How to Work with Worry | Christiane Wolf

Worry has a way of sneaking into everything—even gratitude, loving-kindness, and joy. In this episode, Dan Harris sits down with meditation teacher and psychologist Christiane Wolf to explore how to work skillfully with worry without suppressing it, indulging it, or turning meditation into yet another way to beat yourself up. Together, they unpack some of the most common pain points meditators face: Why trying to force certain feelings (gratitude, calm, compassion) often backfires Whether worry is ever actually helpful—and how to tell when it's not How to work with fear while waiting for a health diagnosis What to do when gratitude or loving-kindness practice triggers sadness or anxiety How consumerism (hello, holiday season) fuels craving and unease When mindfulness is enough—and when psychological work is needed to avoid spiritual bypassing Christiane offers practical tools for meeting worry with kindness, curiosity, and clarity—including how to "name it to tame it," how to gently redirect attention without suppression, and how to relate to anxious or critical thoughts as parts rather than as who you are. This conversation is honest, grounded, and deeply humane—especially for anyone who worries that they're "doing meditation wrong" or feels guilty for not feeling better fast enough. Recorded live during a subscriber Q&A session – join us at DanHarris.com http://danharris.com/ to be part of these sessions as they happen! Related Episodes: How to Outsmart Your Pain | Christiane Wolf https://open.substack.com/pub/danharris/p/how-to-outsmart-your-pain-christiane-dce?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=webIs Your Ambition Rooted in Trauma? | Christiane Wolf https://open.substack.com/pub/danharris/p/is-your-ambition-rooted-in-trauma?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web Get the 10% with Dan Harris app here https://app.danharris.com/membership Sign up for Dan's free newsletter here http://www.danharris.com/ Follow Dan on social: Instagram https://bit.ly/3tGigG5, TikTok https://bit.ly/3FOA84J Subscribe to our YouTube Channel https://bit.ly/3FybRzD Thanks to our sponsors: Airbnb: Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at airbnb.com/host http://airbnb.com/host. AT&T:  Happy Holidays from AT&T http://www.att.com/. Connecting changes everything. To advertise on the show, contact [email protected] or visit https://advertising.libsyn.com/10HappierwithDanHarris

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

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• 0:34Dan Harris?

  This is the 10% Happier Podcast. I'm Dan Harris.

• 0:48Dan Harris?

  Hey, hey, everybody. Today, we're going to talk about how to work with worry, especially if you're in the middle of that special hell of waiting for a medical diagnosis, what to do when gratitude doesn't work, or when it backfires or makes you feel worse, how to deal with that jangly, never enough feeling of wanting that can come over you, especially during the holidays, how to disentangle from your inner critic, and much more. My guest today is Dr. Christiana Wolf, who is a physician, a longtime Dharma teacher, and an ultra marathoner. So she's got a varied resume. What you're about to hear is a recording of one of our weekly live sessions that we do over on danharris.com.

• 1:32Dan Harris?

  These sessions are normally for our paying subscribers, but we're dropping this one for free. This session you're about to hear was the first time we ever did this on Zoom after many months on Substack, so you'll hear us figuring out some things on the fly. Thank you for your patience on that score. We always start these things with a short guided meditation, but we clip that out so you can just get right to the Q and A with me and Christiana. Just to say, before we dive in, you can come to all of our weekly live meditation and Q and A sessions if you sign up for my new app. Which is called 10% with Dan Harris. You can sign up at danharris.com. We do these sessions every Tuesday at 4 Eastern. We won't be doing our normal 4 o'clock Tuesday session on Tuesday, December 30th,

• 2:15Dan Harris?

  because of the holidays, but I'll be doing three of them the following week when we launch our New Year's Meditation Challenge with Joseph Goldstein. Those will be available for anybody. That meditation challenge, by the way, is free. If you sign up now over at danharris.com, you can get a free 30-day trial, which will include the New Year's Meditation Challenge. So you should go sign up. All right, we'll dive in with Cristiano Wolfe right after this.

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• 3:41Speaker 06

  When we're practicing something like gratitude, and it can also come up when we're practicing loving kindness, or when we're practicing joy, or when we're practicing compassion, is to remember that we cannot make ourselves feel that.

• 3:58Speaker 06

  Yeah, so sometimes we come to a class and then I'm very happy then like you're actually had a shift in mood, but for some people you won't have a shift in mood. Yeah, and then it can be something that kind of confirms, yeah, it confirms maybe this I'm having a shitty day or there's something wrong with me. Yeah, and so I just want to acknowledge that. So what we're practicing with actually is we're practicing with our intention. Yeah, so our intention is to turn towards gratitude or appreciation. And then if we're lucky, we feel something and it can be really nice and beautiful. But if we don't feel that, it doesn't mean we're doing something wrong.

• 4:41Speaker 06

  Yeah, so I just wanted to acknowledge that.

• 4:44Dan Harris?

  Yeah, and what you were saying, Kristiana, about the fact that you don't need to feel any kind of way. Like, to me, that's what allowed me to, one of the things that allowed me to do loving kindness practice is that the point is not to force some sort of feeling. The point is to do the exercise and have some confidence based on 2,600 years of contemplative history that over time it will bear fruit. How does that land for you, Kristiana?

• 5:11Speaker 06

  Oh, absolutely, yeah. So for me, when I started loving kindness practice, I just did it because the teachers that I trusted told me to do it. And so they told me to do some loving kindness practice every other day. And I was just sitting there and repeating the phrases, may I be happy, may you be happy. And I think like, what a waste of time. Yeah, and I couldn't feel anything, couldn't connect with it at all, like theoretically, maybe it made sense. But I really know that over time that that practice softened me a lot. And it made it so like we're often saying with the loving kindness practice is like we are opening a door or we're opening a window. And we keep doing that repeatedly.

• 5:54Speaker 06

  Yeah, and so it's not up to us whether actually like loving kindness or compassion will walk in, but it is easier when the door is open. But that's been definitely my experience.

• 6:07Dan Harris?

  There is a comment here from Robin that I want to address and then I want to hear what you have to say, Christiana. Robin says, "The gratitude practice is lovely, but it also brings up sadness, maybe because I'm also worried about so many of the people and things I'm grateful for. It's quite moving for me." And I don't, what I'm about to say is not necessarily directed at Robin's comment. Like, I don't know what's in Robin's mind fully, but right before this session, I was recording a podcast that we'll post in a couple of weeks. It was a great podcast with these two Buddhist monks, young American Buddhist monks who have a community in Seattle. And one of the things one of the monks said that I thought was really cool was that there

• 6:51Dan Harris?

  is this feeling many of us have that the best way to honor the suffering in the world is to be miserable.

• 6:59Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 7:00Dan Harris?

  But that isn't helping anybody. That's not serving the people you're trying to help. I don't say that as a critique of what Robin's bringing up here. I feel that too, when I'm doing gratitude or loving kindness, or often for my son, I'll think of maybe healthy and then start worrying about whether he's going to be unhealthy at some point. So I said a lot there, not all of it totally coherent, Christiana, but any thoughts on...

• 7:25Speaker 06

  Yeah, no, thank you. I think that's really important. And I just actually had that discussion with like at another meditation group I was teaching. And the question that came up for me was the instructions were, so when you notice your mind going into story, can you just drop it? Can you put it in a parking lot? Can you say, "Thank you, not now"? As a training to say like, "I'm paying attention to this right now. I've chosen to pay attention to this right now." Yeah. And just as like when I do focused work and like, I don't know, coworker walks in and I say, "Can you hold that? I'll get back to you." Yeah. So it's not aversive. I'm not trying to suppress it or something. I'm just saying, "Not right now." And then we had that discussion and somebody said, "Yeah,

• 8:08Speaker 06

  I'm so worried about one of my children. So is that okay? Or like, what do I do when that comes up in a meditation?" And I basically said, well, do you have to worry about your child right now in the meditation? And then we had this kind of interesting discussion. I wonder how that lands with people here. Because basically what it came down to that he said, because there's something going on with my child, therefore I need to worry because that's what parents do, right? And then we were just playing with this idea is, yeah, but do you have to do that right now? And is that helping your child if you worry right now? Back to your question, Dan, right? Or like what you had the discussions with the monks?

• 8:52Speaker 06

  And so I think what we can learn with this, and of course, we have to be careful that we not use that as like a spiritual bypass. But to see, is that really helpful right now? Is that helpful if I worry about the people right now? Or is that helpful if I really suffer with you in the same way that you're suffering? Yeah, so like when people in our live and somebody else shared in the chat box about her husband being diagnosed with like an advanced illness. And so then the question often, is that helpful? And of course, we suffer. So like this is the tricky part. So we do this, but sometimes what we are learning with these practices is

• 9:37Speaker 06

  we see what our nervous system does pre-programmed in a way. And then asking the question, and is that helpful? And is there something else I can do about this? Or what would be more helpful? Yeah, and then we can go in all different kinds of directions with this that are not about avoiding feeling hard feelings.

• 10:01Dan Harris?

  There's a good question here from Maria in the chat. Is worry ever helpful?

• 10:07Speaker 06

  That's a really good question. I would say barely ever, honestly. Yeah, so I think it is really helpful like to alert us to, I really care about that person, therefore I worry. Or it alerts me to, is there an actionable item right now? Is there something I need to do? Yeah, but if there is not, I don't think there's any benefit in worrying. I'm provoking you guys a little bit. You notice that, right?

• 10:37Speaker 06

  But just for something like, I don't know, some food for thoughts. Yeah.

• 10:44Dan Harris?

  Okay, let me get to at least one of the questions that were submitted in advance because this one is timely. So many of the questions we can save and ask later, but this one is really timely. It's from Nikki. Hi, with Black Friday coming up, I would love to hear more about your suggestions for dealing with wanting. I know it is part culture slash consumerism and likely part anxiety that leaves us wanting all the things. I have surfed the urge, I've welcomed it to the party, but it seems to keep showing up this time of year. Thank you.

• 11:20Speaker 06

  Great, great question. Yes, very timely. And so to look into that question, is there the assumption that worry will away if I do all the right things?

• 11:30Speaker 06

  Yeah, so I think that's a really interesting question, or is that just while we're human beings, therefore wanting will keep arising? And is that a problem? Yeah, so that's a general answer to that question. And then does it show up more this time of year? Absolutely. And it is almost like we're being triggered into wanting like crazy, like wherever you look right now, it's like Black Friday, sales and here and this and that. So it is almost like we're being fed a drug. And it's really hard to avoid that. And so I think really important to think about is in general, what is your relationship to wanting? And to stuff at this point.

• 12:15Speaker 06

  And I was reminded then, you had a nice podcast with Michael Easter, I think last year. And Michael Easter is the author of, is that the scarcity mind? I think that's the name of the book.

• 12:27Dan Harris?

  Scarcity Mind, yes.

• 12:28Speaker 06

  Scarcity Mind, yeah. And I love his saying it, he says like buy gear, not stuff.

• 12:35Speaker 06

  Yeah, so really to look into is that what you're about to buy really something you need and you will use for the next ten, twenty years? Or is that just something that is just like the slot machine in a casino that like you're being played? And I don't like being played. So that's like something is really, I get actually mad if I feel like I'm being manipulated into something. Yeah, and that is for me a way to just go like, wait, what's happening right now? Yeah.

• 13:06Dan Harris?

  Let me go back to worrying for a second because there's another question here from DV. How do you let go of worrying when you're waiting for a health diagnosis?

• 13:15Speaker 06

  Yeah, great question. So again, like we want to work around worry with a lot of kindness, right? So we're hardwired to worry. Nothing wrong, it will come up. It is just like, once I'm in it, do I feed it? Or am I training myself to pivot into not worrying? Yeah? And so when you're waiting for a health diagnosis, of course, your mind will worry. And then can you use your practice skills to notice that and you can name it, right? We often say the name it to tame it and say, oh, worry mind.

• 13:55Speaker 06

  And then you direct it to something in the present moment in your senses. Yeah, so you could look around the room, you could orient to sounds, you could feel your breath and keep repeating that. And then also just self compassion, right? So self compassion says, yeah, this is really hard to wait for a diagnosis. And yes, this is what it feels like for everybody who is waiting for a diagnosis to be so worried and not knowing what will be the outcome.

• 14:30Dan Harris?

  That's a terrible feeling. I've been there.

• 14:32Speaker 06

  It is, for sure.

• 14:33Dan Harris?

  Another question from the chat here. It comes from Desiree, who I can see. I can actually see Desiree who's sitting with her friend, partner, co-joined twins, since they're wearing the same clothing. So in my screen, I see like they're enjoying. Desiree asks, can you talk about how to work with the inner critic when it wants to hold you hostage and not allow you to feel gratitude/joy? Like you didn't earn it, or you or should fix various problems, especially with making sure everybody else is okay first, before allowing yourself to enjoy? Thanks so much.

• 15:06Speaker 06

  That's an important question. And we have a related question that came in that somebody submitted before about how do we distinguish between a thought or just a story worry or something like that? And where do we actually address it on a psychological level? Yeah. And then I wonder if you want to also read that question? And then I can see if I can address those both together.

• 15:32Dan Harris?

  Is this a question from Jim Franco?

• 15:34Speaker 06

  I think so, yeah, about IFS. Yes.

• 15:37Dan Harris?

  By the way, Desiree says that the dude in her little square here is her partner Wes. It's Wes. Jim Franco asks, I'd like to hear more about the intersection between mindfulness practice, where you label your thoughts and then come back to the breath, and the recognition that for me, some thoughts are more than just thoughts, but actually shadow or protect parts of myself that need to be acknowledged and met with kindness, curiosity, and compassion. I practice internal family systems, or IFS, which is a kind of therapy, and find that both labeling thoughts as thoughts and working with thought parts are beneficial to my practice. If I'm not mindful of the psychological healing that needs to occur, I'm at risk of spiritually

• 16:20Dan Harris?

  bypassing. I've heard this two-pronged approach referred to by the Buddhist psychologist Bruce Tiff as the being/fruitional approach and the becoming/developemental approach. Or, as I've heard in a quote from the Zen teacher Shunryo Suzuki Roshi, "We're all perfect, and we can also use a little work." I would appreciate hearing your thoughts.

• 16:42Speaker 06

  Yeah, and I see Desiree, like you do IFS, so you're familiar with that. IFS, I'm also trained in IFS, this internal family system. And I find that really helpful in conjunction with mindfulness. It could be you feel anxious. So, does it make a difference to you? Little experiment here. If you say to yourself, "I'm anxious, I'm super anxious." Notice how that lands? And then, would that land differently if you would say, "I have a part that feels really anxious right now." "I have a part that feels really anxious." And then, my first question would be,

• 17:24Speaker 06

  "Does that make sense that you have a part that feels really anxious right now?" So, I just wonder how that lands for people. Can you feel a difference between those two?

• 17:35Dan Harris?

  I don't think you were even asking me particularly.

• 17:37Speaker 06

  Yeah, please, no, yes.

• 17:41Dan Harris?

  When you put it on a part, it feels less blot out the sun.

• 17:45Speaker 06

  Yes, exactly. Yeah, and this actually is totally in alignment with mindfulness or Buddhist teachings. It's like, we don't take it as personally. We don't think this is who we are. Yeah, when I say, "I am anxious," blot out the sun, exactly, right? This is who I am, always been, always will be, hopeless kind of thing. And if I say, "I have a part," very often, there's immediately a sense of more openness or curiosity, or like, "Yeah, of course I have a part." Like, that makes total sense. So, we have understanding and we have an uncoupling from being completely merged with that part. Yeah? So, very often, like with emotional work, it is very helpful to just use that. Yeah?

• 18:28Speaker 06

  And then, with the inner critic, right? So, Desiree, back to your question also, and I'm sure you've already asked yourself that question. Does that make sense that you have an inner critic part? Makes sense, I see you nod, yes. Okay. And then, the question is, one approach of IFS is that all parts have a really good intention for you. Yeah, and then we need to separate the intention and the method. Yeah, because you might be on the receiving end of that part yelling at you and calling you names. So that doesn't land well in my system at all.

• 19:10Speaker 06

  But if you're actually sometimes sit down with that part, get to know it, right? To see what does that part actually want from you, for you? Yeah, so I just wonder also like for Desiree and other people here. Do you have a sense of what that part, or give it away? How is the part trying to keep you safe? Yeah, or can you see how the part is trying to keep you safe? Very often, so with the inner critic, what happens is that we have learned if we're really hard on ourselves.

• 19:55Speaker 06

  Yeah, or we're using the words that have been used towards us. It keeps us in line and therefore safe. Yeah, and so what we're doing here is we're reframing our experience in a more psychological way, which can, when there's more understanding or like even like a softening, like, like, yeah, I get that, I get that. Yeah, how my inner perfectionist or how my inner critic actually is trying to keep me safe. My inner people pleaser or whatever that is. And then we can use mindfulness to integrate that.

• 20:35Speaker 06

  And then often the pressure of those parts, they decrease. So back to that question that was sent in, because I totally believe and I've seen that we can use mindfulness skills to bypass actually addressing hurt parts or hurt younger aspects in ourselves. So that's a long answer and I can talk for the next couple of hours or days probably. But I'll just pause here.

• 21:10Dan Harris?

  Let's do one last question here and just stay on this point. And I'll read you a comment here from Sylvia Davidson, who is just expressing some, not necessarily skepticism about what you're saying, but about her ability to apply it for herself. She writes, "I can see/intellectualize and tell myself that the second option is creating distance." In other words, that when I say that there's a part of me that's anxious rather than I am anxious. But it's just words for me. At the emotional level, I can't say that I feel that distance.

• 21:45Speaker 06

  Yeah, so that is very common. So especially as we start with that work, because the idea is that those parts are younger aspects of ourselves who have learned to drive the minivan, and they shouldn't. So the question always is, who is driving the minivan right now? And what we want is our loving adult self to drive the minivan, and everybody in the backseat give their opinions and inputs, right? We really want to listen to them, but over time, we don't want them to drive the minivan anymore. But we also know that for many of us, growing up, there was nobody driving the minivan. So it was just us who were able to do it.

• 22:28Speaker 06

  And we had to do it, and we did that as best as we could. And so there's often this habitual taking over, and then it feels like there is no loving, mature adult here. And that is actually part of the healing work that we can do with IFS. Yeah, so totally normal what you're describing, Sylvia. Yeah.

• 22:52Dan Harris?

  Christiana, thank you very much for being Teacher of the Month here for November. You've done great work. Really appreciate it. And thanks for doing this session with us today.

• 23:01Speaker 06

  Thank you, man. Thank you, everyone. Thank you for hanging out here. Happy Thanksgiving to all of you who are celebrating. Wonderful to see you. And keep practicing. Thank you.

• 23:12Dan Harris?

  Yeah, thank you, everybody, for being part of this. I really appreciate it. And we'll be back next Tuesday with, as mentioned, our December Teacher of the Month, Jeff Warren. Yeah, lots of cool stuff cooking in 10% universe. So thanks for being a part of it. Thank you again to Christiana, and see you next week.

• 23:30Speaker 06

  Bye-bye. Thank you. Thank you so much.

• 23:37Dan Harris?

  Big thank you to Christiana. Don't forget to sign up for the new app, 10% with Dan Harris. You can sign up over at danharris.com. There's a free 30-day trial if you want to try before you buy. If you sign up for the free trial, that will cover our New Year's Meditation Challenge, so you'll get that for free. The challenge starts on the 5th and runs for seven days, and will feature a series of progressive guided meditations led by Joseph Goldstein. It's gonna be really cool. Finally, a big thank you to everybody who works so hard on this show. Our producers are Tara Anderson and Eleanor Vasili. Our recording and engineering is handled by the great folks over at Pod People. Lauren Smith is our managing producer. Marissa Schneiderman is our senior producer. DJ Cashmere is our executive producer. And

• 24:22Dan Harris?

  Nick Thorburn of the band Islands wrote our theme.

• 24:36Speaker 07

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