Fear as information....

When fear is a request to listen.

Fear often shows up when I slow down.
Not necessarily because something is wrong…
usually because stillness creates space for for ALL of my thoughts to come rushing to the forefront.

In the pause, my attention shifts to the corners and cracks that I can swiftly move past when in the hustle and bustle.
(Perhaps that is also why I prefer to stay busy.)

So as the winter calls for me to slow down (Whether it is an external winter or an internal “wintering”)…. and my body and brain feel the need for hibernation, for the pause to deepen and stillness to set in.

And I don’t get to choose to only integrate the joys or the comfort.
I must also take those uncomfortable bits, the fears and the challenge, and allow them a place in my story.

My first instinct when fear sets in is that something is wrong,
or perhaps I am wrong.
I will lose something I cherish, or I won’t get the thing I want.
Then my brain wants to try and figure it out.
Not always a solution at first, but WHY is this happening?
And brains LOVE to find the reasons why…. and it won’t stop until I have a long list of all the things that are wrong.

Fear is not a failure. It is information.
I get a clear sense of what is important to me.

If I can pause, if I can slow down.
If I can ask that fear to “sit down for a cup of tea,”
Maybe I can listen in to what it is really asking of me.
Maybe I learn something.

Maybe I can honestly meet myself in this very moment,
exactly as I am.
see the direction I would like to head,
and take one teeny tiny step in that direction.

I cant expect to leap from apathy to joy,
or from sadness to acceptance.
I don’t have to solve everything in order to change.

Here is an invitation to stop trying to fix ourselves
and instead practice meeting ourselves,
our complex, uncertain, and fully human selves.

This week’s reflection invites us to ask:
What fear has been asking for my attention?
What would it look like to befriend this fear rather than silence it?

Until soon….
See you at the next threshold,
Kirstin