I love fear.
It’s the feeling that fascinates me the most these days. It’s also the feeling I’ve been feeling the most.
Most of what I’ve been feeling is emotional fear. By emotional fear I mean that I differentiate between the feeling of fear and the emotion of fear. The emotion comes from the past. It’s fear I’ve felt at some point in the past, and, for whatever reason, repressed in that moment.
It became stuck. And when circumstances resemble the situation in which I originally felt the fear, it gets triggered.
When that happens, I feel something old. Something from the past. That is not a problem in and of itself. The issue arises when I do not differentiate between feelings and emotions. If I don’t differentiate between the two, I might not be aware that what I’m feeling right now is an emotion.
If I feel an emotion and I’m not aware that it’s an emotion, I’ll probably act upon that emotion. This will most likely create separation between me and the people around me. Why?
Because feelings come with energy and information. And if I’m feeling an emotion, the information it comes with will be from the past. I’ll act upon information and energy from the past, which has nothing to do with the present moment.
Let me give you an example, a beloved classic of mine:
My partner is angry. I shut down. I stop feeling what I’m feeling. I go numb, and I don’t even notice it. My inner parent is busy telling her not to be angry, and my gremlin is arguing with her that she’s wrong.
When my partner helpfully points out that she can’t feel me, I go “oh shit,” realizing I’m more or less completely numb. Somewhat reluctantly, I drop my façade, lower my numbness bar, and discover a lot of fear.
The fear is intense, unusually intense, and there aren’t even words that come with it. There is simply this sensation of something really dangerous going on, something that is surely very, very bad. I feel small and helpless.
I go “hold on—does this actually make sense?” My partner has never murdered me. She’s a rather beautiful being in fact. So why am I this scared right now? It doesn’t make sense.
I realize my fear has nothing to do with the present moment—it’s an emotion, most likely from my childhood, hence why I feel so small and helpless despite weighing 20 kilos more than her and being a full head taller.
This clarity gives me a choice: Continue living out some form of past survival strategy that I’ve been stuck in for years (one that creates separation), or do something else—like becoming present in the moment and listening to the important thing that my partner is trying to communicate to me.
I don’t care where my fear comes from. I don’t go analysing my childhood, I don’t go blaming my parents, I don’t go feeling sorry for myself.
I simply note the fear to later do an emotional healing process—a process where I can use this emotion as a doorway to a journey to its origin, discover what happened when I originally felt it, and what decisions I made in that moment in the past that still affect my life today.
Instead of shutting down and/or fighting with my partner, I can use it in a healing process—not to “release” the emotion, but to use it to change the shape of myself into a more refined, expanded and flexible version, and to reintegrate the energy that has been stuck in my bodies for a long, long time.
There’s another way to go about it—dying.
Dying is pretty cool, and it’s accessible even if you don’t have anybody holding space for you. You can die by simply following the fear.
Let me give you an example:
I was terrified of holding space for “the menu” (a pop up space where I invite strangers on the beach to sit with me and choose from a menu of non-material foods) when I came to Dahab. Then I did. I was scared and I had a lot of fun. Then I did it a couple more times, until it wasn’t scary anymore. Then I stopped.
Why? Because something else became scary. The old me had died. The me that was afraid of doing the menu. I was reborn as somebody who was no longer afraid of doing the menu.
Then I did the next thing I was scared of.
Getting out of your comfort zone essentially, you know it. Fear is the tool to do that. By expanding your comfort zone, you’re really expanding your freedom of movement. You’re really expanding what you can do in this life. And you’ll have a lot of fun doing it—because you’ll be alive. Because fear doesn’t have to be something you avoid.
Growing up in modern culture, you more than likely have an association that goes some variation of: “fear is bad.”
When you feel fear, you think “something bad is about to happen.” You probably immediately try to stop feeling fear, either by running away from the circumstances or by simply numbing yourself.
What if you change that association? One that has proven useful for me is “fear is fear.” What if you could feel intense fear and still be present, staying in connection to the people around you while being in control of what you do?
An unconscious relationship to fear will show itself in your life in a way that whatever you’re scared of doing will be the boundary of where you can go and what you can do—the bars of your prison.
A conscious relationship to fear will show itself in your life in a way that you can use fear to follow it and to navigate your life. Instead of shying away from it, you go towards it.
It’s very scary, yes. That’s the point. Well, one of them.
The point is that feelings (and emotions), such as anger and fear and sadness are really alive. If you think these are negative, then you most likely suppress them. If you suppress them, you cut yourself off from powerful resources as well as your own aliveness.
The matter of fact is that they are neither negative or positive. They simply are what they are, and your relationship to them and what you do with them is your responsibility.
And you know the greatest thing? The fear won’t stop. If you think that you’ve already done that, that you’ve already faced your fear, that you’re not scared of much, then, respectfully, you’re numbing yourself.
The fear is always there, by your side as loyal companion. You’ll never run out.
Why? Because you’re alive. You’re a human being, and it’s not a design error that human beings experience fear. You’re a part of this universe, and the universe is in constant evolution. You are made to be in constant evolution. Fear is your guide.
So what do you do with it? You can either avoid it and stay the same, seeking comfort (nothing wrong with that), or you can use it to keep on guiding you to the edge of your box, to the edge of your comfort zone, to the edge of your evolution.
By going there and surfing your edge, I guarantee that you’ll have a lot of fun, that you’ll be scared, and that your life will change. The only question is if you want that.
You’re scared right now in this very moment. What’s your fear telling you?
With Love and Fear,
Valentin Raphael
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