe that worrying is serving us in this sense. But what we’re failing to realize is that all we actually did was create a self-fulfilling prophesy. We have created this experience by negatively focusing on the unwanted outcome. Ever heard of the saying, “Where focus goes, energy flows”? The more time and energy that we waste fixating on something that we don’t want the more we actually create it in our experience because “whatever we resist persists”. To use an example, if you are panicking about getting into a car accident and you keep saying to yourself “Don’t get into a car accident” over and over again, this is not going to make you stop focusing on it. And we are just pouring more energy into the negative thing we don’t want to have happen. Now if you notice – it doesn’t feel good to be focusing on the unwanted scenario; it makes us feel pain. If we just quit thinking about a car accident altogether and shift our focus and attention on something else like our favorite food to eat, we will shift from feeling this terrible anxiety to a better feeling emotional state. So why do we tend to forget in the moment that we are worrying that we do actually hold the power and control to shift our focus like this in order to feel better and thus be a vibrational match to better experiences? It is because we think that worry or pain is “good for us”. This is a perfect example of a toxic dynamic that demonstrates the root of how and why we are addicted to pain. Oftentimes it even occurs on a purely subconscious level where we habitually repeat this toxic pattern of holding onto pain. In essence, we think it is going to help keep us from “further future pain”. It is a pretty powerless way of trying to gain control over uncertainty in our lives. We feel we have to “win at all costs” at this “sick game” that the universe, which is our adversary in this case, is playing with us. It puts our survival and basic human need of certainty at risk. So we use worry to try to outsmart the adversary (aka the universe). It is a projection of how we were raised by the primary authority figures in our lives as children, which were our parents. If we had parents who believed in punishment and it’s how we felt as children, then we will expect the universe to treat us the same way – by hurting us. Because this was the consequences for not being “good enough” so now in our adult lives we believe that this is what we deserve. And whether we are aware of it or not, this has become entangled with our subconscious definition of love. Hence, our toxic dynamics cause us to confuse things like our attachment to pain and not being able to let go of worry, with love. Therefore, it is important that we learn to detangle worry from love.
Worry is About Your Feelings, Love is About Their Feelings
Now let’s go back to exploring our initial question about what differentiates worrying about someone from loving or caring about them. Worrying is actually about YOU and YOUR feelings. When you worry about someone, you are technically just worried about what the consequences of their actions may cause for you. It is also a fear-based feeling therefore it directs negative energy towards the other person. To give you an example, let’s say a babysitter is afraid of what would happen (for her personally) if the parents found out their child was harmed in her care. So, she doesn’t let the child play anything fun outdoors to avoid having to face the consequences of this potential if she were to step aside for a while and the kid fell onto the concrete and scraped his knee, for instance. Instead, she puts the toddler in a hazard-free room secured with a baby gate to keep the child contained. This way she doesn’t have to worry when she’s not watching him. Although she is ensuring the child’s safety and may very well care about his well-being, she is actually just worried what it would mean for HER if he were to get harmed in some way. Surely the kid’s parents would find out about any physical injuries on their child. If you think about it in this way, you realize that worrying is in fact innately selfish as the focus is still on your own feelings rather than actual empathy for how the other person is feeling. Love on the other hand is when your undivided attention is on the other person’s internal world; it is showing someone unconditional acceptance no matter what behaviors about them you may personally find unacceptable. So, love is about THEIR feelings. When we are loving someone, we are holding pure positive focus towards them – such as the things we appreciate about them or their positive attributes like how strong and brave they are about whatever negative situation they may be facing. Notice the difference?
Worry vs Empathy
Another tendency we have is that we confused worry with empathy. Empathizing with another person’s negative feelings or situation is different from projecting your own anxieties onto them which is what we do when we worry about someone. It is essentially your own negative outlook about the other person’s situation. But if you were to view things from their perspective, you would realize that it doesn’t actually make someone feel better when watching someone else be in pain, does it? This is what we are doing as chronic worriers, though – expecting the other person to feel better as a result of us feeling pain or being in a negative emotional state. How often have you found yourself being able to easily feel happiness while watching someone else be in some kind of distress? Worry tends to make people feel guilty and like they have become the source of our pain/worries and feel even more burdened with negative emotions as a result. This is why when you watch your mother express her worries about you it does not technically make you feel loved. There’s this unspoken rule within humanity that we must sacrifice for those we love as if love without a burden is somehow fake. This implied obligation has confused love in our minds with worry which disguises worry as necessary. Love is an unconditional thing you want to give, while worry turns it into a kind of forced duty or self-pity. Overall, worry does not add value to our relationships and in fact drains them.
Worry is Different from Concern
There’s a difference between worry and concern. You can show love by caring with concern instead of worry. Concern sends the message that although you acknowledge the negative situation, you have faith in the other person so there is no need to worry. You trust and believe in them to be able to overcome their current difficulties. Your faith in them is telling them that they can do it and that they are capable of acting in their own best interest, so it is empowering. Worry, on the other hand, sends a very disempowering message that you don’t believe that they can handle it. Let’s say the negative situation in this example is regarding your friend’s substance abuse problem. Our worry can become a sort of covert way of imposing our own limiting beliefs or ideas about something – such as “drugs” in general being harmful to them – unto them. Well actually, you are just in a place of disagreeing with their actions. You yourself may have had a negative experience with a certain type of drug or whatever the case may be. The truth is that you disapprove of what they are doing and your worry puts it under the guise of you caring about the other person. The type of energy and space we are coming from in expressing our worries to someone would sound something like, “I’m so worried about you and where your life is headed. I think you should…” or “Isn’t it time you took responsibility for your…” or even trying to give them “advise” on how you think they should be living their life instead. First of all, this makes the person much less likely to come to you for help or support they need in the future. Besides the fact that they are in a kind of covert way being shamed, they also just don’t want to worry you any further. Although you may not like “drugs” or what they are doing which in all good faith may be coming from a place of caring about them, you are coming from a space of not holding acceptance for them so it is causing them more damage than good. The reality is that you don’t actually know what the future holds for anyone. You also don’t know if what they are choosing to do may actually be a vibrational improvement (better) for them from whatever place or state they are currently in right now. We can instead express our concerns (rather than projecting our worries onto them) by saying something like “I understand you are going through a challenging time right now. However, I’m concerned about how your drug addiction may be negatively impacting your relationships as you mentioned your spouse recently filed for divorce after the argument that ensued between you two when you were intoxicated.” This can be followed up with letting them know that they are loved no matter what, while holding the vision in our minds of the best outcome happening for them.
Positive Focus with Hope and Faith
To use another example, let’s say a friend of yours is sick. When you are caring for them, you are hoping that they will get better as soon as possible. But when you worry, you fear that things won’t get better. You are fixating on what is going (or will go) wrong. You are just pouring more negative energy towards an already negative situation which has occurred and which you have limited (or no) control over. You being in a negative emotional state does not make them feel better. In fact, you can only help someone feel better if you are currently in a positive emotional state yourself. Instead of making them feel even worst about being sick by pointing out what they are lacking in the present moment, you can help them focus on other things that are going well in their lives at this time. This will help put them in a feeling state of gratitude and when we are in this space, due to the law of attraction, we attract even more situations and experiences to be grateful for such as healing from an illness. It is far better to express a hopeful attitude towards them getting well soon. This enlivens their spirits and helps them pull their energy out of this darker space by focusing on a positive thing in the future to look forwards to. Other effective ways of showing them your love and care can include being nurturing and supportive towards them (i.e. making some soup for them), using a soothing tone of voice to help calm their nerves, and giving them reassurance (i.e. letting them know you are here if they need anything). Our goal here is to direct positive energy towards them. Instead of latching onto worry-stricken thoughts, we can show our friend genuine love and care by having faith in them. Remember that sometimes it’s better to just “let go and let God” so to speak – so something like saying a prayer for them while envisioning them in that perfect state of health that you wish them to be is what will actually assist in their healing and recovery.
Worry Teaches Misery
When a friend is sick and we are worrying about them, we are projecting our own imagination (i.e. our fears that they won’t get better) onto their reality. We are falsely thinking that we know what is going to happen. So we aren’t even seeing the situation clearly for what it is in the present moment. From a larger context, worrying about someone else just teaches them that something bad is taking place and that things aren’t going to be okay so it makes the situation all the more stressful to deal with. You are modeling someone who rejects life in the name of some imaginary future, and in this act, you are teaching misery and perpetuating suffering. So we need to keep in mind that we can express our concerns and be loving towards someone we care about without polluting it with the inherent energy of misery and impending doom that worrying carries with it. Instead, we can visualize them in a perfect state of health with the highest healing for them and/or good happening to them. In fact, this is what will actually help facilitate in their process of healing. Only by holding a higher vibrational frequency for them, can we actually allow a person to join us from where they are. The way that the process works on an energetic level is that we offer up this higher frequency (which we ourselves are already vibrating at) to the other person by virtue of positive suggestions or ideas of solutions to their problem, for example. They can then choose to adopt it and match your higher vibe, therefore pulling themselves up to a better emotional state, or chose to maintain their own lower frequency. But the cool thing about how it works on the energetic plane is that the person who is holding the higher vibration (you, in this example) determines the frequency that both people will be vibrating at because the person vibrating at a lower frequency (your friend) automatically defaults to and synchronizes with the other person’s higher frequency and matches their vibration.
Worrying Blocks the Solution
Worrying also prevents the solution to the problem from coming to you because so long as we are focused on the problem, we can’t be a match to receiving the solution at the same time. When we chronically worry or when we hold onto a problem so tightly that we keep fixating on it, we are blocking the energetic flow of any resolutions from coming in. It is only when we distract ourselves and take our minds off of the worries that we can start to even think rationally enough to find the solutions.
Worry and Disease
Our natural self-repair mechanisms stop working when we worry. Chronic worriers have a tendency to internalize negative energy which is detrimental to the physical body, giving rise to disease. These anxiety-ridden negative thoughts and beliefs literally manifest themselves and materialize as all sorts of illnesses. This can include headaches, tremors, and an increased risk of heart attack, cancer, and depression. Worrying also results in more stress and excessive hormones which are destructive to our body’s normal health mechanisms.
“Worrying is like praying for something you don’t want.”
