I’ve been aware lately of the pervasiveness of fear in our lives. And not because it was Halloween this past weekend, but because, as I return to teaching and hear the stories people share with me, I’m amazed at how many contain a component of fear–I can’t find a job, I might lose my house, my relationship might be over, I’m moving and it brings up a lot of unknowns for me, what if I get H1N1?
I don’t mean to negate or trivialize these fears, as my heart feels for the ways in which we all suffer in relationship to our fears. But I mention these stories because I don’t remember any one of the people who told these stories simply saying, “I’m scared.”
I’ve been learning this lesson myself, too, as I have been trying my best to stay witness to a part of me who holds a ton of fear in relationship, and rather than actually acknowledge it, I usually find every way possible to first avoid it, numb it out, or make it go away.
It has become my practice lately to try to maintain my witness enough in these situations to pause, acknowledge and feel the fear, and say out loud, “I’m scared.” Saying I’m scared is scary, too, but it shifts everything. The feeling of paralysis and struggle go away, and I sense a glimmer of hope that the fear itself might also go away.
I used to be terrified of the dark. My parents could tell you stories of how I would run like a wild person out of the basement when I was a kid because I was certain something would jump out of the darkness and kill me. My family and I made fun of my reaction, and I was ashamed as this fear persisted into my adult years.
I’ve finally mostly gotten over this fear, and not because I’ve just outgrown it, but because at some point I decided living (or trying to live) with this paralyzing fear was worse than facing it and transforming it. It took years of living on my own and many, many nights sleeping in the backcountry alone, feeling just how breathtakingly, devastatingly terrified I was–to realize one night that the fear simply was no longer there. I actually even came to enjoy the dark.
Of course, this fear still gets triggered every once in a while–like this weekend as I went into a neighbor’s pitch-dark house to care for their pets while they were away, and I got so scared that I went home and asked my partner to come with me. If he hadn’t been there I would have faced my fear and fed the dogs anyway, but since he was there, it was just so much easier to ask him to come with me than it was to actually deal with how scared I was. Though I was forthright with him and openly admitted I was scared, internally I remember thinking, “This again? I thought I had dealt with this fear?”
We all have fears; some persistent, some transient, some deeply hidden. And as my friend and grounded-astrologer-extraordinaire Emily Trinkhaus writes about eloquently and insightfully in her November blog, we happen to astrologically be going through a time that is about highlighting our fears. (As I so often say to her–”That explains A LOT!) We also happen to live in a culture–as evidenced in my story above and in the social commentary that is Halloween–that chooses to ignore our worst fears, exaggerate them, turn them into a big joke, or project them in our relationships with other people (personally and collectively) costumed as anger, manipulation, and control.
I revisited the Buddhist nun Pema Chodron’s The Places that Scare You this weekend. She says, “what we most want to avoid in our lives is crucial to awakening.” Gosh that’s hard to swallow. And yet my heart knows it is true.
So what do we do? She reminds us that letting go of the story line and simply abiding with the energy of fear until we can begin to relax with the fear is what transforms it. This is why in my classes lately I am always inviting you back to ease. Relax. Not because the yoga poses are meant to be easy and peaceful, but because when we relax we aren’t fighting with what is. Instead we are allowing ourselves to remember that we are supported, that Spirit and love are present even in the struggle, and with that, the internal warfare subsides and we begin to get a sense of the possibility for transformation that is available in what Pema Chodron refers to as “the nakedness of the present moment.”
In this way our yoga mat is no longer the place that we go to avoid our fears–or anything else for that matter–but a place where we go to relax into and abide in whatever energy is present so that we can be more alive and fearless off our mats.
And so, in this way, never underestimate the courage it takes to go to your yoga mat and the profound power for transformation that comes through abiding with all that is.
It’s good to be back practicing with you all.