Processing our fears
Processing our fears so that we can be a grounded guide for our children...
It's true that the only thing to fear is fear itself... Thanks Teddy Roosevelt.
It's the panic that it the true pandemic here...
Fear and stress strips our immunity... leaves us susceptible
And while I believe it's important to be diligent and conscientious for the sake of the compromised in our communities... we can do so from a grounded state of gratitude for the possibilities that are being gifted to us...
When the chaos hit the shops I opted to stay home... I chose to bow out from the rush and the conflict and said we would get by on what we have....
The next week I felt the fear rise up in me as I searched for our usual grocery items... everything sold out...
My daughter didn't need words to feel my tension... "Why are you worried mum? When you're worried I'm worried... Can you just tell me why you are panicking!!!"
She's a perceptive one who feels everything on the deepest level... an empath you might say.
I wasn't responding I was trying to breath and find my calm...
I was trying to push down my fear to exude my calm presence and show that there was nothing to worry about...
But that's not the way it works... and my children know me better than that... they know my energy...
We must acknowledge our fears and move into acceptance of their presence... burying them will only add to the anxieties...
Feeling into what was rising in me....
I felt the fear of not providing for my family, not having enough and not being prepared was only scratching the surface of the guilt I felt deeply for playing small and not standing up for my own needs and the needs of my family....
Guilt that I always play small and bow out...
This morning when doing my gratitude practice I was struggling to anchor into my heart... my throat kept catching and my mind kept racing ahead to my days events....
Today is shopping day here and I felt the dis-ease rising in my gut...
I felt called to accept my fears and allow them to unravel...
To call out every minute detail of concern and how it would impact my life and my family....
To view each strand of fear and anxiety singularly, slowing the flow with my breath and asking for just one at a time...
Each one came and I turned it over in my mind, looking at it with a grounded logic that wasn't there in the shortened breath of the moment...
As each unravelled it became insignificant and I was able to see the truth of it...
It was no threat... I found the possibilities in each stand of fear, rewiring my thought patterns and rewriting my outlook...
Feeling gratitude flood in for our slow, home connected lifestyle and blessed by our community and our local co op for supporting my vision to not need to rely on the supermarket chains.... being able to focus on my garden and feeling blessed by the pumpkins that are taking over my yard....
At the end, my guides presented the question "Is there anything to fear?"
"No..." was my answer.... with a free heart I am here....
With so much anxiety and unrest in the air it can be so hard to anchor into our daily practices to bring us back into a grounded state... It can seem like nothing will work no matter how deep you breath and how much space you take...
It's a call to go deeper.
Art by Jon Jacobsen