“I’m so very tired of being afraid.”
This phrase, this feeling, has been pulsing in my bones for so many years that I’ve lost track of when it began.
There have been times it has battered and beat me from the inside, until I felt that I couldn’t carry myself anymore. Until my constitution felt like rice paper, tearing under every touch. Until living life felt like Death itself.
The crippling Swan Song of my own soul is what called me to change my life, shifting to live one of ever-deepening authenticity. What has been lost along the way is not insignificant. Yet, what has been gained - what’s blooming now - is, conversely, indescribably meaningful. I’d even describe it as miraculous.
And yet - the fear persists. Seeming to be never-ending.
Recently, I noticed another thought. Not a new one, but one that my inner eye is just now able to see:
“Where do I have to go to get away from this crushing fear?”
This thought stopped me short. I almost laughed.
What an absurd idea. To attempt to ‘get away’ from fear is akin to attempting to outrun one’s own shadow - an impossibility.
I sat for a long while, just sitting in this new realization. After some time, a new thought came:
“So, what the hell do I do about this then?”
What a question.
I’d been so terrorized by the fear, so caught up in it’s stories, I’d completely missed the fact that I’m in a relationship with this fear. And just like in any other relationship, I have choices about how I want to show up to the dynamic.
Today, and for some days to come, I’m having tea with my fear. I’m listening to it’s wisdom and studying how it works inside me. I’m learning it so that I can discover what it needs from me. I’m attempting to build a language with it to better improve our communication.
I will make friends with my fear. I will come to understand it.
And even as I do this, my heart is bursting with another question:
“What will happen to Life when my fear becomes another Beloved?”