Worry Medicine

Anxiety has burrowed a live stream in my body, vibrant and full, for most of my life. Learning how to befriend and care for this agitated fear has been my life's journey. (If you want to explore this topic further, I wrote about tending a strand of this ancestral pain here.)

For so long, I wanted to get rid of it. But along the way, I've grown to feel deep respect for the worried, alarmed, anxious or frightened parts of my being - for fear does not arise in a vacuum. It's by honoring this whole that I can understand and forgive the particular spikes of worry that travel throughout my days.

I am deeply indebted to several teachers who have transformed my relationship to anxiety and worry - Abby Seixas, the beloved Dr. Gordon Neufeld, Tara Brach, Patty Wipfler, the approach of Focusing, and Bonnie Badenoch.

The monk in the poem is Milarepa, which I wrote about here, in my substack, When Food is Your Mother.

The title is borrowed from the title of a new book, Worry Medicine, from Nina Montenegro, one half of the sister team that creates The Far Woods. I encourage you to explore her new book and spend some time relishing The Far Woods' glorious images of kinship, reconciliation, and homecoming with the earth, ourselves and each other.

The prompt to explore worry came from Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer and Augusta Kantra in their Soul Writer's Circle, bless them both.

Where there is worry, may we bend our knees and listen.

Worry Medicine by Karly Randolph Pitman

“Don't you know, with all your fear and anger all you are fit for is love?” - Stephen Levine

worry = from the Old English wer, to turn to bend. Worry arises from the same root as wrangle, wrath, wreath, wrestle, universe, and worth.

It's true – I can't smooth the path for my children.
I can't prevent their struggles or pain. I can't prevent

my own. I don't control the weft of life, although
I'd like to. I don't know what's coming

around the bend, although I wish I could prepare
for this unknown future.

A fear of pain coiled tight and early in my body,
a strong seed that grew and grew. It became

a fear that I can't handle hurt, a fear that I'd hurt
others. So I've tried not to hurt people

and I've tried to overcome my fears.
But it's been impossible. And so I've worried.

But I also wonder about how I was made.
And I wonder about this worry that says

I shouldn't feel afraid. Perhaps it's true: life
is happening the only way it can.

And if that's true, perhaps this worry isn't proof
of failure but her own mysterious grace. Every day

I get to love what's frightened within me. I get to meet
this particular fractal of life's pain, and her mercy.

The only way to love my wounds is to know them.
So I bow my head like the old monk and say, Teach me.

Teach me your pain. I open to the yawning fear,
surprised to discover she's not the wrangle of worry

I first imagined. She leads me home to what is whole
and holy within me, to my worth.

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With a grateful heart, Karly