Owning our Fear, Living from Light
FLYING
The key to living in your Light is rising above your current perspective. You need a bird’s eye view to see the swirling Darkness of thoughts and emotions, beliefs and stories that surround you day in and day out.
An easy way to visualize this is to imagine yourself taking off in an airplane. It’s a cloudy day so as you rise, you are flying straight through this dense gray layer of heaviness in the sky. You look out the window and can feel overwhelmed by the clouds, even a bit anxious, as you pass through them because you can’t yet see beyond them.
Just as you, in your daily life, walk through a fog of your own making...the Darkness that’s a part of us all, the negative emotions and beliefs you hold onto so tightly. It’s difficult to see what lies beyond the Darkness.
And then, it’s like a miracle. The plane rises high enough to lift up and above the clouds and you’re greeted by the sun. You’re enveloped by the Light of the sun; steady and constant, bright and warm. It makes you smile. It uplifts your soul. You finally have a new perspective - your bird’s eye view - of what your world REALLY looks like. And it is full of Light.
Just as your world is not just the clouds, neither are you just your Dark emotions and beliefs. The sun is constant, just like your inner Light. You can feel the Light. You are uplifted by the Light. You can rise above your Darkness at any moment you choose. And it feels like you’re soaring, just like that plane. You are free. You can fly. You lift your head towards the Light and embrace it with a grin on your face.
Bringing Light into our Relationships
Now that we can see our Light, by connecting to how we feel when we are in our Light (joy, love, compassion, connection) and perhaps feel its presence within us, we can begin to be in the world in a new way, a brighter way, a more loving way. How would that work? What would we need to do in order for that to happen? The next step is to help you get a better understanding of your fears and how they affect your relationships. You will feel a sense of relief because with understanding comes familiarity and a sense of knowing, so rather than feeling lost and confused you feel empowered with greater clarity.
Some of our most common fears that get in the way are:
Afraid of failing, making mistakes and as a result being hurt, rejected, unloved.
Afraid that those we care for will stop loving us, will abandon us, will leave us, will die.
Afraid that we are unimportant and don’t matter
Afraid that we won’t get what we need or want and that others will get more than we do, will take more, or will be given more.
Afraid that we won’t belong, we don’t belong, we will never belong.
Afraid that who we are is not enough: not good enough, smart enough, attractive enough, important enough, happy enough...
Afraid that we are not the person others need, want, and expect us to be.
Afraid that who we are deep down inside is a monster or nothing/nobody or broken/defective.
Afraid that our lives are meaningless, and purposeless.
Do you recognize any of these fears? We have them all.
By beginning to recognize when we are caught up in our fears, we can change how we respond, how we react, how we move forward.
Step1- Recognize what fear feels like
Close your eyes and think back to a time recently or in your past, when you were afraid. That is you in your Dark. What are you feeling in your body as you remember being in your fear? With practice, we can become aware of these feelings, in real time, when it's actually happening.
Step 2- Reconnect with your Light
Close your eyes and breathe, noticing the physical sensations of breathing in and out.
Reconnect with those memories or feelings of joy, connection, love that we all experience or that we saw in the faces of small children we have observed.
Notice what you are feeling inside of your body as you reconnect with the memory or the image. Notice your chest expanding, your body relaxing, maybe a smile coming to your lips.
How do you feel now? You began this meditation in your Dark, remembering what it feels like to be afraid. Now you have reminded yourself that you also have a Light, a soul and what they feel like. This Light is balancing the Dark. We are lighting a candle in a dark, dark room and bringing a new perspective to the space and to the Darkness. As the Dark is becoming less dense and powerful, our fears feel less overwhelming. When we are in our Light, we can sit with our Darkness, our fears, and understand them without needing to act out or shut down.
Our fears are always with us. Even if we aren’t aware of them, they are present, affecting how we live our lives, how we respond to people, how we see and feel about ourselves and others. Every relationship we are in is affected by our fears. We look to others to soothe our fears, make them smaller and less intense. Our friends, partners, family, co-workers do this by telling us that we are important to them, that we matter, that we are good enough, that we are loved. When we do not receive this reassurance, our fears rise up and start to howl and roar. We then begin to blame the other person for being unkind and uncaring as their behavior has forced us to deal with our fears again. It's hard to accept but our fears are our stuff and no one else’s responsibility. It’s not another person’s job to make sure we are not afraid. It's our job to deal with our fears and to lessen their power over us.
There are 6 steps to doing this:
Read through the list of common fears. Add to the list any others that you are aware of in yourself. Read through the list a few times to become acquainted with them so that when you notice them, you are familiar with them.
Notice when you are having a strong negative reaction to your friend, partner, co-worker, neighbor, child, employer……
Look for emotions such as: anger, feeling betrayed, hurt, unloved, ignored, unappreciated, abandoned, hopeless. Look for reactions like a need to shut down, lash out, pretend, blame, beat yourself up, feel sorry for yourself.
Seeing the emotional response is the first step and then with time, you can begin to look deeper and identify the fear that underlies the response.
This is the most important step: stop- breathe - and recognize that this fear is “your stuff”. The other person has their own stuff that they need to deal with. This is yours. Breathe again.
Reconnect with your Light. Sit, breathe and connect with those feelings and memories that remind you of the Light within you. Remember what it feels like to be in your Light so that you can reconnect with it, see it, embrace it, live in it.
From this place of being connected to your Light, relive the moment of pain or discomfort, when you felt let down, disappointed or hurt in your relationship. Notice what you are feeling now. Remind yourself this is your fear. From this place of Light, look at your fear, accept that everyone feels such fear, forgive yourself for having it, for being human.
When we are in our Light, we bring that Light into our relationships. We start connecting to others with love rather than through fear. Being in our Light brings perspective to our strong emotions, to our fears and allows us to choose how we want to respond in any situation. When we are in our Light, it is our Love that chooses how we respond, not our fear and that makes all the difference.
FEELING GOOD
How do you live from light?
It all begins with feeling good.
When you feel good, you do good
When you do good,
you’re connecting with the Light in others
You walk through the world
feeling purposeful,
happy
connected
and on fire for your personal mission
to help, serve, create or inspire…
whatever it is you’re called to do
that feels like you’re flowing
with your most natural rhythm
in cadence with your heart
as you speak your truth
shine your light
and feel good.
Light it up, my friend.
Invitation To Go Deeper
Let’s start looking at what is your stuff in the relationship.
Choose one relationship that is important to you.
Choose one moment when you felt anger, rage, hurt, grief, resentment, rejected, unappreciated, lonely, and/or unloved in this relationship
Now go back to the list of common fears at the beginning of the blog. One at a time, read each fear and ask yourself if the other person’s behavior or words could have created more of this particular fear in you. For example, you feel unloved and unappreciated - could it be that you are reacting this way because you are even more afraid that you are not enough or perhaps that you are unimportant and don’t matter.
Connect with your Light (perhaps listen to the recording at the end of Blog 4) and from this place of Light think about this situation. See and feel that fear that was triggered. Breathe. Sit in your Light and recognize the presence of this fear. We all have the exact same fears. You aren’t alone. You aren’t strange or defective.
The next step is to accept this that fear is present within you. To accept means that you are aware of it, you might not be thrilled with having it and that you understand it will always be there. You can’t get rid of it. When we accept our fears, they begin to lose their power over us. We can understand why we are responding the way we are. It’s no longer a black box where things happen to you and you don’t know why.
In a relationship, where there is choice, then both parties are co-creating the relationship. Both are bringing in their cardboard boxes. The only way to change what’s going on in our relationships is to own our stuff and to work on our stuff. We need to focus on what our boxes are doing to the relationship and let go of trying to change the other person. You are a co-creator which means you have the power to change the relationship. Let the other person work on their stuff. You work on yours.