You’re Stronger than You Think. — Understanding the Body of Fear.
Author and spiritual teacher Tara Brach asks us – “How do we gradually embrace, not all at once, but the life that’s here?”
How do we show up to live fully and present complete with our entourage of emotions, fears, thoughts, worries, joys, dreams, expectations, attachments, etc?
Of course, part of the journey is learning to let go of some of the baggage, but there are days and weeks and months on end when I feel like a traveling three ring circus no matter where I go.
You might never know it from the outside, but in my mind my ego takes up residency as the Master of Ceremonies directing my attention to stomach dropping and heart clenching tight rope walks and trapeze swings that feel like there is no space for error or mistake.
Must. Be. Perfect. Or you’re dead.
Fear lies beneath the shadows. It is not something to show up to lightly.
Fear puts our nervous system in a grip. Fear is our anticipation of loss. We can spend our whole life consciously and unconsciously organizing our lives around avoiding fear and never really understanding that being afraid is actually a part of being human and more importantly, we can tame this so-called beast by cultivating a committed intention, quiet understanding and acceptance.
“Committed intention, quiet understanding and acceptance…” I sort of feel like someone is mocking those words back at me.
“Oh yeah, Jessica – it is that easy, right? Let’s just all channel our inner unicorn and deal with our fear by using words like “cultivate, mindful, understanding, intention and blah blah bah.”
Hey, I get it. It’s not easy. And until I got it (and some days I don’t) I didn’t get it. But once I did, it is impossible to turn away and not realize that the answer is right there within you – and you are free to use whatever words you would like to have it make sense. Just don’t deny it and stop making excuses.
“Give over being idle; be a night-traveler like the stars. What do you fear of earthly beings, since you are a celestial rider?” ~ Rumi
However you want to look at it, say it or phrase it, YOU have to make the choice to deal with it. You have to exert some willingness or energy towards even uttering those three dreaded words, “I am afraid,” or “I have fear”…
That is just the first step, folks. Not to burst your bubble, but if you are waiting for a “plane to fly over you in the sky” with a grand message about your life or how to get through whatever it is you are dealing with I have five more words for you:
Shit just ain’t gonna happen.
I think a lot of us on the spiritual path go through a period where we hope our burdens will just be “lifted” from our shoulders for no good reason or no participation on our end. I’ll admit, miracles do happen, but for the most part, you are the synergistic center to a “miracle” happening in your own life. Not a book, a person, a white turban, a prayer, mantra, a yoga class or a diet or detox.
You are the catalyst of change in your own life. It is almost as if we become inner couch potatoes – trying to do all of the right things on the outside, but on the inside we are still replaying the same episodes over and over again, glued to the comforts of our own strategies to try and avoid discomfort and real transformation in our lives.
Understanding the Body of Fear.
Fear takes approximately 1.5 minutes to run it’s course through your body.
When I said above that fear is natural – just imagine the adrenaline that courses through your body when you see a spider or snake (if you happen to be afraid of these for-the-most-part harmless creatures).
You get a spike of chemical response and, well, think about it for a moment – it typically dissipates after a couple minutes and you laugh at yourself, maybe take an instagram pic, post it and move on with your day.
Unless you have a “phobia” of snakes or spiders, there is no behavior patterning in your body to re-trigger the response. It moves you into action (like running away or flinging your glasses off your face — see below) #reallife.
When we move into talking about fear in a more personal way – like fear of the future, fear of losing a parent, fear of speaking in public, fear of giving up our comfort strategies like eating or drinking, we relate to these a little differently.
These fears have stories and patterns and behaviors attached to them – so, typically, when fear strikes, our patterning allows for the fear to keep getting re-triggered over and over and over again. Which basically means that for many of us, that whole “fear lasts 1.5 minutes” seemed like a made up unicorn fairy story until I have now presented you with some facts.
I don’t know about you, and I am no scientist by any means, but looking at fear in this way allowed me to see “my role” in perpetuating it. Some of you may know what I mean… like when you partner looks at you and says, “Why can’t you just let it go!” and I am in the grip of whatever is gripping me and I literally feel as though I cannot.
FEAR x RESISTANCE = SUFFERING.
You become locked in resisting the fear, getting re-triggered over and over again. The more we try to control the fear (instead of sitting with it and letting it run its course) the more we identify with it at a core level.
You feel where this is headed?
It is like bellying up at the “Bar of Fear” and doing shot after shot of whatever your poison is. Yep – you are choosing it at this point. Similar to waking up with hangovers – if I lose myself in the grip of fear, I wake up the next day holding my head mumbling things like, “I am way too old to be doing things like this to myself.”
Understanding a little bit of the science behind fear has helped me to understand my role in it.
Understanding my role in it has helped me to get behind creating and/or seeking out resources and tools to support me in what Tara Brach calls, “attending and befriending” it.
Become Besties with your Fear!
We don’t need one million strategies to deal with ourselves. We need one or two – maybe three. When we start to try and do more than that, we are doing nothing more than distracting ourselves from the core issue with yet, another strategy. And, what I am going to share may or may not resonate with you.
If it does, great! If not – then, like I said – there are a million strategies out there. Just pick on and then write a blog about it, maybe right here on Rebelle.
Find a Still Spot.
Finding your still spot is like having absolute faith that there is a “just your size” sandbar out in the ocean of fear. Knowing that it is there, even though you may not be able to see it or feel it yet. But taking that first step towards finding your still spot is knowing it is there.
When we access our still spot, it allows us to sort of “put the breaks” on the fear for just enough time (even if it is only a few seconds) to step back, access the situation, slow down the sympathetic nervous system and anchor in the parasympathetic nervous system.
I would like to preface the actual techniques in saying that they are nothing you don’t already know how to do, or perhaps already do. What good would it do any of us if these techniques were hard and difficult to learn? Dealing with our fear is hard enough. I think sometimes we just want to make things more difficult than they really are (or at least I do…)
First, you must realize that fear is present. That’s it. Fear is here! (that rhymes). Don’t be scared.
Still Spots…
- Grounding – Begin to feel your feet on the earth. Feel your sitting bones on the chair.
- Breathe – Slow, deep and full.
- Touch in – Place a hand over the heart or perhaps over your navel.
- Use a loving kindness message – Say to yourself – May I be safe, May I be peaceful.
Keep moving from your thoughts to an anchor, from your thoughts, to an anchor. The reality is that you will probably not be able to stay anchored in a still spot for very long at first.
One second? A half a second? One inhale… May I be…. (and not even get the rest of the statement out) before you are back in the grip and patterning of fear. And, that is ok!
Don’t give up. Just keep going back to one of your still spots, trusting and knowing that your sandbar is there. Be determined. Even just 30 seconds of this work can help to dramatically interrupt a life pattern and open a doorway to freedom.
“The whole of spiritual life is to meet our edge and soften.”
~ Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche
(again and again and again and again)
No one said this would be easy. As we continue on our collective journey – let us together know that we are all doing this work, supporting one another in the name of freedom and in pursuit of an inner revolution.
I used to distract myself by making things harder than they were. I used to want a “one fix” answer. The truth is that there is only one answer – WE are the ones who seem to forget it and show up again and again with the same question.
*****
{Dissect your fear.}
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