Hanna:
Hello friends, welcome to Episode number 12 of Let’s Talk Dirty.
Today we’re talking about a dirty feeling. I don’t think any feelings are wrong and I think we should be open to feeling all the thangs AND there are some emotions, that are a total waste and not really worth our time if we can help it.
Let’s talk about worry a little today. Relationship worry. Super uplifting topic, haha. But I was worrying a lot this month and realizing that I was feeling out of control and I tried to use worry to control what other people where going to do.
Spoiler, it didn’t work.
But I want to talk about this idea of control because if you guys have been listening here you know already my opinions about controlling other people…we can’t do it and it’s not advisable to try, and everyone agrees yes yes we can’t control other people and then what do they do? Try to control them in their minds and even in real life.
And one of the ways we try to control people is by worrying.
Worrying is one of these emotions that feels really productive and important and really it’s doing nothing for you or anyone else. Worry happens in a lot of ways in relationships but what worry comes down to is a need to control. I want this person to act the way I want them to act and I’m worried that they won’t, aka I’m going to spend time inside my own brain thinking about the situation that hasn’t happened yet and try to generate a sense of control by overthinking and brewing and stewing and all that happens is I just stay in a cycle of worry. Untillll what happens?
The thing either plays out how you wanted and your brains is like wow good thing I worried about this so much because it worked. Or the thing turns out not how you wanted and you’re like omg I totally knew it! No wonder I was so worried because I just knew this would happen. That was really important for me to worry about.
No. Neither outcome happened because of worry. You didn’t use worry to manifest a good outcome. And you also didn’t use worry to protect yourself from a negative outcome. Worry isn’t a protective safe space, or a manifestation technique. It is a garbage hole of self-induced misery.
So what do we worry about in relationships and why do we do it? That’s what we’re talking about in the next ten episodes: love, sex & relationships by the way. I have ten episodes completely devoted to relationships and today were talking about something we all do in relationships! Every one of us worries.
So why we worry is because we think it’s a way to control things. Like if we worry, that’s like preventing the thing we don’t want to happen.
And it sometimes feels like it’s the only option. It’s like the only thing we know to do, when we anticipate a problem. Or when our brain anticipates a problem, it’s like a default that’s easy to get in bed with.
We worry that it won’t work out how we want. Mainly. And that sense of no control puts people into a tail spin. Trying to prevent pain, not being able to do it, worrying harder because it feels like a good option.
Just as an aside here, just because I’m saying that worry isn’t your only option or a good option, doesn’t mean I’m saying you should be like toxic positivity over here like everything is amazing all the time, okay?
Worry is a natural thing that we all do at times and this isn’t meant to shame you into not worrying. But just to shed some light on the fact that when we worry, we are trying to outwit our future negative emotions by making our selves feel shitty on purpose right now, and that doesn’t seem to me like a valuable use of your time.
I mentioned at the beginning of this series that relationships are at the core of everything in this life. Relationships with self, relationships with money, with others, with the world at large. Our beliefs or thoughts are what allow us to show up in love with all of those things, or not. They allow us to show up with purpose and direct ourselves towards love. And worrying about stuff not showing up for you, how you want it to be in your perfect world is sabotaging any effort you make toward building love.
It’s putting on the breaks. It’s stopping you from pursuing what could be, if you chose to see whatever happens as exactly what is supposed to happen, instead of seeing it as right or wrong, good or bad.
I’m worried I won’t lose weight so I don’t want to waste my time.
That’s a belief and self love problem.
I’m worried he won’t say what I want to hear so I don’t want to waste my time bringing this up.
That’s a belief and human love problem.
I’m worried I’ll go into debt if I start this business so I don’t want to waste my time.
That’s a belief and money love problem.
So to build love, in any type of relationship we need to stop worrying.
Worry is not one of those emotions that you need to process and allow. It’s a useless fucking emotion. Seriously. Worry doesn’t produce anything so if you’re sitting there trying to think of a scenario where worry is a good thing, I’ll save you the trouble, there isn’t one.
Worried about your kid going to college or failing a test or getting his heart broken? Sounds nice in theory. Right? I don’t want my kid to be in pain so I’m going to worry about that.
But In reality you’re not helping your kid at all when you worry and it’s not helping you.
Worried the plane might crash? You won’t have enough money? Your partner isn’t interested in sex?
What do you do when you worry? Nothing. Except worry more.
Don’t confuse worry with another emotion that causes you to actually act. Worry does not help you solve any problems. Not to mention it feels terrible to be in worry. Right like when I’m worried I feel like my anxiety sweat is just pouring out of my pits and I just can’t focus on anything else and I’m like chocked up and my head spins and I just feel no good.
So like it’s an emotion of anti-problem-solving. And it’s an emotion of blockage. Like Worry equals emotional constipation.
LOVE or trust or compassion or openness or curiosity, I could go on and on here, but any of those emotions open the door to action. To doing something to create a result for you that isn’t just more worry. So like you can see that there are other emotional options when it comes to a relationship problem, that are going to be action-inducing, or at least not constipation inducing.
So let’s take a specific example because as I do, I like to pull from real life examples and what got me to talk about worry in relationships is the thought
“I’m worried it’s not working”
Which obviously causes the worry emotion
And from there we just overthink and worry more, in which case worry is a verb.
And the result is just more worry AND it’s NOT “working”.
Because what does working mean?
I’m going to just suggest here that working in a relationship is like I openly communicate my thoughts and feelings. I show up in love. I don’t try to control or manipulate you with my mind. I feel safe and I desire more of this.
So you’re not “working out” when you’re worried.
And what happens when we worry is our brain convinces us that it’s already gone to shit anyways, because of how worry makes us feel and act, so what is the point of showing up for this because I already have myself in a mental belief pattern that something bad is afoot. I’m worrying and looking for proof that there’s lots to worry about.
Brains are so powerful like that. They just create the worst case scenario.
You wanna worry that it’s not gunna work out, well why don’t we just cut the the chase. Not working out. There ya go.
So the one thing that noticing worry can lead us to is what we are trying to avoid by worrying. And it’s a feeling. We are like what if this doesn’t work out? What if we split up? What if I never get married? What if my daughter never talks to me again?
So what’s the answer to that? What would you feel if that happened? Like worst case scenario. The thing you are worried about happening.
What feeling are you trying to avoid with worry? Worry is the preemptive bandaid to the emotion you fear feeling. But that bandaid is like made of red hot pokers. Haha. Right because your brain like says let’s avoid the pain of this thing happening and try to control the situation by worrying right now.
So what’s the feeling?
Maybe it’s disappointment. Maybe it’s sadness. Maybe it’s anger. Abandonment.
What would happen if you felt those things?
You’d get a sensation or a vibration in your body. Maybe your stomach would hurt or feel empty. Maybe you’d feel hot or tingly or your heart would beat faster. Maybe your eyes would hurt or you’d have a heaviness in your chest.
And what if that was okay, if and when those sensations ever came? Because that is what you sign up for in relationships. The possibility that there will be pain. The possibility of feeling disappointed or upset.
And when you feel those vibrations and sensations you don’t die. You don’t feel comfortable, you may be extremely uncomfortable, but you also get to learn what you’re made of. And this isn’t like let’s all get sad so we can see how strong we are…I already know how strong you are and I’m impressed with you while simultaneously not being shocked or thrilled by your ability to stay alive through any emotion, because emotions can’t kill you and I know that. What I would be impressed and thrilled by is fearlessness, which to me is the willingness to actually feel any emotions, instead of just pretending to feel it or trying to outwit it through worrying.
What I want to show you is that those feelings, the disappointment, the anxiety, the anger…are going to be part of your life sometime. Whether it’s in this relationship or with another. And they are meant to be felt, to be processed, to be owned, as part of the experience of saying yes to relationships. Your relationship with life, is meant to have negative emotions in it. It’s what we sign up for.
You didn’t come to a relationship to worry, I don’t think you need that one…but you came to love and to risk having a full human experience which includes negative emotions, about half the time.
If you are going to have a relationship, with a person with money with yourself with your body….there are negative emotions wait for you there when you decide that it’s worth it. You’re here for 50% good and 50% bad, and if you don’t want that it we’ll, sorry not sorry, thats too bad. No matter how much you try to push back or against it or try to control it or make it positive happiness and sunshine all the time…that’s not how expanding the positive works. You have to be willing to go through the negative when it’s there. Worrying is only adding, unnecessarily to the negative.
So don’t expand on the negative side by worrying. Why not just feel the emotions that come with having a relationship and embrace them and process them and learn to live with them if and when they come. And also, just because you have negative emotions in your relationships sometimes doesn’t mean anything about you except that you’re doing it right.
What if that was true? Negative feelings means I’m doing something right.
We get caught in worrying about the negative because somewhere we were taught that we shouldn’t have to feel bad. We are seeking to control everything to make it easy, and happy and as one of my good friends would say 100% light all the time. But that is not real life. Sure you can use thought work to change your thoughts but we don’t want to be robots walking around only thinking positive things all the time.
We deserve to feel bad sometimes.
We owe it to our full human lives to feel bad.
How bout them apples.
You owe it to yourself not to fear negative emotions but to build the muscle of actually feeling them.
How about allowing things that are out of our control to happen, noticing what you think once they do, and processing the emotions that come up?
And not cock blocking yourself from actually having any power in situations by worrying!
Worrying takes away your power. Stop cock blocking your own power.
If you want to learn more about processing emotions so you can become fearless, join my transformational coaching partnership. I give your real life relationships my total focus and support, so you can love harder, feel better and start working on the relationship that is the blueprint for every other connection in your life, the one with yourself.
What if it does? What if it does work out? Because the reality is it will work out exactly as it supposed to work out but what if it works out and working out looks a little bit different than what you were trying to make it look like? What you’re trying to make it look like is sunshine and rainbows and happiness 100% of the time. But what if working out actually includes some disappointment and stress and feelings of guilt or sadness. Like why don’t we ever say what if it does work out? My theory is that on some level we know that even if it does work out and I’m just gonna assume that in this case like working out means that you stay in a relationship with this person or stay in the type of relationship that you want to have with this person.
Even if that does happen and even if that comes true we still know as humans that’s going to come with some form of struggle and emotions right. Even if it did work out there’s still going to be sadness and heartbreak and misunderstanding and disappointment and resentment and like all of those negative emotions along with the working out. So instead of blocking ourselves upfront from it working out by worrying what if we just asked what if it does work out and what if that includes me needing to be willing to feel some negative emotions as well I like also along the way?
Thanks for listening and we will see you next time!