Fear is Big…Clarity is Bigger

If you’ve been following me you may have seen that I have chosen to put a little effort into being vulnerable this year. Looking at me from the distance – or sometimes even for those close to me – I appear to be unstoppable, strong, creative, successful, determined, and without a doubt a true overcomer. That is all true.

You may have also seen that I also opted to explore vulnerability in my life this year and dip my toes into a little “emotional exposure” as Brené Brown so eloquently says. Well, emotional exposure was proving to begin with a big bang.

Fear and uncertainity started to show up in big ways as soon as I declared I was ready to look vulnerability in the eye. It is one thing to feel these things, but I have a tendency to keep those big emotions to myself so the exposing of them was almost was big as feeling them.

So to be really open and honest, I have been fighting my way from slipping down into the depths of huge feelings of fear like I have never been over the last few weeks. Seems that since the declarative statement of what I was willing to improve in my life, vulnerability said “let’s just see how you can handle real big feelings”.

Thinking I am in complete readiness for my upcoming major hip overhaul, suddenly I was overcome with fear. Big time terror day after day. Waking up in the night fear. Shaking fear. Pit of the stomach fear. Gripping fear.

I told myself over and over that people get hip replacements all the time and yes most people do fine. But that is not a blanket statement my mind easily accepted. Of course we also hear about the 82 year old grandma who gets a new hip and is at the social club within a week which can make for some serious unhealthy comparison.

The fear began to battle comparison and I was questioning myself more than I ever have. Would my body and dysfunctional immune system accept the new hip? How much would my life be changed? How much will I have to rely on others to help me? How much time would I be away from work? Would I still be in pain? Would I ever be able to practice yoga the way I do? Will I get another blood clot? Will I get an infection? What if…? What if …? But what if…..? Over and over and over and over.

You see this isn’t a classic case of having bone on bone joint issue or severe arthritis. My joint is in perfect health and every doctor who has looked at the images scratches their head and wonders if that will address the pain. I have had three grueling tissue repairs on this previous hip and I still have a tremendous amount of pain and inflammation so the theory with my beloved surgeon whom I trust with my life is to remove the joint and closely surrounding tissue and give my body a clean, new joint which may greatly reduce my constant pain. The word “may” started to feel really scary as the days for closer.

I begged for silent moments of clarity. I pleaded with my conscious to give me insights. I walked and screamed at the sky to help me.

Is living in pain an option? Absolutely. Is enduring torturous fear an option? Hell no.

As I navigated this very unusual emotion over the course of the last few weeks I was startled at the physical changes that were occurring in my body. I am an incredibly steady and stable woman so to feel such intensity in an unfamiliar emotion was taking a toll. I had a racing heart all hours of the day, eating was incredibly hard, I felt like I had adrenaline running 24/7 through my veins, and I was experiencing deep pain in my belly every time I thought about laying on that stainless steel table for the 4th time. Of course the turmoil in my solar plexus was my first indication that my gut was telling me to listen. As the days ticked off I had more and more gut instinct knowing.

In my yogic thinking world what I was experiencing was a complete mind/body interaction where my intuition, or gut instinct, which is essentially our solar plexus where decisions are made and our personal power is being stoked like a fire. Feeling my personal power escape my body while making a life altering decision was sending my body into real time horror.

What if I chose to not listen to the language my body was speaking? What if I opted to ignore the screaming inside my body to pause and ask more questions? Despite the four second opinions there was still so much uncertainty about if this was truly the right direction to take, and yet my instinct knew it was not.

The moment that I stepped into my personal power and reclaimed clarity, it all stopped. I felt lighter. I felt myself gather up all that I know and feel about myself and feel empowered with clarity and much needed hope. A conversation with my surgeon late in the day where he reassured me that it was indeed a good decision to wait validated for me what I already knew.

I think we all have the capacity to know what our bodies need. We may not know the details to a solution like a complex surgery or diagnosis, but we do know when something feels off. We do know when our personal power is being threatened. We do know when we are right.

Vulnerability knocked on my door hard these first thirteen days of the year. But I welcomed her as a messenger and proudly reached out to a handful of safe people to pour my heart out. I revealed my fears and uncertainties. I spoke my vulnerability.

And when I did, sure enough clarity overtook fear.

I learned so much over the last few weeks about the subtle and not so subtle ways our body speaks to us, and that when we don’t feel something is right, to listen and then talk about it. Our voice is powerful and like anything, the more we do it the easier it becomes.

The hip surgery is on hold. Maybe forever but for sure in the near future. I am going to focus on the needs of my body that are determined with certainty like a quick knee scope, addressing some back issues with natural options and getting even healthier and stronger than I am—mind, body and spirit. Maybe the ol’ hip will calm itself down and all will be well.

Yay for vulnerability….round one complete.

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Exploring the Darkness

Among all this chatter about resolutions and goals, I also find that during the depths of the long winter darkness, it is also a wonderful time for us to investigate the deep shadows within. I do believe that it is only when we see the shadow or darkness we can see the brightness of our own light.

Some people say to not waste time looking at the darkness of ourselves, instead only see the light, but the wise ones know that without the shadow you could not see the light.

I am digging into this topic this month as we look at being in alignment with not only our word of the year and intention, but also in alignment, with showing up as a person bearing the most beautiful light, and that requires us to also look at the shadow and dark corners of ourselves. You know things like fear, judgment and shame.

In my own personal life, I am looking straight into the eye of fear. Some thing that I don’t typically experience or feel much of on a day-to-day basis. But the looming of something coming very soon is bringing up in me fear. But on the other side of fear, there is always courage and faith.

Keep watching and keep waiting. More to come.

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Intention to Faith

Personal development has been a hobby of mine for the last 15 years.  What has come from this hobby has been truly amazing and I am grateful for the wake up. 

Over the last decade and a half, I have dug deep into healthy living. This includes meditation, yoga, spirituality, soul-searching and the gut wrenching-digging-out-the-crap-of-old-beliefs-and-stories.  I can say with honesty that I have also struggled to maintain my momentum without finding myself overly critical.  Self-loathing and microscopic analysis of all that I need to “work on” can be consuming for a habit-forming personality type like myself.  In contrast, there has been plenty of times when I have also neatly stacked all the self-help, goddess inspiring, soul inspiring books and walked away to take a breather.

I am in the midst of another cycle where I am looking at my stuff and balancing it with the confidence and self-assurance that I am really okay.  In fact, I am beyond okay.  I am an empowered and magnificently flawed human that is willing to grow.

And like all growing spurts, there is usually some pain. The deep aches that wake you in the middle night.  The stretching of the mind, body and soul to embark on a new way of seeing the world, and specifically myself in the world.

While I balance what needs to be examined; work patterns, where I put my energy, habits that don’t serve my greatest good, words that hurt, etc., with the understanding what I hold my faith in–and that is, ALL experiences are opportunities to grow.

ALL.

This includes the sticky experiences that are challenging and the opposing joy filled experiences that are exhilarating.  I believe in the deepest of my very essence that every experience is a lesson. I also hold confidence that embedded in each ‘lesson’ is the calling to fall back into your faith.  Lay softy down in the knowing that all is well.  I do this by consciously handing over to God what is showing up with a trusting that in the end, I will be okay.  In truth, I am far better than okay and whatever is showing up in my life, is temporary and by bringing more of my intention to my faith the more fearless I do become.

The Potential

The Course in Miracles tells us that we have two basic emotions–love and fear. It goes on to say that we are either acting in love or we are acting in fear. To act in Love means that we are joyful, creative, aligned with our vision and service is at the heart of our actions. To act in Fear means we are competitive, judgmental, living in a mindset of lack and accumulating nonsense for the self.

We can see this so easily when we take a hard look at our reactions or responses to everyday things. The “me” mentality that seems to overshadow the potential for goodness in our communities and even our country. While the world arounds us lives in the space of winning and gathering up all the abundance they can, it has become my mission this month to go into love….deep into love as I look intensely at my life and the choices that I make everyday.

Last week I began to ask myself if the choices I am making support the life I am trying to create. Is the hustle and bustle worth it? Am I in alignment with the vision I have for my life, which as you recall is a form of love. Am I coming at my work from the place of service or grasping at the concept of more, which is rooted in fear.

This week on the mat as we continue looking at freedom and liberation, we will explore the idea of love and fear as it relates to a current obstacle in our life. I have a few challenges of my own and I am choosing to see the potential versus the problem.

The Fear

“…it doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive..”

Our age defines how long we have walked this earth but not what we have done with this precious time. Being alive isn’t enough.  Truly living and taking the risks for our dreams and for our longings is our divine responsibility.  Fear is part of being fully alive.

The longing must be larger than the fear. The desires must be more than the risks to look like a fool for your dreams.

Part of facing the fears is that we must also learn to let go and surrender.

Are you willing to surrender the way you have seen yourself and how others may have seen you?  You know, those labels and temporary identifiers that we have inherited over time; mother, friend, employee, father, etc.  Although we value these, their dominance in our lives can sometimes not allow us to live out the other aspects of our lives.  The calling of the soul is not particularly concerned with the day-to-day responsibilities like packing lunches, paying bills and cleaning the house.

All of our deepest desires are our soul’s way of calling us back to simply being who we are.  To move forward with our desires we have to allow ourselves to stumble and to fall. If we are truly awake, we can catch glimpses of profound wisdom that gets lost in the daily experiences and that may lead us back to ourselves.

Think of something you deeply desire. Feel what it will feel like to have this.  Touch that place in your that knows this desire.  Now, look at the fear that takes up space from where you are now and where that destiny is fulfilled. Feel that space filled with fear and identify what it is.

For me, I desire freedom.  I desire connection.  I desire living my purpose.

I fear failing.  I fear letting people down.  I fear loss.  I fear instability.

Are you willing to look like a fool and risk moving through the fears to get your desires? I am and gladly walk alongside anyone willing to do the same. Consider joining me this week in my yoga classes to explore this on the mat.

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