Fear & Awakening
Fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth
Pema Chodron
So many people I work with these days are feeling fearful for the future. Our culture is carrying a great deal of stress and anxiety over issues like the economy, covid, climate change, politics and so many things beyond our control. But, what if the fear we feel is actually the access to dealing with all these personal and global threats and challenges? Perhaps, our fear is not something to get rid of, but something to explore and mine for the deeper golden truths of what it means to be human, how to find wholeness and harmony in our lives, and how to connect more deeply with life itself.
Rather than becoming undone by our fears, we could hold them as messengers inviting us to go deeper and listen to the embodied signals that are telling us to stop struggling and look directly at what we are afraid of and what we are grappling with in our inner lives. Perhaps we can begin to look at fear as the good news, that’s here to teach us where we’re holding back and stuck in patterns, problems, and projections from the past. By looking more deeply at our fears, in the present moment, we can bring about personal, relational, and planetary healing.
Rather than becoming undone by our fears, we could hold them as messengers inviting us to go deeper and listen to the embodied signals that are telling us to stop struggling and look directly at what we are afraid of and what we are grappling with in our inner lives. Perhaps we can begin to look at fear as the good news, that’s here to teach us where we’re holding back and stuck in patterns, problems, and projections from the past. By looking more deeply at our fears, in the present moment, we can bring about personal, relational, and planetary healing.
Rather than becoming undone by our fears, we could hold them as messengers inviting us to go deeper and listen to the embodied signals that are telling us to stop struggling and look directly at what we are afraid of and what we are grappling with in our inner lives. Perhaps we can begin to look at fear as the good news, that’s here to teach us where we’re holding back and stuck in patterns, problems, and projections from the past. By looking more deeply at our fears, in the present moment, we can bring about personal, relational, and planetary healing.
The only way to ease our fear and be truly happy is to acknowledge our fear and look deeply at its source. Instead of trying to escape from our fear, we can invite it into our awareness and look at it clearly and deeply.
Thich Nhat Hanh
Thich Nhat Hanh
Emotions are experienced and felt in the body. They require little cognitive awareness. They can be both conscious and unconscious, but lie dormant in the unconscious mind. By raising our present awareness into the interior of the body they can be brought to the surface, fully felt, and experienced. Feelings on the other hand are experienced in the theatre of the mind. They are learned behaviors and are easily triggered by external events. Feelings trigger emotions and it all comes back to the body. Feelings & Emotions are portals to deeper understanding of our personal and collective stories. They are neither positive nor negative, they are simply elemental forces of our life energy that are essential to our health and for our journey towards wholeness and congruency. Emotions are how we connect with the world - they are the fabric of our relationships.
Fear is represented in our body and nervous system. It is our ally; it protects us, places us on alert, catalyzes our senses, and heightens our awareness in the face of danger. Its energetic gifts include; intuition, instinct, focus, clarity, attentiveness, and readiness. Fear focuses us in the present and asks us what actions need to be taken right now, in this moment. It teaches us to pay attention. In this work of the mystic, we can transform our fear into its natural and dynamic counterparts; presence, awareness, and excitement! Fear, properly channeled, yields wide-awake engagement. Most of us are locked into our fear, not realizing the gift that lies waiting on just the other side of the door.
Fear is represented in our body and nervous system. It is our ally; it protects us, places us on alert, catalyzes our senses, and heightens our awareness in the face of danger. Its energetic gifts include; intuition, instinct, focus, clarity, attentiveness, and readiness. Fear focuses us in the present and asks us what actions need to be taken right now, in this moment. It teaches us to pay attention. In this work of the mystic, we can transform our fear into its natural and dynamic counterparts; presence, awareness, and excitement! Fear, properly channeled, yields wide-awake engagement. Most of us are locked into our fear, not realizing the gift that lies waiting on just the other side of the door.
Ultimately we know deeply that the other side of every fear is a freedom.
Marilyn Ferguson
Marilyn Ferguson
Both feelings and emotions need to move. The body is the container in which we experience them. If, in my developmental stage there was no space for me to feel and no one to co-regulate with me, (share warm and responsive interactions that provide the support, nurturing, and modeling children need to understand, express, and modulate their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors) my emotions become frozen in time within my physical body. This freezing was an intelligent and protective action of our nervous system to safeguard us in times of stress and trauma. Self-observation is the beginning of self-transformation. We can unlock and integrate these frozen fears by connecting with others and learning to co-regulate, to give and receive what we didn’t get as children. Connection with presence is the key to healing and becoming whole.
We cannot heal problems of the mind with the mind. The purpose of our personal self-narrative, our ego or story, is its own preservation. The more we try to change habitual patterns and behaviors, the more embedded they become. It takes deep presencing, witnessing, and embracing the core issues that perpetrate the symptomatic actions and reactions that live as frozen energy in the body. To unfreeze these energetic pockets of the past we have to be willing to authentically and honestly explore and attend to their needs. Freedom is not getting rid of them, but honoring them for the protection and safety they provided in times of fear, trauma, or overwhelming emotions. True healing is done in relationships, when we share our wounds with others they become integrated and the energy it took to repress them gets released into greater presence, vitality, and interconnection.
We cannot heal problems of the mind with the mind. The purpose of our personal self-narrative, our ego or story, is its own preservation. The more we try to change habitual patterns and behaviors, the more embedded they become. It takes deep presencing, witnessing, and embracing the core issues that perpetrate the symptomatic actions and reactions that live as frozen energy in the body. To unfreeze these energetic pockets of the past we have to be willing to authentically and honestly explore and attend to their needs. Freedom is not getting rid of them, but honoring them for the protection and safety they provided in times of fear, trauma, or overwhelming emotions. True healing is done in relationships, when we share our wounds with others they become integrated and the energy it took to repress them gets released into greater presence, vitality, and interconnection.
A man who fears suffering is already suffering from what he fears.
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
A personal example! In the middle of writing this month’s newsletter my landlord told me I was being evicted. I had many strong emotional reactions; fear, anger, sadness and betrayal. Ok, Michael, time to walk your talk. So I went to the cushion, got very present to the complex cornucopia of emotions, sensations, and mental chatter. I love my little home on the beach, in the woods at the end of the road, as does my dog, Buddha. Excuse my anthropomorphism, just one of the many ways I was trying to avoid feeling the intense emotions I was experiencing… As I quieted my mind, and slowed down my breath I could feel the tension and cramped sensations in my chest. It felt like the whole world was closing in on me. The fear flared like a fiery cauldron in my chest. I was gasping for air. “What will happen to me, where will I go, how can I move with these winter storms, doesn’t she realize I’m 75, and what about Covid?”
I stayed with the feelings, felt them fully, and then an image of myself at 6 emerged. I was angry, scared and wailing. My father had just married my new stepmother, after spending a wonderful year with him living in the bar he bought in SF. He had re-joined the Air Force and was leaving me for 2 years to do duty in Japan. I hated her and now I had to live with this woman whose maiden name was Severe. I felt like I was dying, but I stayed with the image, the emotions and realized that this happened almost 7 decades ago and I was still carrying this energy from the past. I imagined putting little Mickey on my lap and telling him that I was here for him, that I would care for him and that all was going to be ok. I felt my body take a deep breath and the tension I was feeling relaxed. I had just integrated a piece of my frozen past and suddenly I felt more spacious, more awake and even excited about the adventure of finding a new home that would be even nicer than the one I will be leaving.
Only after learning to bear what is going on inside can we start to befriend, rather than obliterate, the emotions that keep our maps fixed and immutable.
Bessel A. Van Der Kolk
I stayed with the feelings, felt them fully, and then an image of myself at 6 emerged. I was angry, scared and wailing. My father had just married my new stepmother, after spending a wonderful year with him living in the bar he bought in SF. He had re-joined the Air Force and was leaving me for 2 years to do duty in Japan. I hated her and now I had to live with this woman whose maiden name was Severe. I felt like I was dying, but I stayed with the image, the emotions and realized that this happened almost 7 decades ago and I was still carrying this energy from the past. I imagined putting little Mickey on my lap and telling him that I was here for him, that I would care for him and that all was going to be ok. I felt my body take a deep breath and the tension I was feeling relaxed. I had just integrated a piece of my frozen past and suddenly I felt more spacious, more awake and even excited about the adventure of finding a new home that would be even nicer than the one I will be leaving.
Only after learning to bear what is going on inside can we start to befriend, rather than obliterate, the emotions that keep our maps fixed and immutable.
Bessel A. Van Der Kolk
So, my friends, this is the journey. We all have trauma, frozen pasts that suck our energy, dull our minds and inhibits our original goodness. Even if you feel you had the perfect childhood, much of our trauma is ancestral, familial, and cultural. We are swimming in a sea of trauma. To heal the whole, we start with where we are and let our healing reverberate outwards in support of others who seek to know their soul and awaken to the miracle of just being alive…
All of our programs come from a place of love, which is presence, which is wholeness. We are grateful to you for being a part of this healing community.
All of our programs come from a place of love, which is presence, which is wholeness. We are grateful to you for being a part of this healing community.
Instead of harbouring fear and suspicion, we need to think of other people not as ‘them’ but ‘us’.
Dalai Lama
Dalai Lama
With love and gratitude,
Michael
Michael
Integration, Co-Regulation and Congruence building will also make you more attractive