If we are to approach our emotions and life experiences as our greatest teachings,
How can we move through the emotion of fear when it rises?
This morning after Sadhana,
I picked up one of my journals from 2019 and sometimes I can feel inspired just to look back on some of my writings and see what insights have moved through.
And it took me to a page where I saw a quote of Adyashanti who said,
When we're moving through our layers of story,
How can we find our grain of truth in that story?
And in a way it reiterated some of the teachings that I went through with my teacher last night when we spoke about fear and the teaching of fear and how we feel it in our bodies and how do we know what truth is?
How do we know this is intuition guiding you in one direction?
What if this is actually angst and fear leading you into another one?
And she shared with me that whenever we are really close to a strong feeling of fear,
We're actually being invited to step into an awareness of a core identity that is ready to be dissolved so that we can move forwards.
And so if that is the case,
Why then when fear rises,
Do we tend to want to run away from it,
Go the other way,
Find ways to distract ourselves,
Lose ourselves,
Rather than learn to hold the space in that really strong container of fire when it's present?
And this is often referred to in the Klesha as one of the experiences of suffering,
Which is dvesha,
Which is aversion.
We actually want to avoid what's coming.
And really in our Western world,
We haven't been taught how to hold the space for this,
And in a way,
Why would we want to hold the space for it?
Because it's a really uncomfortable feeling to have.
We hear this and one of the really old sort of comments or insights that's often shared in a yoga class is the moment you start to feel an asana become really uncomfortable to the point that you want to leave it,
It is exactly in that moment where the gold and the magic of what that posture is trying to show you is bringing to the surface.
And so how do we recognize that potentially our perception of this feeling of fear is what's really distorting us and drawing us away from what it's actually here for,
Which is asking us to see what core identity do you have that is ready to dissolve so that you're being guided into the next part of who you are,
The next chapter of your life?
If you know that life is here to co-create with you and wants to guide you forwards,
How can you then not only trust in life,
But trust in yourself?
And this also comes down to the resources that you have,
So that that grain of truth that Adya speaks to can actually come forwards,
Because the more you push it away and run away,
The more momentum that energy of fear has got,
And then we start to find we create new belief patterns,
New samskaric grooves,
Where we create even more ways that we move away.
So one of the ways that we can really sit with fear is to actually recognize and witness what is this that's moving through,
Just like in meditation,
We awaken the sakshi,
The witness aspect of who we are,
That can actually watch the feelings rising,
The ahamkara,
The ego doesn't really want to be seen any differently than it already does,
And it wants everything to stay the same,
But actually what we're being called to do is to say,
Well,
What is this shift that's happening within me,
And why is this shift happening now,
And why is it happening in such an incredibly profound way?
And it's happening because you're ready.
You're ready to shift into the next phase of who you are,
And into the next aspects of your life,
And into the fullness,
The purnata of your life,
So that you can live fully and ultimately move into a space of freedom while we're living this human existence,
And we're living as a jivanmukta,
An individualized self-known being,
So that we can live in complete freedom.
When you're moving through this emotion of fear,
It can feel really overwhelming.
Learn to sit with it,
And this is all based on how do you resource?
What threads are you drawing in to support yourself?
Journaling,
Asana,
Pranayama,
Meditation,
Walking,
Being in nature,
Any time you feel really uncertain,
Get underneath the sky,
Because nature is when we help to align with our true essence of nature of the self,
And really just allow it to move through.
These emotions do move through.
Sometimes they can linger and feel as if they stick.
Other times they can just move through very quickly.
So as you allow fear to be present,
The very nature of allowing it reduces its potency and its hold,
Whereas when you dam a stream,
It's always going to find another channel.
So allowing that surrender,
Being willing to be the witness of the intricacies of that emotion,
Knowing that it will move through,
And then letting that carry you into the next phase of who you are becoming and where you're being called to move into.
