Day 162 – A lovely quote from yogi Beryl Beder Birch opens up this reading: “You have to keep showing up, being open and doing the work. The journey into the self is not a group experience. It’s solitary work. But so many of us are afraid of being alone. So you need to experiement….The whole process of following these spiritual instructions has a lot to do with fear.” Today’s reading is about fear.
I often have asked myself what it is that holds me back from doing the things I have always intended to do, being the teacher I always intend to be, to address my shortcomings, get rid of bad habits, grow wise and nonjudgmental toward myself and others. Fear is always what holds me back. I’m a fairly confident person when I set my mind to it, but these past few years have been challenging. Cancers that have taken my friends, stricken my family, stripped our bank account, cause me to fear and I don’t live too far into the future.
My fears are my fears, and it ’tis totally true. The journey into the self is not a group experience. My fears are not my students’ fears, my yoga participants’ fears, my children’s fears, or my husband’s fears. Fears aren’t rational. They’re from emotion. My auto-immune issues have brought these emotions to the forefront and I can’t eat the away with healthy food or this or that type of exercise. It is when I reside in the pain on my mat in my daily yoga practice that I understand these fears and know where they come from. Being totally present in the moment and chosing to practice in a way that my body needs, whether it’s just pranayama, guided meditation, nidra, yin, or vinyasa, helps me catch myself in what Rolf describes as “habitual attitudes,” which block me from the “new ways of experiencing myself and my potential.”
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