This past year has challenged me in ways I never could have comprehended and ways I didn’t feel prepared for. As a therapist and yoga teacher you might think that I walk through life Zen-like at all times. On the contrary, when my life feels like it’s falling apart I’m just that much more aware of it and believe I should have all the tools to be able to cope.
So I’ve had to dig deep into my proverbial toolbox to try to figure out what I needed to do to better support myself so that I could navigate these new and uncharted waters.
The first step I chose was to better understand myself and how I was feeling. You’ve maybe heard the analogy “name it to tame it”. What this means is that by naming, and identifying how we are feeling, we can lessen it. This helps to better regulate our emotional response because our brain and body feel safer knowing what is going on.
In my case, the feeling I was able to identify and label was fear. I was feeling fear from the unknown and my inability to control it, which was a very scary place to be. Fear can take over through the autonomic nervous system and keep us in a hyper-vigilant state. When we are in the hyper-aroused state we make decisions based on fear with the sole purpose of keeping ourselves, or our loved ones, safe.
If we are moving through our lives in a state of fear we are constantly worried about what is coming next and are prepped and ready to react at any moment in time. This state keeps us from choosing how we want to respond. It keeps us from acting in a way that is in alignment with who we truly are, or how we truly want to show up.
If instead we swing the pendulum to the other side of the emotional spectrum, we have love and acceptance. Living from a place of love allows us to tap into our intuition and higher selves. Moving beyond fear to love can be freeing and can support us in making heartfelt decisions that are aligned with our highest good.
By choosing acceptance we are no longer fighting with our inability to control the uncontrollable. We are flowing down the river of life instead of desperately grasping for solid ground.
Moving from fear to love and acceptance is easier said than done. It takes effort to choose love and to work through the fear. Our fears are real and serve a helpful purpose. There are times when fear is necessary for our survival. Yet, there are times where there is fear because we are moving through something new or because we’ve lost our sense of control.
I’ve learned to ask myself now if I am making a decision or interacting in a certain way because of fear or love. If I’m feeling fearful, I think about how I can shift to a place of love.
Accepting that this is the path to peace, I’ve enlisted the mantra of leading with love instead of fear. This simple, yet powerful statement has helped me make heartfelt decisions and shift something that is hard into something beautiful and transformative.
Comments