10. Day 27: The Feeling Formerly Known As Fear

This month with extending love to the fear of fear itself  has been really interesting.  Firstly, this was January, beginning of a new year and we had just come home from an epic, incredible 7 week trip.  I have been in such a different place.  It was as if our trip had sort of washed away the need for the “fear of______” story and allowed me to extend loving awareness into the face of fear.  I am noticing more quickly when this energy of fear comes.  It shuts down even while revving up but it feels different that fear used to feel.  It is like the fear itself has colors and layers too, just like love.  My fear used to feel more like the shooting panic of hot lava, searing and destroying but now feels more dense and sticky and a whole lot less terrifying.

A friend recently visited the La Brea Tar Pits in Southern California and this led me to look it up.  In all the times I have been to LA I have never been but now am curious.  For those of you who have never even heard of this there is a place in Los Angeles that has this continuous tar or asphalt bubbling up.  In these area are layers and layers of fossils, thousands upon thousands.  It is a treasure trove for archeologists.  So now my fear has turned from being a lava flow to a tar pit.  The other day I woke up (of course in the middle of the night) feeling this dense, sticky sense of foreboding.  Nothing specific of course just the heavy stickiness of there being something wrong.  It was as if my feet were stuck in the muck and I couldn’t move.  Then I remembered what I read on the La Brea Tar Pits (really they should come up with a better name)  website and how the animals got trapped there.

“Oh, I could just walk around this thing!”

“Asphalt is very sticky especially when warm.  Warm temperatures would provide optimal conditions for entrapment.” (this could read ‘fear is sticky, especially when you are afraid of it’)

“Small mammals, birds and insects inadvertently become trapped like a fly on fly paper.  Feet and legs of larger animals might sink in and get stuck. Depending on the time of year, STRONGER HEALTHIER ANIMALS might have managed to escape but others would have been held fast until they died of exhaustion or they become prey.” (Notice that the stronger healthier creatures can escape the stickiness)

I was laying there in bed bemoaning the stickiness of fear and then, out of nowhere came the words to the old hymn “How Great Though Art”.  I couldn’t even remember anything but the chorus:

“Now sings my soul,

My savior God to Thee

How Great Thou Art

How GREAT Thou Art”

Even laying there in bed, humming this in my head I felt strengthened then the next thought was, “Well good grief!  I could just walk around this old tar pit!  I am strong enough to do that!”  And I did.  Walk on out of the tar pit of fear.  Sure, I had sticky feet but still I was on my way.  Then I got to thinking about how even this sticky tar pit brought so much information and delight to the archeologists now I wondered if fear worked that way too.  And I realized it sort of did.  My blog has been all about excavating my fears and bringing them into the light. As I keep doing this I feel less and less fear.  Go figure.  If my fears are really just old thoughts I didn’t want to look at and now that I am looking maybe there is something else I can call  the feelings I used to name fear.  Right now I am calling the energy stickiness because it sticks me to a single spot until I can prime that extending love pump again.  Works every time!