As the summer winds down, and we get ready to face the next season, many of us are excited, and many of us are afraid. I’m personally a bit of both. During the summer, I allowed myself a bit of time and space to reflect and just “be.” Traveling always helps me to get a healthy perspective on my life, too. However, now it’s time to get back to work and do what needs to be done.
I just came back from an amazing yoga class – throughout an intense sequence of deep hip-openers, the teacher asked us to become aware of our deepest fears. She explained how if we don’t get to physically express our fears through our fight or flight response, the body can take a bit of a hit – we tend to grip it all into our hips and/or shoulders. As I breathed through my “edge” I allowed my deepest fears to surface. I breathed through them and let them go. What a purifying experience. Now, I feel amazing, and way more ready to face the week.
Allow me leave you with a poem from one of my favorite ever poets, John O’Donohue. If you are going through any kind of fear in your life, or trying to get through a difficult patch, I find the wisdom in this poem to be so incredibly powerful:
When the light around you lessens
And your thoughts darken until
Your body feels fear turn
Cold as a stone inside.
When you find yourself bereft
Of any belief in yourself
And all you unknowingly
Leaned on has fallen.
When one voice commands
Your whole heart,
And it is raven dark,
Steady yourself and see
That is is your own thinking
That darkens your world.
Search and you will find
A diamond-thought of light,
Know that you are not alone
And that this darkness has purpose
Gradually it will school your eyes
To find the one gift your life requires
Hidden within this night-corner.
Invoke the learning
Of every suffering
You have suffered.
Close your eyes
Gather all the kindling
About your heart
To create one spark.
That is all you need
To nourish the flame
That will cleanse the dark
Of its weight of festered fear.
A new confidence will come alive
To urge you towards higher ground
Where your imagination
Will learn to engage difficulty
As its most rewarding threshold!
