Worry and Work on Oneself
By Ellen Pace, LMFT-S, LPC-S
The Three-Centered Human Machine
Think of yourself as a three-centered being—a human machine with both visible and invisible dimensions: your outer actions and your inner states. The three centers—Head (Intellectual), Heart (Emotional), and Body (Moving/Muscular)—each have their own function. You think, feel, and move.
The Work on Oneself, as described by Maurice Nicoll and G.I. Gurdjieff, begins by observing what you do mechanically—without judgment. Mechanical means automatic, habitual, unconscious. Every psychological state—worry, resentment, fear, joy—has a corresponding outer expression through the body. A frown, wringing of hands, or shallow breath mirrors inner anxiety. Calmness, openness, and upright posture reflect inner strength and presence.
What Is Worry?
Worry is a form of identifying—losing oneself in thought and emotion. The word worry originally meant “to strangle” or “to wring,” reflected in the bodily gestures of clenched jaws, wrinkled brows, and restricted breath. It is a form of inner twisting—a psychological and physical contraction.
In this state, energy drains away. The body tightens, the mind spins, and the heart constricts. Worry always mixes negative imagination with fragments of fact. It gives an illusion of control and even a sense of moral virtue—“If I’m worrying, it means I care.” Yet worry is not thinking, and it is not caring. It is a habitual form of inner tension that consumes attention and life-force.
The Three Centers and the Practice of Relaxation
Nicoll taught that control over worry begins through rebalancing the three centers:
The emotional center works far faster than the others—“like a rogue elephant,” Gurdjieff said. We often find ourselves already worried before we notice it.
The intellectual center can help by observing and questioning the thoughts that feed worry, instead of automatically believing them.
The moving center offers another path: relaxing tense muscles, softening the face, and freeing the breath. When the body relaxes, negative states lose ground.
Daily practice of relaxation and deep breathing is more than physical self-care—it is inner work. Passing the attention slowly through the body and releasing tension interrupts the cycle of mechanical worry and restores balance among the three centers.
RLT and Responsibility in Relationship
Relational Life Therapy (RLT) echoes this same principle: We cannot change life—or other people—but we can change how we show up in relation to them.
Worry often disguises itself as love, but in RLT terms, it can be a subtle form of control or grandiosity—an attempt to manage what is not ours to manage. It removes both our own dignity and the other person’s.
When you notice worry arising about a partner, child, or client, pause and ask:
What am I trying to control or fix?
What would it mean to care without collapsing into worry?
Can I stay present, relaxed, and connected instead of tightening with anxiety?
The shift from worrying about to being with someone is the move from fear to conscious relationship.
Transforming the Habit
Worry is deeply habitual, often beginning in the quiet moments before the day starts. These are the best times for inner work.
Notice small beginnings of worry.
Say “no” inwardly to the thought stream feeding it.
Relax the body, breathe, and re-center your attention.
Choose presence over projection.
Even a few moments of conscious awareness in the morning can shift the tone of your entire day. Each act of noticing interrupts the old mechanical repetition of self-contraction and allows something new to enter. This is the essence of Work on Oneself: transforming your relationship to life from automatic to conscious.
Reflection
“It is not life you can change but yourself in your reaction to life.” — Maurice Nicoll
In both Nicoll’s inner work and RLT’s relational practice, transformation begins with self-observation and responsibility. Worry, like all negative states, is an invitation to return to presence—to relax the body, quiet the mind, open the heart, and remember your task:
to be conscious in the midst of life.