Category: Ralph Waldo Emerson

Jessica's Fear

4/15/2020

“He who is not every day conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

We all of us live with fear inside. But what is it that we are really afraid of? This is the story of a woman who seeks an answer to that gnarly question.

Jessica’s Fear
Jessica ran up the stairs of the Unity Church she attended on an irregular basis, hoping to be on time for her meditation group. Entering the heavy, double doors she went directly down the hall and into a small conference room they used for their group. Jessica was delighted to see that the folding chair next to Maeve, who led the group, was empty. She made a bee-line to the chair and sat down on Maeve’s left. Maeve was chatting with the woman on her other side, but turned to Jessica and gave her a quick, welcoming hug.

Maeve was a kind, caring woman, with tremendous will and self-discipline. Tall, confident and always impeccably dressed, she favored silk scarves in hues of deep blue and purple. Maeve had the ability to communicate with those who had died, as well as with spiritual guides and masters, and would often give messages from the other side to individuals and to groups.

Jessica smiled and hugged her back, then found herself unaccountably tongue-tied. She wanted to say something friendly and fun, but all she could do was smile at Maeve, a mute smiley face. Maeve waited a beat, lips curved expectantly, and then turned back to ask the woman on her other side a question.

Jessica closed her eyes and felt a knot in her stomach. Why was she so fearful and needy around this woman? She felt like a fawning puppy when she was around Maeve, wanting to please her, sit with her, soak up her energetic emanations, wanting her attention. Then, when she had it, she didn’t know what to do with it. She was pathetic.

Maeve picked up a small bell from the floor beside her and shook it energetically. The tinkling ring quieted the room and she looked at each person in turn around the circle, a gracious smile on her face.

“Welcome everyone. I hope you have all had a chance to practice this week?” She looked around the room expectantly. A few heads nodded enthusiastically, Jessica’s included.

“We’ll be doing a guided meditation this evening.” She turned to the table behind her and switched on a soothing CD of nature sounds and delicate piano. “Please sit up straight, feet flat on the floor and close your eyes. Allow your attention to come fully into this present moment.”

Jessica heaved a sigh of relief, letting the negative thoughts of a moment ago drain away. She focused within and allowed herself to drift.

“Leave behind the events of the day and focus upon your heart chakra, that space in the center of your chest. Breathe deeply into that space and see white light entering and filling your body through your heart,” said Maeve.

Jessica saw the light. She was good at visualizing. It entered and filled her body, feeling cool and expansive. She breathed it in and out, in and out. She felt as though she was floating.

Maeve took them on an imaginary journey to a beautiful sanctuary at the top of a mountain. Jessica could see it all and felt herself climbing the mountain and entering a white domed structure. Standing inside she looked around and saw massive stone columns circling the inside, holding up a domed roof over the rocky promontory. White doves flew in and out through the columns, the whirring of their wings the only sound. Jessica had stopped hearing Maeve’s voice. She looked to see a white stone bench in the center of the structure, heavy and beautifully carved. Jessica walked to it and sat down, breathing deeply of the fresh, mountain air wafting in through the open sides of the structure.

She heard Maeve’s voice as if from far away. “Ask your guide whatever question you would like answered.”

Jessica was disappointed, she was all alone. There was no guide here. Still, she could feel a warm breeze blowing gently through the columns, and hear the doves cooing from where they had settled under the roof. In this beautiful place what questions could she have? Then her mind trailed back to the painful experience at the beginning of the meditation group.

Why am I so afraid of someone I admire? Why do I feel so needy, like a puppy wanting a pat? It’s humiliating.

The thought came, a droplet spilling into her mind, ‘Why am I so afraid of who I am?’

Not sure what that means, she thought. She looked at the ground, scuffing her foot in the rocky soil she found there.

Jessica knew she worried about what others thought of her, whether they liked or approved of her. She was afraid of not fitting in, not being included. She was afraid of not being good enough, not pretty enough, not clever enough, not slender enough, not confident enough, not spiritual enough. Perversely, she was afraid of looking too good, getting too dressed up, looking too confident, speaking up too much, or being too smart. Jessica was afraid of being fully herself for fear of what others might think, and she was getting tired of it.

I get all that, but why am I so intimidated by Maeve? What is my problem?

Again, a thought droplet, ‘What do I see when I look at her?’

She’s an amazing woman, thought Jessica. She lives the way I want to live, connected with Spirit, feeling guided, confident in her oneness with God, serving the world. She is a master.

The droplet expanded, ‘I can only recognize an energy outside of me that is already within me.’

Why would I be so afraid of something that is already inside me? As she contemplated this question, Jessica heard Maeve’s voice.

“Thank your guide and come back down the mountain.” Jessica heard the sound of the piano interspersed with bird calls and bubbling brook. “Return to your body here in this room. Gently flex your feet and hands. When you are ready you may open your eyes.” Maeve’s soothing voice brought her attention back to the meditation room.

Jessica felt herself in her chair and opened her eyes. She turned her head to look at Maeve sitting next to her.
What is it I’m really afraid of here? She wondered. Is it me?

Photo by Erik Brolin on Unsplash

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Fear Can Be Your Friend

5/14/2019

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“If you’re not willing to risk, you cannot grow. If you cannot grow, you cannot be your best. If you cannot be your best, you cannot be happy. If you cannot be happy, what else is there?”
— Les Brown

Most of us grow by moving through fear of one kind or another. It can be moving through the fear experienced from triggering old wounds. It can be moving through the fear of pushing perceived limits. It is often a little of both as our old wounds come up for healing in the process of expanding our limits.

Doesn’t that make fear our friend?

Personal growth makes us feel alive. It is stimulating. It is energizing. Even when it’s uncomfortable or scary, even when it brings up fear, there is a sense of aliveness about it, a feeling of movement and growth.

We can grow through pushing our limits, stepping outside our comfort zones, the way a crawling baby will pull herself shakily to her feet, and then to take that first step. Sometimes we fall. Sometimes we are injured and so we also grow through healing those wounds.

That doesn’t mean we enjoy the discomfort.

Most of us would rather grow through choosing to learn something new, pushing our limits, moving through any fear that might bring up and becoming more than we were.

A few years ago, I traveled with a group to Brazil. One of the most challenging parts of the trip was the opportunity to go hang-gliding off a mountain in Rio de Janeiro. Let me tell you that created lots of opportunity for me to move through fear, pushing me way out of my comfort zone as I stood on the top of the mountain and waited my turn to fly. Even though I was riding tandem with an experienced hang-glider, during that run off the edge of the mountain my body was convinced that I was dying. The result of moving through all that fear was a huge adrenaline rush as we soared high over the coastline and intense exhilaration as we landed on the beach hundreds of feet below.

Would I be in a hurry to do it again? Maybe not. But I did it once. I’ve got a video to prove it!

Most of us would prefer that exhilarating kind of growth to the growth of triggering of old wounds. Both processes bring up fear and its consequences and having to deal with that. But the former is more fun. The latter less so.

Either way there is growth and development.

“Fear has two meanings: ‘Forget Everything And Run’ or ‘Face Everything And Rise.' The choice is yours.”
— Zig Ziglar

You don’t always have a conscious choice about it. Old wounds surface when they are ready for healing and that may not be when you would prefer.

I encountered an old wound that brought up a cascade of fear just recently. It was pretty benign really yet the fear it brought up was as malignant as ever.

I was out at a restaurant with a family group. A chance remark, pointed my way in all innocence, triggered me back to another remark when I was younger. This one not so innocent. It felt almost like a PTSD episode. In the middle of a pleasant family chat I was drowning in memories of this incident in my past that I allowed to injure me for years. The injury was not so much from the incident itself or what was said at the time, but because I used it as evidence of my own unworthiness.

All of this came rushing back at me with that one innocent remark in the restaurant. It felt like new evidence of unworthiness.

I hadn’t heard that old story line for a long time and it was shocking. Fortunately, I’m not willing to believe that story anymore. At least not for very long. I breathed through the fear while we were at the restaurant, and was able to enjoy the rest of our visit.

The next day those same fearful thoughts came up again, telling me I wasn’t done with this yet. I cleared through them once again with breathwork and also with EFT.

Eventually, I was able to acknowledge that the experience came up because I was ready to heal that old wound and finally release the fear. I felt both grateful and excited at the prospect of clearing that painful story.

I believe our Soul’s purpose is to grow and develop, and we grow rapidly through fear. That makes fear our ally in the process of our growth.

We’re not talking about survival fear here. That’s the kind of fear that told our forebearers to hide from a saber-toothed tiger. We’re talking about the fear of emotional pain, the fear of rejection, abandonment, failure, success, unworthiness, and any other fears life experience has taught us.

We’re talking about the kind of fear that tells us it is too scary to try new things, or maybe it's the fear that tells us we aren’t good enough to succeed, or the fear that says we have to avoid certain kinds of situations or we will feel emotional pain.

But what if this fear that we’ve been resisting all our lives is actually our friend?

Can we welcome fear when we encounter it knowing it offers us an opportunity to grow? Can we feel curious and intrigued when fear shows up? Saying to ourselves, “Thank you fear for showing up. You’re showing me a new place to grow.”

“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.”
— Joseph Campbell

What if underneath most fear is the Soul’s excitement about an opportunity for growth? Would the fear related to pushing our comfort zones and triggering old wounds transmute into excitement? If we stop struggling against feeling fear and instead welcome it and the opportunity it presents, we might experience our Soul’s excitement.

I think it is possible. It’s worth a try.

“When a resolute, young fellow steps up to the great bully, the world, and takes him boldly by the beard, he is often surprised to find it comes off in his hand, and that it was only tied on to scare away the timid adventurers.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

The same might be said of that great bully, fear. Perhaps it is not such a great bully as we thought. Perhaps it is even our friend.

Photo by Dương Hữu on Unsplash

Your Spiritual Toolbox

“Fear is excitement without the breath. Here’s what this intriguing statement means: the very same mechanisms that produce excitement also produce fear, and any fear can be transformed into excitement by breathing fully with it.”
― Gay Hendricks, The Big Leap: Conquer Your Hidden Fear and Take Life to the Next Level

We talked a little about using the breath to transform uncomfortable feelings in the post Getting to Know Your Subconscious Mind I. Here we will go into a little more detail about using the breath as a healing tool.

The next time you find yourself faced with fear, maybe an old wound that is triggered or a choice to expand your comfort envelope, use your breath to transform the fear.

Fear constricts the breath and the body. Deep breathing relaxes the body and the fear.

Locate the feeling of fear in your body. It is often experienced as a feeling of constriction and shallow breathing in your chest area or tightness in the solar plexus. It might be a nervous, fluttering sensation in the stomach, your legs or anywhere in your body.

Focus on the feeling of fear in your body and breathe deeply, sending the breath to that place in your body.

Keep breathing deeply into that area until you feel that place in your body relax.

Sometimes the fear sensations will move in your body, follow them with your breath, continuing to breathe deeply into that new area in your body until you feel it relax.

You may also find yourself refocusing your fear thoughts onto other aspects of the situation or memory. If you do, keep feeling the fear and breathing deeply through it.

Continue this process until you feel the fear relax in your body and your thoughts are calmed.

Chances are you will find yourself able to think about this growth opportunity in a new way.

You may even feel excited about it!

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Know Thyself

Jessica's Fear

Fear Can Be Your Friend

Your Spiritual Toolbox

“Know thyself."

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