Do you know someone who is always worried about what might never happen? They manage to worry about things that may never happen and probably never will. They are also the catastrophizers of this world, seeing things that may go wrong even though the chances are very low. The emotion that runs their life is FEAR. And being fearful becomes their way of approaching almost everything. Sometimes it’s so bad, they’d rather not engage with life, but remain hidden and small, to stay safe.

Medically these are often the hypochrondriacs, the people who think that they have every disease known to man. They worry about what they may never get, to the point they can make themselves sick.

In the extreme, they may worry about themselves, or their children, or their parents, or their partner, and failing that, they will find something else to worry about.

Others expressing this pattern may have a strong sense of betrayal. They believe that everyone is going to let them down at some point, and can’t trust anyone, often not even themselves. And there is often a lot of unexpressed anger or grief around this. They know they feel let down and betrayed, yet unable to do anything about changing the pattern. You often recognize this as unexpressed anger and/or unreasonable behaviour. And they expect to be let down again, and again, and again!

The problem with worrying about anything we cannot influence is it takes us out of the present moment, often so much that we forget to be. And one of the purposes of life is about being in the moment and experiencing whatever is going on just now.

The kind of things you hear if this is a strong pattern (or think, because you may be internalizing this and never verbalizing it) are:

I can’t do that because xyz might happen
I have to stay home, just in case x calls by
I’m calling to check you’re ok (when there is no reason to call)
I know she’ll let me down in the end, people always do
People are only out for themselves, they don’t care about me

or internalizing

it’s just not possible, I can’t do that
I’m worried I’ll make a mess of it so I wont try
It’s all going to go wrong

These are just examples. Many people with this as a dominant pattern will be seeing scenarios of doom and gloom on a fairly regular basis, or will be frozen and unable to make decisions… just in case of xyz.

So how would someone look if they’re expressing a positive Posture 2? What would they say?

I trust that everything will work out fine
I have faith in him
I’ve done all that I can, I know it will work out
I know that what needs to happen will happen
I only sweat the big stuff, the small stuff is not worth worrying about
People are innately good, I know I can rely on him/her
I have confidence in you

In this modern age, everyone has things they could worry about. The difference is where you put your focus and not spending time worrying about things that you just can’t influence or change.

So if you recognize this as a dominant pattern, what can you do? When you catch yourself worrying, start by coming back to your body. Notice your feet on the ground or your bum on the seat. Find a reference point that is in your body, not in your head. Direct your breath into that area or if you have a sense of energy in your body, become aware of the energy in that area. Some people find stamping their feet or jumping around brings them back into the current moment.

You can use Stages 1, 2 and 3 to explore this further (all the stages will add value as you get more connected to your body, but start with the first three so that you can discover how you really do this pattern)

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