Wow, I really need to get better at writing these posts. I had a very busy day today and literally just started this post at 11:30pm. Promise to do better tomorrow and maybe write about a topic in greater detail.
Today I want to talk very briefly about fear. For as long as I have known, fear has accompanied me. I remember this one night when I couldn't finish studying for a subject in college and the exam was the next day and at 3 am I decided to get some sleep because i had to wake up in 4 hours to head to the examination hall, and I was so scared that i had a mini anxiety attack. I remember then walking to my parent's room in the middle of the night and standing at the door and watching them and hoping that they would continue to love me if i failed this exam. i have very very clear memories of doing this. It was very cold in Delhi around then and I had many woollens on and a scarf wrapped around my neck and was wearing socks. It was fear like i had never known before. And the fact that this memory stays with me indicates how strong it was.
Since then, I've had many such memories, many such sleepless nights of "OMG what am i going to do". Maybe I should just think about the time when I stood at the door of my parents bedroom and realise how stupid I was being about failing a very stupid subject in college, which was not even one of my main courses to be honest. And that will make me see that what looks so big and daunting when you are living it, is actually not all that bad when you look back. You live through it and you survive it. Since then when I am going through hard times nights are tough for me. I guess that is similar to everyone. Nights are truly the worst time to be sitting alone with your bad and unhelpful thoughts and wondering if you will make it to the next day or if the sun is ever going to rise again. Everything seems amazingly hopeless.
My twenties after a lot of struggle, unhappiness and anxiety, told me to not sit with my bad thoughts at night. There have been nights I haven't slept and got out of bed at the break of dawn and showered and gone for a yoga class or gone to work or I have slept only after the sun has risen and then slept through the day only waking up to send an email to my team and my boss that I was taking the day off sick. Now I am finally in a space where I can control these thoughts and put a stop to them right when I see them seeping in. I tell myself, I will think about it tomorrow - not in a procrastinating way but in a "now is not a good time to be doing this to yourself" way. The next day when I wake up, the problem seems either too small or I seemed to have developed the courage to face it and solve it or make that decision i was struggling with. It is always without a doubt easier, safer and kinder to do that to myself.
I did a course called Search Inside Yourself, which talks about mindfulness and how to deal with emotions and learning to respond instead of reacting and also the immensely necessary task of taking care of yourself, mentally and physically. And in there you are taught to identify emotions as and when they arise in your body through recognizing actual biological changes. And when you identify an emotion as fear or anger or grief, how to not let that overwhelm you, but to detach yourself from it and notice what that particular emotion is doing to your body and differentiating what that is from who you are or how you act. It's extremely hard to do and very difficult to master.
There are many people who believe that this may not be a healthy way of dealing with your emotions and may actually be akin to "pushing stuff under the carpet". But i have found it useful simply because it just helps me deal with negativity and also empowers my mind over my body. My mind recognizes that my cheeks flush and my breath becomes short and my fingers and toes tingle when I am very angry, and I know immediately to distance myself from that situation. Either walking away or choosing to not engage in any further discussion at that specific point in time. Which does not mean that you can not return to that instance when you are sufficiently capable of evaluating the situation without having your body dictate your actions or reactions. I still do not do it well enough. Also I am aware of the fact that running away and escaping is one of my other favourite things to do. when faced with a problem. And even today one of the things i most want to do is escape to a mountain and not have to deal with life and money and people ever again - it's a very stupid fantasy, but the fact that this solution looks to be like an actual "solution" and doable is quite scary. It also so happens that escaping is the best way for me to heal emotionally. So it has been a learning curve for me to distinguish between when i want to run away because I do not want to deal with stuff / situation or when I need to dis-engage because a certain situation or person is getting the better of me negatively. How to do it tactfully is well something i am still learning. The SIY course is quite interesting and whether you agree with the tactics it teaches you to employ or not in daily life, it is worthwhile to take the course anyway to simply just understand body mechanics and develop a healthy practice of meditation - which I hope by now everyone agrees is good for you.
Coming back to fear, a friend of mine gave me this book my J Krishnamurthi called Fear, which I could not read completely because those who know his work know that it's not an easy read, here is an essay on it and there are many YouTube videos where he speaks to it as well, which might be an easier deal than reading the whole book itself. I still struggle with fear - every day and sometimes when I allow myself, at nights too. But it no longer overpowers me, simply because I know that I am above it, I sit down or sit up and take a few deep breaths, think about everything that is going perfectly ok for my life in the moment and that even if everything were to fail, I would still find a way to go on. And then I shut my mind to that topic and step away and re-visit only when fear doesn't dominate my being.
Fear, the state of being in fear, is for me still pure darkness and I want crawl under my blanket and shut the world out. I react in the worst possible way when and if fear manages to overtake me. Which is why it is so important for me to control it before it reaches that stage. And even today, when I am most scared, I think of my parents. I am yet again, that girl who walks up to their bedroom door and watches them quietly, hoping they won't hate me if I were to screw up but also knowing that irrespective of anything, i will always have them to fall back on. Which also in my opinion is my way of escaping from it, but for now when i am engulfed in the depths of fear, the only image that keeps me afloat is that of my parents.
Escapism is a natural bi-product of fear, so is the feeling of being utterly helplessly alone and lonely. For that yoga has helped me tremendously, so have many books, poets, and essays I have read about death, life and love. I will end with this line from Rumi, who has time and again held me within the folds of his poetry and philosophy, whenever I have needed it the most :
Do not feel lonely, the whole universe is inside you,
Stop acting so small. You are the universe in ecstatic motion.
Set your life on fire. Seek those who fan your flames
~ Rumi
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