Worrying and Caring Are NOT the Same Thing
The other day I posted a video to YouTube titled "You Don’t Need to Worry About What You Eat. Here's Why"
It garnered a comment from someone who seemed quite upset that I was telling people not to care about what they eat (and subsequently not care about their body).
But it’s funny...I never once said don't "care" about what you eat. I said don't worry about what you eat.
Worrying and caring are two different things, but we confuse them to mean the same thing.
Let’s look at couple Oxford definitions of the words “Care” and “Worry”:
CARE
Noun: the provision of what is necessary for the health, welfare, maintenance, and protection of someone or something.
Verb: look after and provide for the needs of.
WORRY
Verb: give way to anxiety or unease; allow one's mind to dwell on difficulty or troubles.
Noun: a state of anxiety and uncertainty over actual or potential problems.
Now what might "caring" and "worry" look like within context of food and body?
Caring for your body would mean that you are attuned to what it needs. It would require that you pay attention to how much food you need in order to function well. It would require you to notice how foods feel when they digest. You would be mindful of what foods work for you at the moment based on what’s available. You would notice if you feel pleasure or contentment when eating.
Now let’s look at what might happen if you are worrying about what you eat.
Worrying would mean you are seeing images in your mind of some future made-up scenario of how your health might be if you eat a particular food. You would be hashing out all possible scenarios of what is the “best” food to eat hoping it would give you some “ideal” future result. You would be remembering the past and bringing those memories forward into the future. You would feel tense and stressed which could aggravate your digestion.
Now which state of being seems healthier?
Caring requires you to be present with yourself. It means leaving judgements at the door and paying real attention to what you desire and need in the moment. Any “future planning” would be an act of doing what you can to have food on hand that you believe would feel good for you. And when you got new information based on new experience, you’d adjust.
Caring means you are being guided by your Inner Wisdom.
Worrying requires you to literally check out and live in your head, imagining all kinds of scenarios (many of them negative), while dissociating from your body here and now.
Worrying means you are living in your mind.
When you know the difference between your mind and your Inner Wisdom, it’s much easier to care for yourself without worrying - and this is what I teach in my Understanding Your Thinking webinar - how to notice the difference, so you can care, all without the worry.