The other night I was in my studio working on one of the hundred projects on my plate and Loreena McKennitt's "Dante's Prayer" began playing. This is, hands down, is one of my favorite songs.
You can find it here, if you'd like. I'll wait.
One of the lines that always haunts me is "..lift this mortal veil of fear" among many others-but this one stands out to me every time. It's such a common thing that people live with everyday-we talk about it in everything we do. The fear of the unknown, of how much money we're going to spend on a given item, the possibility that gas will rise again and again, all of it is expressed in terms of fear. If you don't believe me, listen to yourself the next time you say "I'm afraid of...(insert seemingly mundane thing here)".
I do this a lot.
Most of the time, it's not to express something that I'm actually afraid of but a set pattern of language use. For example, I will say things like "I'm afraid of what I'm going to find when I get home, I forgot to do the dishes this morning." Or "Yeah, but it scares me to think of what will happen if I fall off of the mountain bike"...etc. etc.
Am I actually afraid of my kitchen? No. (At least not most times hehe)
What I mean to express is a sense of discomfort or chagrin brought on my by own inaction. Am I truly, actually afraid of what will happen if I try this thing and fail when I'm on my mountain bike? Maybe-I'm arguably afraid of the pain or the idea of embarassing myself but it's different than actual Fight or Flight fear. What I am is nervous, anxious, uncertain. All of those are equally valid emotions but I feel that we tend to wrap them up under this veil of fear, to borrow the phrase.
I believe that how we speak and the way that we speak dictates a lot of how we think and what we believe-look at the effect that mantra, constant negativity, the idea of self-talk, historical concepts of witchcraft and incantations play and have played in our lives and our cultural foundation.
So, I'm going to aim to start changing my language. I'm hoping that through doing so I can begin to change my perspective on things and re-awaken some of that fearless child-brain that we lose sight of as we grow into "adulthood".
I value, above all else, the ability to keep learning. I value this so much that I turn an entirely blind-eye to research and researchers that preach the ridiculous adage "you can't teach an old dog new tricks" I get downright mad about it!
Could this anger I feel be stemming from a place of true fear of losing an element of myself that I value? Probably, but it doesn't change my stance.
We are creatures who are built, designed, engineered, created, whatever term you like, to learn and we can't do that if we're afraid of every new possibility or failure that awaits us around the corner.
Therefore-I am working on turning my mindfulness towards changing my language and my approach to new concepts.
This means not being afraid of my own feelings towards a specific thing-I have to be able to face the emotions that I experience when confronted with new things and process them as individual emotions, instead of lumping them under "fear" and trying to plow ahead.
Aside from dealing with and countering the "fear" reaction when it arises in a given situation, I find that I need to work on the value that Fear represents in my life as a whole. Sometimes, when I sit down to meditate I'm afraid of what will happen.
More specifically, I'm afraid that nothing will happen. I'm afraid that I'm going to waste my time sitting on this little square in the middle of a room with all these lofty ideas about what I'm going to accomplish and being met with a big, empty space of Nothing.
But it very rarely happens that way. I may not accomplish everything I set out to accomplish, but that's part of letting go of The Meditator. Instead, I am generally met with at least a sense of mental relaxation. It doesn't always have to be epic. I have to remind myself of this. And, if I am met with a stonewall of rigid energy, that's nothing to be afraid of. It's just a sign that perhaps I need to do something else and come back to it at a later date.
The idea of being face to face with my deepest, darkest particulars is also intimidating. But, without them, all the beauty and light within me would be missed as well.
So-here's to changing our patterns or Samskaras and learning to banish fear from our vocabulary when it does not suit us!
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