Befriending Fear and the Deeper Calling
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A question about befriending fear and pain as a doorway to freedom, and how habitual conditioning can be met with a more attuned, moment-to-moment listening.
Befriending Fear and the Deeper Calling
A question about befriending fear and pain as a doorway to freedom, and how habitual conditioning can be met with a more attuned, moment-to-moment listening.
So, friending the fear and friending the pain.
Yes, exactly. Because otherwise all the conditioning is in service to managing, controlling, avoiding, and resisting fear and pain.
Which is more pain.
And it's a cycle, an endless cycle of resisting. In fact, that mechanism makes the flow more error-prone.
The door, not the destination
I've said a lot about going towards fear and pain, but it's also not the end point. It's not the point of it all. It's just that because we have such resistance to feeling it, it becomes the door. But it's also not about always going towards what is painful. It might be better to say at times: be okay with the outcome of the actions you want to go towards, even if that outcome is pain, even if it's fear.
And then it's always exploring, always an experiment. You'll naturally be learning. You start to see: "This is a habitual way of doing things. It often doesn't work. I can see why it's been repeating, and I can see a different way now." Then you try out the different way and see what happens.
Swinging to the opposite
Sometimes that different way goes to the other extreme. We're often very conditioned in one direction, and the way we free up is to do the opposite. That's often necessary as a way to see a difference, a contrast. And then we can learn there's a middle way, which is not always the middle. It's sometimes right, sometimes left. It depends on the moment and comes from a really attuned listening to that quiet, subtle movement that is more trusting, more loving, more open, more alive. It comes from a place of not knowing.
I can see that there's something in doing things the same way, the habitual way, that's very conditioned. And there's some fear in that conditioning that keeps you in that place, doing things that way.
Yes. That comes from some form of knowing: knowing what you are, what you need, what is right, what needs to be done. A strategy for what will get you to the thing you want, the place you're sure you need to reach.
Questioning the known
So in one way you can look at all of that and question it. Notice it. See exactly how it appears, how it happens. Ultimately that will lead to a certain kind of questioning of "I am," of "what am I?"
Another approach, which you can pursue simultaneously, is to ask: what do I want more deeply? What is the deeper calling, the deeper movement, the deeper desire? Following that will naturally have to question all of the habitual conditioning, will have to go against it, and will require taking a risk.
I'm not referring to finding your mission or your vocation. I'm talking about a movement that is constantly alive. It could be a coffee now, or it could be tea, or it could be a walk, or it could be a big project. But what I'm pointing to is this: at this moment, what is the deepest desiring?
Yes. That's how it's done. Thank you.
You're welcome.