UNBROKEN

You are not broken because of your fear, being afraid is the first step in becoming fully alive.

I recently finished a book called Fearless – a memoir written by one of my heroes. Chloé Phillips-Harris is a woman I deeply admire. In reading about her life and adventures I see that she is many things: courageous, loving, inventive, clever, wise, caring, warm, bold, fun … however fearless she is not.

Her life is threaded with fear, running on fear, dancing with fear, textured by fear, she knows every nook and cranny of fear and she goes on.

As a bold adventurer she is in relationship with her fear. This is key to anyone pushing their own boundaries and coming fully into their own life. It matters deeply to me that people come fully to life. The first step is learning to feel your fear. It is common to think that being brave or courageous requires you to first “swallow your fear”, in other words numb your fear, then act. 

After experimenting with feeling and listening to my own fear, I have a fresh space in me with which to catch the stories of people, my heroes who live their lives playing full out. It is a very different space from my old habit of not allowing myself to feel scared. Of denying it. Pretending I was Fearless.

In reading this book from this fresh perspective I see that as a courageous, adventuring young woman fear is often alive and running rampant through her. Her fear helps her do amazing, unthinkable things that her mind alone would be too slow to come up with on its own. Frequently she moves with the adrenalin cursing through her. Frequently she is still, quiet, aware and deeply alive interacting deliberately with wild stallions. Her fear turned on, her feeling it, listening to its wisdom and responding to the information it brings.

Image courtesy of Ahmad Odeh

Fear is there whether I choose to feel it or not.

Have you ever suddenly become aware that your heart is beating abnormally fast, and do not know why? Have you ever woken sweating in the middle of the night, without an obvious cause?

I have. And from my research I have discovered that this is my unfelt, suppressed fear rising to move through me - I have a choice what to do with this energy. I can pretend it is not there by distracting myself from it, or I can let it move through me and listen to what it has to say. This is done by practising saying “I feel scared because…” and letting myself be curious as to what comes next.

I have found that by allowing myself to feel and express my fear, it ebbs and flows through me and in doing so allows me to do things I would have avoided doing when it was not ok for me to feel my fear. For example I have allowed my fear to guide me to holding dangerous conversations with people who scared me, in doing so I built trust in myself. I have allowed it to help me move house, change jobs, ask for what I need, ask for help and for navigating an ever changing environment. Most surprisingly, all these things have brought me more fully to life. I have found intimacy with my own authenticity.

I care about others discovering this terrain for themselves and I can see that bold, lives lived full out and titled “FEARLESS” is a trap.

By labelling large lives, tinged with magic, coincidence, beauty and coloured by the fullness of the human spirit, as FEARLESS implies that “common old me”, who gets scared, does not have access to this fullness of life.

 It makes me pause, doubt myself, bury my dreams and wonder listlessly “where is this fantastical reality of being where there is no fear?” “When will I arrive at that pristine state where I can plan and then go ride across the Mongolian steppes on wild horses, or dare trust myself to break in a wild stallion or choose to go to Egypt in the middle of civil unrest?” “When will I stop being so scared?”

Image courtesy of Daria Gordova

The reality is that there is no such place as a perfectly fearless state. It is a fantasy to think that “when I am in that perfect orb of fearlessness, then I will… dream, plan, decide, ride etc..” This state does not exist. In believing it does I keep myself locked out of possibility, locked out of my own life.

What is clearer to me than ever before, especially after reading FEARLESS, is that the people who live boldly, have become initiated into the conscious use of fear. This distinction is a game changer. It means that they have really learnt to feel SCARED, they have learnt everything they can about feeling fear. They have an energetic imprint in them of fear being, a valuable, essential, alive force of life that does not mean “omg stop doing what you are doing right now because you are very bad, wrong and about to die”. Instead it can flow freely through them and has valuable information such as;

·      slow down,

·      speed up,

·      pay attention to that thing in shadows,

·      increase your awareness,

·      focus,

·      hold on tighter.. no loosen slightly,

·      let go now,

·      go now,

·      be still now, but do not go to sleep,

·      plan forward now go there,

·      pay this, rest now,

·      get up now,

·      stay a bit longer,

·      feed yourself now,

·      focus on that. Ignore that.

 Always feeling, always present, always alive, always listening, always gathering fear’s wisdom and trusting it.

 This is a massive world shift and unlocks so much possibility. It unlocks a life bigger than the mind can imagine. Best of all, anyone, with a physical body, can become initiated into the conscious use of their fear. Anyone.

 Next time you hear your favourite hero speak, as she rises to face her demon, sword drawn steady, eyes narrowed, boldly proclaiming “I am no longer afraid” consider that perhaps what has actually happened is that this hero has been through so much, felt huge amounts of fear all the way to 100%, realised that she is still here, has therefore become INITIATED into the feeling of fear that she is able to stand there- fear fully turned on, flowing unencumbered throughout her system, no story attached, using it as a neutral energetic resource to draw upon its wisdom, power, uncanny awareness, ability, speed and agility to execute, to almost unworldly perfection, the impossible.

 No, my hero, you are not unafraid, and neither am I.

You know how to be very scared, and so do I

You are not broken because of this

And neither am I

In fact you are the hero that you are because of your fear

And so am I.