I am a worrier. Although I’m far less anxious than I used to be, I still sometimes get caught up in a worry loop. When I do, it’s usually because I’m worried about the people I love.

Like now, I’m worried about my sister. A recent retreat she attended peeled the scab off of some old emotional wounds and she’s struggling to make sense of it all. I’m worried about the vulnerable place she’s in and how to help. Other days my son is the focus of my worry …or my Mom. 

No matter whom I worry about, it seems I pick and pick at a worry, hoping that the more I dissect it and poke at it, I’ll  eventually figure out a brilliant solution. The brilliant solution rarely happens. If I don’t stop the worrying and redirect myself, the worry can run rampant. Not only does this make me feel more miserable but the escalating worry can also get me into trouble. The anxious energy that the worry generates often causes me to act or say things that are rarely well received and typically muck up the loving connection I have with my loved one.

I’ve learned that anytime I say or do something from a place of fear, the results are messy!

I’ve also come to see things in a new light through my work as an intuitive healer. In addition to being able to sense people’s emotions and intuit where blocked emotions and old trauma is stored, I’m also able to sense life force energy in, around and between people. It has made me much more aware of how worrying negatively impacts both the worrier and the one worried about.

I think most of us would agree that worrying feels awful. But, few of us realize that our worrying can make our loved ones feel awful as well, even if they aren’t aware that we are worried about them. This is because when we worry, we are in a low-vibration state, a state of anxiety and fear, and from that state we are unintentionally sending low-vibration energy to our loved one (or in some cases pulling energy from them via etheric cords or cords of attachment).   

Worry Generates at Least Three Types of Energy

When we worry, we fret about what’s not working and we tend to awful-ize and imagine what could go wrong. The more we worry, the more creative our mind gets with its morbid imaginings. The mind is like a Google search engine, when we ask it a question it only produces answers to that specific question. So when we wonder, “what if something bad happens”, our mind diligently searches for answers to that specific question. It creatively finds all the things the “bad” things that could happen such as …what if they sink deeper into depression? Lose their job? Or, worse become suicidal?!

The more we allow ourselves to worry, the more we worry, until it feels like we’re stuck in a worry loop. The worrying builds momentum and it creates a lot of energy. If you pause for a moment when you are worrying, you will notice that in addition to having racing thoughts, you also feel energy zinging through your body. This is because worrying triggers a fight or flight response in the body, causing adrenalin to course through your veins in case you need to sprint into action to run from the imaginary dragons in your mind.

When we worry at least three types of energy are being created – those from our thoughts, our emotions, and our body (due to the adrenalin response). According to quantum physics all physical reality is made up of vibrations, even our thoughts. When we add an emotional response (in this case, fear and the subsequent release of adrenalin) to a thought, it increases the power or impact of that thought. If it were a mathematical equation it would look like this: Thoughts + Emotion + Frequency = Impact.

Thoughts + Emotion + Frequency = Impact

In other words, thoughts with little or no feeling and little or no frequency behind them have little or no impact in the physical world. This is why every random thought we have doesn’t automatically manifest in our physical environment. Most of our thinking has little or no emotion behind it. The brain just thinks. It is what the brain was built to do. On the flip side, repetitive thoughts that have a particular focus with lots of emotion behind them have an energetic impact on the thinker as well as the individual the thinker is focused on.

At the most basic level, everything is energetic potential or unformed matter. Manifestation reacts mechanically to one’s predominate feeling state because our feelings create a resonance. We can only draw to ourselves experiences that match our current resonance or vibration. Our repetitive thoughts and feelings can manifest a peaceful life or more drama. This is a well-known law of attraction principal, but it’s just one side of an “energetic coin”.

Worry is Low Vibration Energy

The other side of the “energetic coin” is that our low-vibration, repetitive worry energy is being sent like radio waves to the person we are worrying about. As we’ve learned from quantum physics, there are no time/space/distance barriers at the energetic level. When we focus on a loved one we are energetically with them, instantly. Therefore, the vibration of whatever you are thinking and feeling as you think about them is with them as well.

When we think of our loved ones with feelings of love and appreciation, we are sending them high quality vibrations. When we worry and are afraid for our loved ones, we are sending out lower quality vibrations. Add guilt to the mix and it lowers the vibration even more.

David R. Hawkins, M.D., Ph.D., an internationally renowned spiritual teacher, psychiatrist, physician, and author of more than eight books, including the bestseller Power vs. Force, suggests that every word, every thought, and every intention creates a field of energy in which similar energetic forms reverberate and exchange information. He created a “Map of Consciousness” to depict the various levels of consciousness. With each progressive rise in the level of consciousness, the “frequency” or “vibration” of energy increases as well.

According to Dr. Hawkins’ Map of Consciousness, which interestingly enough corresponds with Abraham-Hicks Emotional Scale and the Solfeggio Frequencies, feelings of unconditional love and joy have a frequency of 500 and 540 as compared to feelings of fear and anxiety which vibrates at a level of 100. Guilt and shame can take us to the lowest of lows at 30 and 20, respectively.

The Energetic Ups and Downs of Worry

Chronic worry can create a drag in your loved one’s energy field. But the good news is that if your loved one is in a high vibration state, your low vibration worry bounces off – it can’t stick because it does not resonate at the same frequency!

The down side, and the aspect we want to gain some personal mastery over, is that if your loved one is in a low vibration state, the energy of your repetitive worry resonates with theirs and may stick because it resonates at the same frequency.

The result is that it can create a drag in your loved ones’ energy field.

In addition, over time, this low-frequency state may begin to build. What was once a wispy cloud of negative energy becomes a thick blanket, which your loved one experiences as feeling heavy and sluggish, making it more difficult for them to lift themselves out of their funk or low point.

Yes being around people who don’t believe in you and expect the worst, really can drag you down!

An illustration of the potential energetic impact of our chronic worry on the people we love:

High Vibration Feeling-Thoughts Become Beacons of Light

The good news is when you heal your own fears and worries, you move into a higher vibrational state! This naturally emits an energetic frequency that can be uplifting to another. From this newly healed, higher vibrational state, you can and are “holding the light”, as the popular phrase goes.

From this high-vibration state, your loving thoughts and affirmative prayers
serve as little beacons of light that can help your loved one
find their way back to their own Light.

Seven Tips for Shifting and Healing Worry

If you’re like me, knowing about these energetic principals will not be enough to keep you from worrying. With that in mind, I want to share some techniques that I’ve found helpful in shifting myself out of the worry cycle. The first four are relatively quick ways to shift from worry to a more positive feeling state. The last two require some introspection and a desire to heal at a deeper level.

1. Imagine a Better Story

When we worry about our loved ones, we tend to create frightening little scenarios in our minds about what might be wrong or what could go wrong. Most of the time, we are scaring ourselves far more then circumstances actually warrant. This only serves to drag our vibration down even further.

Years ago, I remember telling my intuitive coach, BakeR Gendron, that I was worrying too much about my son. I knew energetically this wasn’t helping him or me. She suggested that I use my imagination to create positive stories instead of negative ones. Such a simple idea, and it actually worked!

From then on, when I caught myself worrying about my son, I’d stop and shift to creating a story where I saw my son smiling and thriving. I’d make up little stories about what he might be experiencing that made him happy or excited about life. This helped in two ways: it helped me break the worry cycle because I had to stop creating scary stories and start imagining positive ones instead. It also shifted me from a low-vibration worry state to a more neutral state.

2. What If it Were Better? 

Comedian/actor Alec Mapa, warns that “worry is the misuse of imagination” and Abraham-Hicks says that “Worrying is using your imagination to create something you don’t want.” When we worry we tend to imagine all the things that could go wrong. We imagine all the negative drama instead of joy. One of the games I like to play when I catch myself worrying too much is to imagine “What if were better?”

It goes like this. First I become aware of what I was worrying about. Next, instead of using my imagination to create more scary scenarios, I ask myself, “What if it were better? What would “better” look and feel like?” After I’ve imagined something more positive, I ask and wonder again, “What if it were even better?” Then I imagine what “even better” might look and feel like. And, I keep asking and imagining “What if were even better” until I’ve exhausted all the possibilities of what “even better” might look and feel like.  By the time I’ve worked myself through a few rounds of “what if it were better” the worry has quieted or disappeared and I’m feeling uplifted once again.

Guided meditation:  You can listen to my “What If Were Better” guided meditation for free on my website. It prompts you through the “what if were better” sequence in a soothing and relaxing manner.

Photo Meme – Download the beautiful photo meme to the right and place it on your refrigerator or bathroom mirror. I created it as a reminder to imagine “what if it were better.”

3. Do something that brings you joy, makes you laugh, feels good

Do Something that Brings You Joy – Another way to break the worry cycle is to go do something that brings you joy and keeps your hands busy.

Bob Hirshon with the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s says that “keeping your hands and mind busy interferes with storing and encoding visual images (those yucky worry imaginings).”

Do something that engages your heart and mind.

This could be painting, knitting, cooking, woodworking or gardening, kayaking, or fly fishing.

Keep in mind that you probably won’t feel like doing whatever it is that normally brings you joy. Initially you may feel like you’re just going through the motions. But after about five or ten minutes you’ll find the worry is fading into the background as you become fully present to the activity.

4. Remember the Divine Within

I remind myself that we are all made in God’s image. Our Divine heritage is not sickness, poverty, worry and helplessness, etc. The God within is pure love, all powerful, abundance, peace, and bliss.  And so I remind myself that the God in me is within my loved one as well, which means my loved one has all the same, unlimited, loving resources at their disposal that I do …as the Dalai Lama and the Pope do for that matter!  I find remembering the “Divine within” brings me a profound level of peace.

As I mentioned earlier, I was worrying about my sister after a spiritual retreat she attended re-opened some deep emotional wounds. I felt powerless and wanted to protect her. I could feel her pain as I listened to her experiences and the resulting garbage that was bubbling up. At one point it dawned on me that the one I wanted to protect wasn’t her grown adult self. My sister is a very strong woman. What I was reacting to instead was the little girl in her that I sensed had been wounded and was now rising to the surface to be heard, loved and healed.

Could I have offered suggestions and advice to help her through it? Yes. But, she didn’t ask for that. Instead, anytime thoughts of my sister crossed my mind, I affirmed “I see only God in you and know you are deeply connected and guided by the God within.” This kept my focus off worrisome imaginings and put it on the Divine. Over the next week, I watched, pleased and amazed, as my sister meditated, did yoga, prayed and journaled her way to extremely empowering insights, clarity and healing.

5. It may be time for self healing

 If you find, after trying the previous techniques, that you are still worrying too much, then it is a good indication that something deeper within you is calling out to be healed. I know it seems counter intuitive, you are worried sick about your husband, son, or mother, how could it be about you? In the metaphysical realm, it is always about you because you are manifesting all of your outer experiences.

Law of Attraction philosophy suggests that your experiences are a reflection of your current state of resonance, which is a result of what you think and feel most often (see Map of Consciousness on page 7).

A Course in Miracles goes much deeper and helps us pinpoint where our thinking gets off track by telling us to notice when we are in fear or judgment.

Anytime we feel anxious or worried, it means we are thinking from
our ego (fearful, separated) human mind, rather than from our higher God mind.

If you are worried, it’s time to celebrate! I know this sounds completely crazy!  Yet if you’ve been feeling stuck or blocked in your life, then this is exactly where you can create real transformation in your life. Become aware of what or whom you worry about the most. These are clues pointing to the areas that are ripe for healing. When we heal at deeper levels, we naturally raise our vibration and attract experiences that resonate with that higher vibration.

Sometimes worry is being triggered by unhealed wounds…

I feel the Law of Attraction’s emphasis on visualizing, affirming and finding “better feeling-thoughts” keeps us focused at a superficial level. I find deeper, more lasting shifts occur when we heal the root cause of what is being triggered and causing the worry. If we don’t heal the root cause, then we won’t be able to maintain the higher vibration of all the wonderful experiences we are trying to attract into our lives. We’ll keep sinking back into our old thinking-feeling pattern and keep manifesting the same old stuff.

So, if you are still worrying after practicing the first few techniques, then it is quite possible that issue with your loved one has triggered one or more of your own unhealed wounds.

This happened to me when I moved back home to New Hampshire and began spending more time with an friend of mine. I noticed she had gained quite a bit of weight. I fretted about how might I help her. I offered suggestions for weight-loss programs, activities that might help her relax, books that had helped me, and so on.

It soon dawned on me that my “helpful” suggestions were probably making her feel like something was wrong with her or that I didn’t love her the way she was. Or worse yet, that I didn’t have confidence in her to figure things out on her own. This was definitely not the outcome I wanted. And so, I immediately stopped offering suggestions. But I still worried too much…

What aspect of myself needs healing right now??? 

My usual techniques weren’t working, so I prayed for clarity. That is when I realized that my friend’s weight-gain was triggering my old wounds and fears! I had been 100-pounds heavier at about the same age she is now. It was one of the least happy times in my life. I was struggling with panic attacks and a very dark depression and I hadn’t discovered the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program and meditation yet.

Through this introspection, I discovered that despite all the healing work I had done over the last thirty years, there was still more emotional residue within me that needed my attention and healing. With that realization, I turned my attention from worrying about my friend to healing myself. Once I processed what needed to be healed, I was then able to think more objectively and share my feelings and concerns from a much more empowered place. I was able to switch from “Here let me fix this for you” to “I’m here for you and I believe in you.”

I invite you to ask yourself, “What aspect of myself needs healing right now?

When a specific challenge a loved one is experiencing triggers an unhealed wound, take some time to soul-search and ask yourself when or where in your life have you faced a similar challenge? What events, earlier in your life, resulted in similar feelings and fears? What personal fears might this be triggering? Chances are what you are feeling feels so powerful because of several similar-feeling events that were not fully processed, resulting in an emotional five-car pile up that is currently expressing itself as excessive worry.

6. The five step soul-healing process

Sometimes just becoming aware of our old wounds and deeper feelings is a release and a healing in and of itself. Other times, we need to go deeper. In these cases, I find the Five-Step Soul Healing Process to be very powerful and helpful. It is from a little book called Healing the Heart & Soul by Michael Mirdad. I’ve tweaked it a little bit. I suggest reading through all the steps, then go someplace quiet, close your eyes, and walk yourself mindfully and purposefully through the steps.

1. Recognize that you are struggling with worry, anxiety, and/or fear. Don’t beat yourself up when you catch yourself worrying. Instead send yourself a little love and understanding. Next …

2. Accept that hidden behind your worries and fears are your own unhealed wounds. It’s helpful to trace back to all the instances in your life where you experienced a similar feeling. Once you have gathered as thorough a list as possible, then….

3. Surrender the fears and unhealed wounds to God or the Universe to forgive and unravel. As you give this to Source, you might imagine that you are pulling weeds out of the ground of your subconscious and energetic body and handing them over to the Divine. 

Wherever you have yanked out weeds, there are now empty energetic spaces that are ready to be re-filled with something more empowering. Next…

4. Refill all those vacated energetic spaces with Divine Love and Light.  Imagine pure Source love and light filling all those empty spaces. Imagine the light overflowing out of those spaces, filling your entire body.

You might also fill these areas with words such as “peace,” “faith,” “strength” or affirmations such as “I am love”, “I am peace”. Use whatever words feel the most empowering for you.

5. Lastly, Give Thanks for the healing. In the bible Matthew 7:7 promises, “Ask and it will be given unto you; seek and you shall find.” A Course in Miracles also assures us in T-8.III.1 “Ask and it shall be given you, because it has already been given. Ask for light and learn you are light.”

When we give thanks, we are using the power of our intention to affirm that the healing is accomplished and complete. In my personal experience, I might not always feel a release or shift in that exact moment, but over the days and weeks ahead I experience an unraveling or a shift in perspective. 

When I give thanks, I also like to end with, “Thank you God for helping me see this through your higher truth and perspective.” For me when I say, “Help me see this through your higher truth”, I am acknowledging the limitations of my human mind, which processes all of my experiences through the filter of personality, upbringing, community, culture, etc. This statement also reinforces my ultimate intention, which is to live more and more from Divine mind and less from my limited human mind.

7. Seek additional or outside support

Sometimes worry escalates into anxiety or panic attacks. Perhaps this is triggered by a death in the family, loss of job, divorce or in my case the birth of a child (see below). Whatever the trigger, when the worry just won’t go away, I encourage you to seek outside support such as professional counseling, cognitive therapy, the Reiki Release Emotional Healing Method, and/or the Mindfulness-based stress reduction program.

There is hope for the worrier…

“Thirty-one years ago, three days after the birth of my son, I experienced a major panic attack. It would be the first of many. My doctor said I was the one percent for whom childbirth triggered panic attacks rather than the baby blues. I thought I was going crazy. I was fiercely independent, a very unclingy wife and an advertising executive. Panic and anxiety attacks reduced me to feeling needy, weak, and out of control. I suddenly was afraid to be alone, I couldn’t sit still, and I could barely sleep. The panic and anxiety attacks lasted almost eight years. During that time, I periodically benefited from anti-anxiety medication to stabilize my mind and emotions, and professional counseling, which allowed me to safely explore deeper issues that needed to be healed from childhood. However, what truly liberated me in the end was when I discovered and took an eight-week Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction program pioneered by Jon Kabat Zinn. By the end of the eight-week class, I was no longer on medication and I haven’t had an anxiety attack in twenty-three years! Since then, I’ve experienced major life upheavals including a surprise divorce after being married almost twenty-nine years, loss of a major business contract, and moving across country twice on my own, to places where I didn’t know a soul, all with only the normal amount of worry and zero anxiety or panic attacks.”

Know that seeking outside support when you need it can be a deeply healing and transformative journey. Trust that the healing you are seeking is also seeking you, and reach out!

Conclusion

From a spiritual perspective, we know it is not our responsibility to take on our loved one’s challenges. Every individual has his or her own lessons and path, which despite any apparent difficulties is perfect for them. It is the way their soul has chosen to learn and grow. Just like it is unwise to open a cocoon before it is time for the butterfly to emerge (because it weakens the butterfly’s wings and it won’t be able to fly); it also unhelpful to become overly helpful or involved in our loved one’s struggles.

Instead, it is our responsibility to shift or heal what causes us to worry.

In order to “hold the light” for another, we must BE the light.

In order to be the light, we must heal the aspects of ourselves that are unlike love and light, such as fear and worry.

As we do so, our inner light grows brighter and stronger, boldly lighting up our world and the world around us.

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About the Author:

Natalie Eve Marquis is a heart-centered healer and teacher and the founder Reiki Release Emotional Healing Method. She is  Natalie is a highly clairvoyant and empathic intuitive energy healer, Reiki Master Teacher and practitioner, certified consulting hypnotist, and and intuitive guide.

Natalie is an intuitive development coach and teacher. She also teaches a variety of fun and informative workshops, on intuition development, reiki energy healing, intuitive energy healing, past life healing, creativity, and sacred messengers. You can work with Natalie by phone/Zoom. For more information call (603) -642-4949 or email Natalie @ NatalieMarquis.com.

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