A Perspective On Fear

I can feel my heart beating in my ears, my throat closing up, my world crashing down around me as words of frustration, pain, and hopelessness clash together in a cyclical argument. I can’t move forward or backwards, either way I know will make no difference. I have found myself on a precipice of uncertainty, a future I cannot see. This feeling of fear has a way of paralyzing me, holding me to the bed, keeping me from moving, even to my yoga mat.

I take a deep breath in - it is the only sense of control I believe I have in that moment. Letting the air exhale from my mouth, I let out a sigh of momentary relief. This is yoga in its most basic form, a uniting of mind, body and spirit in a moment when I feel everything but united or strong.

It’s then in that singular moment of clarity that I ask myself the question, what is this feeling, what is fear exactly? I am brought back to the day before when my sister eagerly showed me one of her favourite YouTube videos - a short horror film. Determined to remain unfazed, I kept my eyes on the screen, trying to enjoy the plot line without becoming so involved that I would get scared. Apparently my determination wasn’t enough and I suddenly felt my body go into a bit of a panic mode. My breath became short, I felt clausterphobic and the paralyzing feeling of my energy tensing up. I had to rush outside into the rain to get a breath of fresh air and calm my nervous system down.

Funny thing was, what triggered my fear-response - a fictional film - wasn’t real, and neither was my fear - it was only a messenger from my brain letting me know “hey, something isn’t right here”. That was all. Neither of these things - the movie nor my response to it - were my reality. This blew my mind because this realization extended into the present moment, a moment in which I was feeling the exact same fear-response I had experienced a few days earlier watching the horror film. Perhaps just as it was then, my feelings of overwhelming, overpowering fear were not my reality, but simply a messenger letting me know, “something’s not right here”.

Now that I knew I could deal with. I didn’t have to let this fear paralyze me. All I had to do was simply acknowledge it, recognize that yes something was off, and then decide how to move on from there.

With more clarity of mind and a regained sense of control, I moved off the bed, rolled out my yoga mat, and let out a long sign as I folded forward. The situation I had found myself in hadn’t changed, no, yet I had found some perspective on exactly what fear is - only a messenger - and that gave me back my sense of control, my ability to move forward.