Leaning Into Fear

First published on September 8, 2017

Here's a secret. I'm scared. More often than I think. More often than you think, maybe. Not as often as some people, but it wells up sometimes. Not as often as it used to, but sometimes I can feel it. It's a kind of tingling; a sense of the nervous system on edge. And it's not pleasant. Not the fun nervous-system-on-edge of before a sporting encounter or stepping onto a stage. Sometimes, it's just there. And I just want to escape.

As I stand here now I realise, with a sense of great - almost tear-inducing - relief: it reallydoesn't happen like it used to. There have been times when I have lived so much like that. I'm not sure I even knew it, even noticed, at the time, but I wonder now how much energy it took to feel out of kilter with who I am, to feel the sense of fear.

My fear is exposure. It is being kicked out of the tribe. Found out for the fraud I really am. For the small boy lost somewhere, not sure what to do.

I don't feel it like I used to, but I felt it last night, faced with something different. A different group. A new experience. The possibility of stepping into a new community and a new part of my life.

It may be that none of that will happen. And the tingling of nervousness, the hint of fear... it settled as stories were told. As I learnt about the people sitting around me. I knew it would; I asked for that. In seeing the stories of those people around me the nervousness settled. At least, I think that's what it was.

And as the nervous system settled I felt myself able to slip into presence, into the person that I really am. Into something deeper, a deeper wisdom. I don't feel that feeling all the time, but I feel it more than I used to. And to live in presence not in fear, in connection not in competition: that feels like the right shift. For me, but probably for all of us.

But it's not easy to do that. I can feel the nervousness rising again now. Time to let it go. That's how we connect, in vulnerability and fear. That's how we learn.