Halloween is a time when people embrace the feeling of fear. Many people like to be scared. Whether it’s watching horror films, communicating with the dead or fantasizing about vampires, there is a large population of people who enjoy putting themselves in the middle of emotions like terror, fright and suspense. This seems ironic, since fear in most aspects of people’s lives, is unwanted and avoided. Some may say this is because an “unrealistic” fear does not seem as threatening as a “realistic” one. While this may make sense to the mind, it may not make sense to the emotional self because fear is not necessarily rational. In fact, it is most often irrational.
Anxiety Disorders, including Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, all have criteria related to fear and worry. More specifically, “excessive,” “intrusive,” or “disturbing” fear. Yet, what constitutes a fear that is excessive? There is a lot of mention of fear in religious texts. According to some calculations, the word fear appears about 400 times in the Bible and 295 times in the Qur’an. A passage in the Qur’an espouses, “O you who believe! Fear Allah as He should be feared, and die not except in a state of Islam.” Surah Al-Imran 3:102. From the Bible, Psalm 115:11 reads, “You who fear him, trust in the Lord– he is their help and shield.” The Hindi leader Krishnamurti said, “To find out if there is actually freedom one must be aware of one’s own conditioning, of the problems, and above all one must be aware of fear.” Finally, from the Dhammapada 212, (a collection of sayings of the Buddha): “From what is dear, grief is born, from what is dear, fear is born. For someone freed from what is dear there is no grief – so why fear?” In these passages and in many others, fear seems to be a necessary condition for spiritual growth and understanding. While most religious texts also warn against becoming consumed by fear, they seem to indicate fear can be, well, healthy. Perhaps fear allows us to inspect aspects of ourselves we would otherwise ignore. It gives us perspective on our lives and our mortality. Fear is a brother to the Unknown, that which we cannot control or completely understand. And in that vein, it is a sister to Spirituality. Clients often say it is this inability to control or rationally understand their anxiety that makes it so difficult to accept. Yet, the same criteria is almost necessary for spiritual growth. Perhaps struggles with fear and anxiety hold within them the potential to unlock ourselves, to reach deep within and find something much greater than we would have expected.
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“As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” “Who are you, Lord?” Saul asked. “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” he replied.” Acts 9:3-5, excerpt from The Holy Bible, NIV edition.
Religious stories are full of people hearing “voices” from the unknown and interacting with spiritual beings. We marvel at these stories, wondering what it would be like to receive prophetic messages, wondering why it suddenly stopped happening. Or did it? There is a place between dreaming and consciousness when some of us hear, well, “voices.” Perhaps distinct words and phrases, perhaps mumblings. Be honest with yourself; how many times have you heard people talking or someone calling your name when no one else was physically present? Ron Coleman brings up this point in his effort to normalize the experience of hearing voices. Auditory hallucinations, if you want to get technical. Ron should know. He has heard seven voices since his early 20’s and has come to live at peace with them. Too many individuals, says Ron, are wrongly diagnosed with Schizophrenia because they hear voices. If you heard mostly negative voices all day, every day, at some point your reaction to them would look similar to the diagnostic criteria for Schizophrenia. Our society today doesn’t seem to tolerate people who converse with themselves out loud very well. That alone seems indicative of some serious mental disorder that we should avoid. Yet, most of us probably speak to ourselves, or speak to a higher power, or speak to something out there. We may even hear whispers from the “other” dimension. If Paul’s experience on the road to Damascus happened today, how do you think you would react to it? Awe, Disbelief, Fear? Realistically, he would be slapped with a diagnosis of paranoia and sent for mental health treatment. But…treatment for what? Perhaps the spiritual experience is becoming so forgotten and foreign that it seems abnormal. I sometimes wonder how far the pendulum can swing before we lose our sense of mystery and possibility. It’s almost as if Reality and Spirituality are on opposite sides of a continuum that continues to be stretched like a long piece of taffy. Yet, beyond our perceptions and judgments, do the voices we secretly hear make us delusional, or do they just make us human? *Want to learn more about Ron Coleman? Find his blog here. As the days begin to shorten and become shrouded by night’s quick approach, the earth tenses and folds inward. Leaves dry out and curl in on themselves. Animals retreat to sleep. Humans begin to restrict their muscles in protection from the cold. Yet we don’t just restrict physically, but mentally, emotionally and spiritually as well. Thoughts seem to create a traffic jam in the brain. Emotions seem to be caught in the chest. Frustrations seem to take hold of the heart.
You are not alone if you balk at these boundaries that nature has enforced upon us. Some statistics find that 6 out of 100 Americans experience symptoms of Seasonal Affective Disorder during the darkest winter months. The Dalai Lama has said, “I find hope in the darkest of days, and focus in the brightest. I do not judge the universe.” Hope in the midst of darkness? People seem to be experiencing hopelessness, not hope. So, how does one find hope in the darkest of days? Deep in the myths and stories of many religious and spiritual traditions, a theme emerges. These stories speak of wisdom, strength and deliverance being birthed in the darkness. Jonah, trapped inside the belly of a whale, shifted his relationship with God and came out transformed. Buddha had to first be terrorized by the demon Mara before he was enlightened. Psyche (from whom we get the term psychotherapy) had to travel to the underworld in order to attain immortality. Psychotherapy insists that we travel into the darkness. The darkness of our souls, of our past, of our shame or insecurity, and of our hurt. To find wisdom, strength and deliverance we must make this journey. And many of us do. Yet, what about choosing to make this journey on the simplest of winter days? Do we notice the potential and hope that a cold and dark winter day could hold? What would shift for us if we chose to curl inward with acceptance instead of obligation? As my yoga teacher says, “Today is a new day. What are we going to do with it?" As the summer begins to fade into the arms of autumn, I estimate the number of sunny days I will have left to run in the sublime. For me, running is especially enthralling in the summer. The wide open spaces that are extended with endless sky, the warm air cushioning your muscles, the smell and sounds of life all around you. I run because I feel like part of something much larger than myself.
This feeling is not mine alone. It is shared in the testimony of countless runners, bikers, hikers, kayakers etc. Can it really just be the bouts of epinephrine that keep us coming back for more? Or is it something much larger than that? Something physical. Something emotional. Something spiritual. “His gut kept telling him that there was some kind of connection between the capacity to love and the capacity to love running,” writes Christopher McDougall in the book Born to Run, “…both depended on loosening your grip on your own desires, putting aside what you wanted and appreciating what you got, being patient and forgiving and undemanding.” McDougall explains that running feels so good because it is what our ancestors used to do. It was our communion with the earth. It was our way of participating in this great world and this cycle of life. “Perhaps all our troubles – all the violence, obesity, illness, depression and greed we can’t over come – began when we stopped living as Running People.” Psychological research has come up with lists of good reasons to run. Improve your mental health by lacing up those tennis shoes. Memory, relationships, blood pressure, and positive thinking are just a few of the things that exercise has proven to nurture. Can it really be that simple? Take a jog and improve your quality of life? The statistics say yes…but why? In this age of technology, civilization and national security is it possible that we’re so removed from our primitive roots and impulses, that exercise becomes a reminder of that ancient type of existence? A portal into a realm that exists beyond thought, and allows us, or forces us, to use all aspects of the self; physical, mental, emotional, spiritual. A period of time where we are in each grueling moment. Seconds seem like minutes and then vanish. We are suddenly interconnected with everything around us. The ground we are navigating, the air on our skin, the sweat on our back, the people we pass and weave around, the hawk that bursts out in front of us, the hot sun on our faces. We are a part of something much larger, much safer, much more eternal. This burst of intuition gives birth to energy and hopefulness. My run is over. I feel satisfied, renewed, whole. Not because I willed my limbs to carry me swiftly for four miles, but because I surrendered to the engulfing arms of the universe. |
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December 2014
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