Facing Fears and Finding Balance in the Depths
Through different meditations, I have created this place in my mind that consists of canyons, beaches, lakes, forests and mountains, it has become my refuge. During one specific workshop, “Finding balance in the depths”, Matti started us off with a beautiful guided meditation. He guided us to imagine ourselves sinking to the bottom of the ocean floor, the lower we got the darker and colder it became, but just allowing ourselves to sink to the bottom. On my way down, suddenly in my mind a shark came and attacked me. My instant response was “HELL NO, not going there”. So instead, I created my ‘depths’ to be this beautiful Caribbean ocean, filled with colorful coral and beautiful things. Clearly not an accurate depiction of what the depths is.
This is an accurate representation as to what I do when things get hard, I run, I shutdown, I pretend, I don’t allow myself to go to those depths and truly meet myself. In order for me to be able to live a truly authentic life, with the depths of relationships and connections that I strive to have, it first requires me to meet with myself in the depths and process what’s going on. Not acting as though everything is okay and shoving it down, but rather taking the time to sit, process, shift perspectives, gain insights, heal and grow.
For me, that means facing my fears. There was a point in my life where I was stuck in the depths and since then, I’ve had this internal vow that I would not go back there. I need to recognize that though the depths can be a dark and terrifying place, it doesn't have to be. The journey itself allows me to address the fears I have, and almost forces me to get out of my own way. While I can empathize with myself, understanding that being fearful of the unknown is a natural human response, it doesn’t mean that I need to run away from that fear.
We've often been taught to look at fear as something bad or to be avoided, but fear actually points us in the right direction. It can be used as our compass for growth, an invitation to dive deeper. I believe that we need to rewire our connection to fear because fear is not an emotion. Our reaction to fear is emotional. It is natural, it is part of the human experience. It’s a state. Thus, we emotionalize fear and make it harder to work with. While fear is a physical reaction and something that needs to be looked at, it can enlighten us to the stories and narratives we tell ourselves.
Fear doesn’t have to be an enemy. I can acknowledge it, validate it, and still allow myself to journey into the depths, because doing that allows me to find things out about myself that I otherwise wouldn’t have known. But until I am willing to acknowledge and validate my fears, the potential to get stuck or avoid my fears is always going to be there and I run the risk of losing myself in the unreal reality of fear which could potentially take me off of the path that I am meant to be on.
