Lifeletter #148: Relaxing into our fear

“I have such gratitude for the beauty, the abundance, the miracle of my life,” said a friend to me yesterday. “I feel a deep trust that I am being held, in love. And sometimes I panic.” We laughed a lot when she said that.

I was left reflecting on something that one of my teachers, Thomas Huebl, often says about working with the part of us that panics, in a moment. “Just relax into the fear,” he says. “Don’t try to control it, or get away from it, let yourself relax into it.”

I’ve been working with this simple instruction for years. It’s been quite a revelation to discover how difficult it is to soften into the energy of fear. We are afraid of our fear. So we tighten up when it arises, we move up and out of the body, as our sympathetic nervous system gets activated. Or we fall into our fear and get lost inside it, we get swallowed up by it, and believe all of the distorted viewpoints that our fear holds to be true.

To stand my ground when fear arises, to be fully present to it, to open to it, to become truly intimate with it, is a very powerful practice. It’s a lifelong practice, and it requires great patience and persistence.

With all that is happening on the global level these days, there is a lot of fear arising. It seems to important to learn how to work with this energy, both individually and collectively. To support each other in this place, to remind each other that there is another possibility, another way of meeting our fear. And to recognize that it’s very difficult to do this alone. When I am alone with my fear, my ancient habitual conditioning can so easily take over. When I am sitting in a space of shared presence, connected with others who have a strong intention to stay present for these energies, I can begin to discover something very different from the movement of avoidance, suppression or fusion.

When I first began this practice, I had some kind of feeling that I knew how to do it. I have discovered since then that I was wrong about this. Each time is like starting all over again, finding my way, breath by breath. Taking baby steps as I lean into this new direction, this unfamiliar territory. Learning how to soften when I want to protect myself. Turning towards what I have been running from. Discovering a whole new meaning for what it means to be strong.

 

Whoever is soft and yielding
is a disciple of life.

The hard and stiff will be broken.
The soft and supple will prevail.

 Tao Te Ching

– Lao-tzu
From a translation by S. Mitchell

 

with love,

Shayla