The Worry Jar

It's a beautiful morning. Peaceful. Existing in the unexpected surprise of waking up before the alarm clock. This space feels so nourishing. Most are still snuggled up in their bed watching movies in their mind. I turn on the tea kettle, smell the green tea mixed with peppermint leaves. As I wait for the water to boil, I step outside onto my mat and welcome in the rising sun. I breathe in the morning air, I watch the sky. Empty. Or so I thought at first. 

As I cross the doorway back inside, my bare feet crying from leaving the earth, I notice on the shelf my worry jar. In this jar I have kept some of my worries over the years. I pour the hot water in my tea, grab a cup, the worry jar, then head back outside. The birds are chirping, welcoming in the day. But the people remain quiet. I’ve decided it’s time to let these worries go. They have been sitting in this jar for years. Some since 2021.

I light a flame, open the container, and begin to watch these worries turn to ash. I light the sage. In order to fully release them, I feel I must read them. I pour some worries out of the jar, and one by one I give them to the flame. One by one I feel a subtle purification happening, a subtle letting go. Letting go of something that I wasn’t even aware still had a place in me. 

I notice that some leave a few worries off to the side. To read again later or to take a picture so I can remember. Wouldn’t taking a picture defeat the purpose of letting them go? That I am still holding on or still attached to the idea, the worry? It’s through curiosity of my own actions that I realize I am attached to some of these worries. I worry that if I burn them, I will forget them. What a mental loop that can be. If I burn these worries, I’ll let go of the idea.

Well that's the point. I think about sharing them. About sending them off to some of my friends to say “Hey look at this worry I had from early 2021!” But these are not for others. The intention when I started this jar was to release them, to let them go. Not to hold onto them or share them. This cleansing and releasing process is for me and if I have to be on my phone in order to share then that takes away from this moment. It disconnects me from the purpose. So here I am, sharing it with all of you once I am done. 

I didn’t expect there to be a desire to hold onto my worries. I thought it would be easy to let them go, to watch them all burn. But it wasn’t. And I guess when I think about it, it makes sense. I heard from myself “This worry is actually just a memory! Hold onto it so you can see the growth you’ve made!” But I already know the growth I’ve made. I see it in the way my life looks. In the way my relationships are. And I don’t need a paper I wrote when I was at a low point to remind me of how low I was. I don’t need that negative energy to remind me that I am in a more positive or preferable space at the moment. So I burned it. I burned them all.

This morning when I looked up at the sky laying on my mat, I thought I was looking up at a vast array of empty blue. It was only after staring for some time that I saw birds high in the sky. I realized that the sky wasn’t as empty as I initially perceived. I’ve burned my worries and feel empty, lighter, cleaner. I made room to see the worries that aren’t so clear on the surface. The ones that you have to really look at for some time to see. Now I made room to look for the birds that are so high up in the sky you don’t notice unless you become okay with the stillness it takes to sit and watch.  

Notes:

When we let go of a fear or a worry, we have a little death. Each one of those is a little death happening, Abhinivesha.