Why Do We Worry?

When Cesar Millan is helping a family rehabilitate a dog on his show The Dog Whisperer, he will often say, “Focus on what you want to create.” 

This usually happens when the family is preparing to do an activity that typically sparks bad behavior in their dog. As they prepare for the activity, it’s common for them to anticipate the bad behavior before it happens. People get scared, they worry, they become tense and clammy. They visualize the dog biting or barking or jumping or cowering -- whatever the behavior is they are looking to get rid of, they become afraid of it happening yet again. And as they begin the activity, sure enough, as if on cue, the dog behaves in exactly the way they feared it would, creating for the family a sense of lost hope. Yet again.

This is usually when Cesar takes a deep breath, relaxes his shoulders, stands up straight, and calmly redirects the dog's behavior, often in a matter of seconds. It’s as if he has a toggle that switches the dog from bad behavior to good behavior in an instant.

The family, of course, watches in disbelief as Cesar corrects a behavior that they have chronically battled for years, usually in a very simple, straightforward way. At this point, Cesar puts his focus back on the people, provides instructions, and encourages them to try for themselves, often saying, “Focus on what you want to create.”

When Cesar notices people start to worry about their dog, his advice is simple, “Focus on what you want to create.” When Cesar achieves miraculous behavior with a dog, and a family member asks him how he did it, he responds, “I focused on what I wanted to create.” 

When we worry, we focus on negative outcomes, and that’s exactly what we create for ourselves. When we, instead, focus on the positive outcome we’d like to achieve, the positive outcome becomes more likely.

Cesar proves this with dogs. It’s up to us to prove this in our own lives.

Why Do We Worry?

As far as I can tell, we worry for three reasons:

1. We’re stuck in the past

2. We don’t know what we want to create

3. We don’t trust ourselves to create what we want

In this article, I’ll explore each of these reasons through the lens of Cesar’s dog whispering.

Reason #1 Why We Worry: We’re Stuck In the Past

People who are stuck in the past recreate the past. On the show, this sounds like: “She’s bitten four neighbors in the last year.” “He always does this.” “She won’t eat unless I smash his food and microwave it for 15 seconds.” These are descriptions of past events, and they are said confidently, as if they are a precursor for things to come.

When we couch the future in terms of the past, we are more likely to create the past. As the past gets recreated, it reinforces the idea in our minds that the future will be like the past, which creates cyclical mindsets.

As Cesar works with these types of people, part of his role is to communicate to them that the present is different than the past, and the future is different than the past. It doesn’t matter how many times something has been repeated - it can always change in the future.

Reason #2 Why We Worry: We Don’t Know What We Want to Create

For Cesar, knowing what you want to create is of the utmost importance. Before he communicates with a dog, or takes a leash, or puts a bowl of food down on the floor, he knows exactly what he’s looking to create. He’s in the zone. He’s completely merged with his desire to create a specific outcome.

When I watch him, it dawns on me that I’m often not very clear about what I want to create. It’s often the case that I know what I don’t want, but I don’t know what I want. I can tell you whether or not I want something after I’ve experienced it. But it’s not often very clear to me what I want ahead of time. For me, it’s sometimes difficult to come up with ideas of what to want, especially things I haven’t been exposed to before.

In these instances, it can be easy to default to past thinking, because our mind’s aren’t focused on any specific image of what we want to create. When we know what we want to create, there’s no room to be stuck in the past, because we are wholly bought into a vision of a more ideal future. That vision guides our actions and thinking process, making less room for worry to materialize. 

Reason #3 Why We Worry: We Don’t Trust Ourselves to Create What We Want

In some cases, Cesar works with people who are clear about the possibility of a better future, who are clear about what they want to create, but who are insecure--who don’t trust themselves to create the outcome they’re looking for.

This might look like a person who’s afraid of dogs, or a dog owner that’s nervous about their ability to handle a powerful breed. They know it’s possible to not be afraid, they know it’s possible to handle a powerful animal, but they don’t know if it’s possible for them.

Insecurity is a powerful source of worry, and is one that Cesar typically works through by exposing the individual to a challenge. The challenge has to be just right--that is, it has to be something that’s close enough to their comfort zone that they are willing to face it, but something a tad scary that they’ve never done before so that they can experience the sense of confidence that comes from achieving something difficult.

In practice, this looks like Cesar bringing a pack of well-behaved dogs to someone’s house who’s afraid of dogs. Or handing over the leashes of a pack of trained Rottweilers to someone who’s nervous about their ability to handle powerful breeds in Los Angeles. He exposes them to the things they are insecure about, but in a way that maximizes the likelihood that they will conquer the challenge and begin to trust in their abilities more.

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