Rather than going to war with fear – and deeming it a
mistake or problem that you must eliminate, transform, or transcend – the
invitation is to enter into relationship with it. Fear has been wired into your
nervous system for millions of years and is unlikely to be undone in a few
decades through spiritual process. You can rest in the strong likelihood that
fear may arise most every day for the rest of your life, in some form or
another. Welcome. You are alive.
Look very carefully inside your present experience. Is fear
a problem? Is the surging of sensation, feeling, and intensity within you
something you must continue to argue with, to shame, and to subject to the
movement of self-aggression? Must you continue to tell stories about how it is
the “opposite” of love (as if love had an “opposite”) and that as soon as you
are no longer scared, then you will fully show up and participate in life, in
relationship, in your own vulnerability?
Is it actually the appearance of fear that is the cause of
your struggle and suffering? That wavelike movement of felt sense as it ripples
through your belly, your throat, your chest, and your shoulders? Or does the
struggle emerge from the abandonment and rejection of the life as it moves
through you? As well as from the unexamined conclusions that its mere presence
is evidence of a problem that must urgently be solved, that there is something
wrong with you, and that you have failed?
Yes, fear may be a fierce and burning companion, but it is
not an enemy that has come from the outside. It is a lost part of you that is
requesting your attention, arising in the radiant here and now to reveal
something that you have lost contact with.
With practice, it is possible to enter inside your fear,
and to infuse it with your presence, with your tenderness, your curiosity, and
your warmth. To even open your heart to your fear, to become friends with your
fear. Of course, this is a radical invitation that the mind may have a
difficult time embracing. It is also one that may not go over so well in a
culture that has abandoned the shadow in its scramble to get to “happiness” at
all costs.
But as an act of self-love, you can start to open into your
fear. First, drop the word “fear” as it can never touch the unprecedented
movement of energy and color within you. Surround it with your awareness. And
start to move just a bit closer. And see. Close enough to start becoming
intimate with this part of you, but not so close that you fuse and identify
with it as who you are, or overwhelm yourself. Slowly. Short periods of time.
One second, Two seconds. Three seconds. And rest. And then maybe next time for
four or five. Then rest.
You might then come to discover that the movement of energy
that we call “fear” is not an adversary, working against you, but actually an
ally, sent to bring you closer to yourself, and to reveal wholeness. The only
way we will ever know the truth of fearlessness is through the willingness to
stay embodied to waves of fear.
My new book – The Path Is Everywhere: Uncovering the Jewels Hidden Within You – is now available
The Way of Rest summer retreat – as of June 30 there are a few seats left
The Way of Rest summer retreat – as of June 30 there are a few seats left
