Week 30-Lesson 30: Open Up to Fear

I thought if I traveled, I'd find something. Maybe I'd find God. Maybe someone out there could ease the difficulties of life. You know, I used to talk to God. I'd often ask him (her?), "What should I do?" Often times I'd close my eyes and pray very hard. I didn't want to not know where I was going. I needed to be reassured. I needed to know if things would work out.

But no answer came.

And then one day, when I least expected it, after a long run around the neighborhood, a crystal clear voice said, "You know what to do." The voice was strong and reassuring. But I didn't feel strong and I didn't feel I was any closer to knowing what I was meant to do in this world.

I wanted to follow that voice. I wanted to know it intimately. I wanted to understand where it came from. What if I went the wrong way? What if I did the wrong things? What if I made mistakes? What if people didn't like what I was doing?

I was afraid. I didn't have any answers. I made a lot of mistakes in life (and I'm still making them). I fell down quite a bit. I was not a happy person and I didn't respect myself nor did I believe I had anything positive to offer the world. Still, I could not forget that clear voice that came to me on that fall day of my senior year in high school while running down a narrow path flanked with bright orange and yellow maple leaves. The air was crisp, but the late sun shone on my face and filled me with an incredible warmth. But it did not last.

After high school I traveled all over the world searching for that voice. I traveled to Mexico, South America, Asia, India, etc. I meditated, I practiced yoga and once again, in deep silence, I basked in that inner warmth and stillness I had felt for those few moments in high school. For a time, I attributed these feelings to a certain practice. I believed that something outside me--the environment, an organization, a teacher, a guru, God--made me feel like this. Without this practice or a certain environment, I thought that this peace and this joy could not last.

I don't know exactly when things changed. I don't recall the exact day when I understood that voice or when I overcame my fear. I think it was gradual. Meditation helped, yoga helped, walks in nature helped, writing helped, friends helped, books helped--I am grateful for so many things that aided me on my path and gave me the courage to open up.

But that voice. The one that said, "You know what to do." It didn't come from God or Buddha or yoga or meditation or my husband or my friends or my family or anything else. All of these people and things played a part in understanding these words.

"You know what to do," came from me.

Not the Katherine Jenkins "me," but the one that is opened and fearless. The one that is not separate. The one that is connected to everything.

Also on my blog Lessons from the Monk I Married

How I Began to Create My Destiny: A Story in Ignoring the “Can’t”

I have always been rather over-sensitive. Even when I was young, I was prone to boredom, bordering on depression. Inquisitive, but unsatisfied. Somehow I made it through the rigors of high-school and its social life. Once I got into a good college, I proceeded to get more and more lax--after all of my hard efforts, I reckoned I deserved a break. Plus, I was tired of my good girl image and wanted to be reckless.

This mentality continued to dis-serve me throughout college. The harder I worked, the harder I played. During my sophomore year’s specialized program geared towards over-achievers, I had a huge amount of reading and paper writing every week. Rather than miss out on the Thursday fun of welcoming the weekend early, I would force myself to finish so I could join the revelers.

I suppose I needed that release too, since I put so much pressure on myself when sitting down to write. I fought tooth and nail for my very soul, the voice telling me “I can’t” bouncing around my head like a ping-pong ball. It was my first taste of panic, though I couldn’t name it at the time.

I continued to prove that voice wrong, every week. And it still haunts me from time to time. I found myself wondering where it comes from, and why it had so much power over me.

Like any grateful child, I prodded my parents for answers. More bluntly, I blamed them. I ran away from family obligations like my life depended on it. It might have, in fact. But in the course of the rupture, I became more and more broken. Even as I traveled the world and the distance between us increased, I couldn't face myself and my own tendencies, hereditary, cultural or otherwise.

Anger, resentment, desolation—they followed me like stowaways, surfacing during my darkest moments. My health suffered as a result, and I knew that unless I tried something drastic, I'd never recover. So I quit my job and began searching for solutions to my self-inflicted problems. I turned to creative writing in the hopes that one day I could share my story. I never imagined I'd actually have an inspiring story to share.

Now that I've unloaded all this garbage out there, I'll take a pause in the story. We have come to the juncture between the “before” and “after” of the makeover. For me, the turnaround point came through a program aptly named “Inner Engineering.” It was challenging, but fun. It enabled me to look at life anew, with a clarity I'd never known before. By the end, I was bursting with so much energy that I couldn't recognize myself. It was so powerful, so positive, that I needed to explore further; it couldn't be ignored.

After several subsequent programs and long stays at the Isha Yoga Center, I became enraptured by the new yoga and meditation practices I'd welcomed into my life. My health quickly improved, as did my relationships. I noticed my reactions to situations subtly changing; things that once bothered me didn't have the same effect. There was a distance between me and the emotions that used to over-power me.

In this space, I began to shift from unconscious reactions to conscious ones. In this space, I began to create my destiny. In this space, new possibilities emerged like phoenixes.

The old patterns of thoughts and emotions are still there to some extent, they just don't rule me anymore like in my life's previous chapters. I've discovered a bliss so pure that it keeps me wanting more, and knowing that I'm bound to get it once I stop paying attention to the nonsense. I've discovered a world far beyond my wildest imagination: one where I'm happy. And life's volume is just so loud, I simply can't hear the “can't” anymore.

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Interested in discovering more? You can get a discount on Inner Engineering Online, 7 online classes for self-empowerment, and learn a free meditation. Becky blogs about personal and professional explorations at Becky Blab.

Break on through to the other side.

You're in the street late at night. You see a dark shape ahead. Your heart races. You notice your breathing. You feel the sweat on your palms and the thrill of fear in your belly. The automatic part of you gets you ready to run. It's ok though because you realise that the dark shape is just a ladder leaning benignly against a wall. From there it's a quick return to feeling normal. You let our your breath and your body relaxes.

Or not. The rest of your trip home is a bit frantic. Your head snapping from side to side. Your legs have a mind of their own and there's the feeling of being pushed along from behind by an invisible hand. Full scale panic is a hairs breadth away. It's ok though you've good reason to be on alert. You are alone on a dark street at night and you know what can happen. It's happened before......

Or not. In fact you are surrounded by people at a party. You're not sure what triggered your panic, but you are tense. Your heart is pounding. Your breathing is rapid. You have to get out of there. You signal your partner using the private, much practised, non-verbal signal designed for this occurrence. Because as usual your panic takes away your ability to excuse yourself politely.

Fear and panic. Hand and glove. Or not?

I fear something that does not make my heart pound or my breathing ragged. It's source is a shapeless, formless, intangible, hovering monster that dwells behind a door that I lock securely. I have cataloged it as the fear that I will do a bad job and fail. To keep the door locked that separates me from this monster, I busy myself with a million other tasks or I simply do nothing at all. Both of these strategies work for me, but both of them are torture.

I believe that this is what we should fear the most, because holding ourselves back, running away, and locking the door is so much worse than facing the monster. I know that it's only when I face any fear head on that it vaporises, or that perhaps it was never made of anything at all.

Facing Fear

Hello Writers Risers and Readers,

I feel a need to reintroduce myself. My name is Katherine Jenkins and I blog over at Lessons from the Monk I Married. I started this blog after my writing group in Seattle decided to name themselves the Writers Risers. The point of our little group was and is to meet and inspire each other to keep writing and keep creating and to follow our dreams. Over the course of two years this blog has come to include over 30 contributing writers from around the world! I hope to expand that number, so if you are interested in being a contributor, please post a comment here. There are some guidelines, but you can get an idea of the writing we have here by reading a few posts. Starting next month, I plan to provide monthly themes. To the current contributors, you can choose to write on the chosen theme or submit a post on another topic. For August the theme is:

FACING FEAR

Can't wait to see what kind of writing comes from that one! I'm going to get to work on it soon and you'll find my post here in August! Until then, happy writing and creating!

Katherine