Fear as a Teacher
Fears are our wayfinding signs, pointing us towards who we need to become. They are our greatest source of personal discovery and transformation. It is so important to shed a light on our fears, whatever they may be.
Fear grows in the darkness. The shadow that it casts can oftentimes appear bigger than the actual fear itself. They can feel too big or too overwhelming to deal with. But if we open the door, shine a light on them, observe without judgement, tend to them, perhaps we can perceive them instead as opportunities for profound personal growth. Fears can be our friend and greatest teacher. They can help reveal who we really are and who we are becoming. They can help show us what we truly desire and what we truly need. They show us our potential, and they show us that freedom and our dreams are on the other side. All that is required to cross the threshold is courage.
It was, and still is, in many ways feels a whole lot easier to go down a prescribed, accepted path. It doesn’t force us to go it alone, to get uncomfortable, to constantly be challenged, to face our insecurities and fears, to realize our independence and individuality, or to repeatedly be willing to die to be reborn. But the “easy path” is not really an easy one either. It asks us to spend a lot of energy pretending to be someone we’re not, to contort and fit ourselves into places and situations that aren’t really suitable, to make everything work and be fine with it all, to always be happy when perhaps we’re not, or to spend our energy working on things that aren’t truly and personally meaningful.
Having started a path of one-by-one working through and conquering my fears, I realized all the ways my life was unconsciously ruled by the things that I was afraid of. I made decisions not based on what I wanted, but by how I was programmed and by consensus of society. I was afraid to pursue an ‘unconventional’ path. I was afraid to be unique and different. I was afraid to be me and do what I actually desired. I was afraid to speak up for my values and ideals. I was afraid to take risks and make more decisions based on how I intuitively felt. I was afraid to do it my way.
In not facing my fears, it kept me moving further down a path that was not aligned with what I really wanted. And the fear compounded. Every step forward increased the fear of ‘starting over from scratch.’ I had thought that if I let go of all that I had built, then it would mean I would have “nothing.” But I learned that having nothing was exactly what I needed. Because I had unconsciously filled my life with stuff and situations that maybe I believed I wanted at some point, but really didn’t bring any feeling of peace or meaning or joy. All of that stuff became baggage weighing me down, clouding my perspective and senses, making it harder for me to see myself and pursue what I actually needed and desired. When I let go of everything and had nothing left, it revealed myself, naked and raw. The accident forced me to stop moving and doing, it forced me to sit in the silence and the empty space. To look at myself in my raw form, and see all of the Truths, the patterns, the fears, and the possibilities, as they really are. It asked me to return to my meditation work to connect to a higher perspective, and to focus on untangling, unpacking, and processing everything, I endeavored to become intimate with my fears. To feel them, to remember them, to acknowledge them, and to accept them. I excavated them, re-lived them, felt them..all with a goal of understanding them out of love and curiosity.
The fears that I had excavated were half-processed experiences and emotions, tangled with coping mechanisms and patterns. I learned that if I can allow myself the space to finish processing the experience and feel all of its emotions, I can better release its energetic power and hold. Which then would allow me to examine it from a higher perspective, in order to unpack its associated coping mechanisms and patterns. The completion of this work would then allow me to better understand the fear and release its energy, and its program.
Many of my fears became avenues to new experiences and opportunities for personal growth. Had I not taken the space and time to focus on my fears, I would never have learned many hidden abilities and parts of myself that were dormant and yearning to be realized. There was real value in taking the time to excavate, process, examine, and release my fears, as many of them opened up doorways to new levels of personal growth and realized abilities. What I also learned was that facing my fears got easier the more I did it. Well maybe not necessarily easier, but the willingness to be open to making that first step to confront it felt a bit more natural and a little less paralyzing. Overcoming one giant fear became a catalyst for facing all of my other fears. And when I saw that it was possible and that it was ultimately rewarding, I gained further strength and courage to continue onwards to live more boldly. Challenging my fears was like exercising a muscle. Once I started, it got easier with practice and repetition.