Fear of Self
Fear of the unknown is a common thing, it is a logical human faculty in terms of safety but we know that we must tread in uncharted territory so we can enrich our education….and so we move forwards in spite of it all, as scary as it is we walk the walk….some of us briskly with bare faced cheek, some of us cautiously and most of us in a circuitous fashion, wandering off the path to smell the roses on a regular basis!!! We have developed over thousands of years to a point where, as adults we have realised that risk, discomfort and even danger are part of what it is to know fulfillment. It is normal to be nervous about teaching a class, playing a gig, public speaking, travelling, parenting etc. It is healthy to have the jitters about taking the plunge into anything worthwhile but we know how to overcome & channel those emotions, instincts & thought patterns into the energy we need to get a good job done. In terms of the external world, we have it sussed! There are strategies in place in all cultures both ancient & new about how to do business, how to speak to others, how to be resourceful etc. but very few methodologies on how to explore the unknown within us, or even that a Practice of this is an option…What of the uncharted territory inside ourselves? Has all the focus on how to be a successful person been directed to externalising everything? Feels like it doesn’t it?! How many of us truly know ourselves? even after all this time…even having been through an assortment of life experiences, how willing are we to truly go in? Are we afraid of ourselves? I observed in myself a sort of addictive tendency last week, I looked out the window at a beautiful day and said ‘ooo I’ll go out now on my break and take a nice cup of coffee with me’ ….even in my solitude I felt I ‘needed’ not only to caffeinate but to hold a cuppa in order to make my break a meaningful event…. so accustomed to having distraction we are that we have normalised the act of needing habitual props. I came to the conclusion that we have disguised our fear of Self with an abundance of external activities, relationships & things. It’s not good! How are we supposed to evolve if we can’t even enjoy our down time without a phone, a beverage, a lunch date, a TV or even a radio… what is wrong with just going in? My thinking on this is that we have more of the unknown within us than we assume…otherwise Buddhist Monks, True Yogis & Enlightened Beings would have nothing whatsoever to do…my impression from reading about them & from meeting a small few of these individuals is that they are the most fulfilled Humans on the planet & even being around them makes us feel at ease! Someone who is not afraid to sit with exactly who they are is someone who has seen it all! I am certainly a long way from that kind of Wisdom but I didn’t take the coffee out with me that day last week and while it felt weird, it was a baby step towards finding the path again.
