Alchemize fear
I recently told a friend that I am planning to travel to Peru in August. Instead of being met with excitement (as I had hoped), he expressed his fears about everything that could go wrong and the potential, negative lifelong impact that it could have.
Don’t get me wrong – when I made the decision to go, I weighed all the pros and cons of the trip. There was both fear and excitement, and those feelings still exist when I think about what I’m going to embark on this fall.
But I am not letting the fear stop me from what I want to do.
After listening to what my friend had to say, I took a moment to acknowledge his fear and see it as a way of expressing his love for me. I also realized that these were HIS fears, and I did not need to make them MY fears. I paused and responded with something like this:
“I can totally see why you find this scary because all the points you make are valid. However, I don’t want to live my life in fear. I don’t want fear to stop me from doing what I want to do, living the way I want to live, and making the decisions I want to make. If I were to die tomorrow or in ten years, I want to know that I didn’t let fear stop me from living the life I wanted.”
My friend was a little stunned, but he listened to what I had to say. He was able to see that his own fear was stopping him from opening up to what was possible for me and the good that could come out of this trip abroad.
It got me thinking a lot about fear and how it can dictate a lot of the decisions we make.
Fear shows up in a lot of places – relationships, situations, and especially birth. From a nervous system perspective, it makes sense because we are wired to look for threats. Our brains oddly think they are creating safety by constantly scanning for threats in our environment. In some ways, there is truth to that, but in reality, we are taking past situations and experiences and projecting them into the present moment. In short, our fear is created from the past.
When we can come to the present moment, that is how we create the most safety in our bodies.
So what do we do if we are allowing fear to dictate our lives? Say it’s all we think about when we plan and think about our birth. Say we believe we can’t travel alone, birth at home, or take that dream job when we desire to do all of those things.
How do we transition from the place of fear to doing and living how we want to?
As weird as it sounds, we actually need to lean into the fear or move towards it. The fear isn’t going to just go away. We have to alchemize it, and we do that by addressing it, not running away from it.
One practice is to get curious about it:
For example, if you want to birth your baby unmedicated but that sounds like the scariest thing you could do, you actually need to get curious about WHY that sounds scary. What are your thoughts around it? Where are they coming from? Is this someone else’s fear projected onto you? What is the best and worst-case scenario? Did something that happened in the past make you think this way now? I’m not asking you to drive yourself crazy with your long-winded, scary thoughts. I am suggesting you start to get curious and notice where these feelings and thoughts are coming from to rewrite the story.
“Fear is the desire to close down while curiosity is the desire to expand and explore. If fear leads us to missing our life, curiosity is our bridge to being in the present.” - Cory Muscara
A second practice is to work with it on the somatic level by working with the sensations of your body. I recommend choosing something kind of scary, not a 10 out of 10, to start:
Find a comfortable seat, settle your body, and close your eyes.
Take a moment to think of something good, like a friend or animal you love, a good meal, or the time you watched the sunset over your favorite beach. Notice yourself relaxing and feeling more grounded as you take in this memory. Spend a few moments here.
Now, imagine you are standing next to a river and in this river represents your fear. Practice taking steps towards it and notice what happens on the INSIDE of your body (increased breath or heart rate, any sensations). Take a moment to be with those sensations as you breath.
Now take a few steps away from it. Pay attention to the sensations happening inside your body now. Take a moment to be with those as you breath. Notice the changes.
Allow yourself to practice pendulation, which is where we lean in, notice our sensations, lean out, notice our sensations, lean in, notice our sensations, lean out, etc. Try practicing this a few rounds, ending with stepping away.
If at any point it gets too overwhelming, open your eyes and bring yourself back to the present moment.
This is a powerful practice not only to become more aware of your body, but over time pedulation helps you change how the fear feels in your body. If you'd like help with this or other somatic practices, let's connect.
Fear can be a powerful force in our lives, but it doesn’t have to dictate our decisions. By getting curious about our fears and working with the sensations in our bodies, we can move towards the things we want to do and live the lives we desire. Ultimately, we have the power to choose whether fear will control us or whether we will control our fear.