Fear as Misnamed Energy
El miedo como energía mal nombrada
A student shares a metaphor about energy and fear, and the teacher explores how the interpretation of threat turns raw energy into fear, and how seeing through that interpretation can transform it into aliveness.
Fear as Misnamed Energy
A student shares a metaphor about energy and fear, and the teacher explores how the interpretation of threat turns raw energy into fear, and how seeing through that interpretation can transform it into aliveness.
It reminded me of a meditation or thought exercise that a friend of mine once guided. The prompt was: do you feel energy flowing in your body when you think of whatever it is you're drawn to, or afraid of, or both? You can think of that energy as a river, and the fear, the blocks, the rationalizations, as rocks in the river. My friend's advice was to focus on the river, not the rocks. I wanted to say something around how it can seem really daunting if the fear is the focus, and that can feel demotivating. But if you are with the fear while also staying in touch with your desire and what is naturally emerging, and you feed attention to that, then the fear transforms. It's almost as if we label this energy arising in us as fear because we don't know what it is, but it could be something else. It could be a source of energy to drive action. It's important not to label it. It's river, energy, flow, life.
The interpretation behind the label
Don't label it as fear, because fear is the interpretation you're having. To notice that you're interpreting it as fear has to do with how you are interpreting what you are and what life is.
I agree that it is an energy that can change and move. But when it's looked at through the lens of "I am a thing that's under threat," that lens colors the energy as fear, and then it interprets the energy as a signal: "Tell me where to go." And it says, "Go that way, and this will calm down."
Seeing what is threatened
If you start to look at what is threatened, through which you interpret that energy as fear, and you shift your understanding of what is actually threatened, you recognize that it's an idea of what you are. Then that energy can become aliveness, passion. It can be used to move in the direction you want. It can take you.
But it's important to recognize: this is fear. Why is it fear? It's fear because I am identifying with something that's under threat. And if you can discern that it's not the body, then what is the threat? It's going to be about how people look at me, what friends and family think about me, my sense of who I am, and so on. All of that needs to be seen.
The choice
Then you make a choice. Do you want to live obeying that, attached to that idea? Or are you willing to give it up and surrender? I recommend, through this process of discernment, going into it.