EMBRACING.FEAR (Embrace series part I)


“Go to your fears. Sit with them. Stare at them. Your fears are your friend. Their only job is to show you undeveloped parts of yourself that you need to cultivate to live a happy life. The more you things, you’re most afraid of doing the more life opens up. Embrace your fears and your fears will embrace you.”

 

Jackson Kiddard

 

9pm, my daughter is asleep quietly, the kitchen is clean, the tasks of the day done as I allow myself to enter my time of self care - which I successfully avoided for quite some days hiding in “service mode”, not making any effort to be looking beyond the superficial everyday stuff - lighting candles, switching on music, smudging myself, my practice room and rolling out my mat. 

It’s been an intensely emotional day with that kind of confusion that arises when things are stirred up for everyone and no one has been consciously dealing with them yet. Just this dark clouded inner sky which is charged with the full spectrum of emotions before it unloads in a thunder storm. The apartment was charged, our tone of voice was charged, unsettled reactions appeared in every single interaction. I observed it all day, not knowing yet what to do with it and lacking emotional resources to creatively work with the situation, being all absorbed in my own unsettled emotions. 

Softly it knocks on the door and my husband asks for permission to come in and sit down with me to tell me something. My big bellied and expanded gut feeling already senses his clarity and the depth of what he’s going to tell me and I can feel the tears behind my eyes getting ready to be flushed out… they’re just waiting for a trigger. I sit down with him on the mat and he addresses his emotional state with the expected clarity, openness, receptivity, calmness and authenticity. And my tears are finally released and flow down my face as the rain drops were falling down the sky earlier today.

As he shares his emotional state, his observations, fears and visions finally I can unravel my own. As he softly embraces my belly and my ears hear him speaking to the little one: “I’m excited for you coming forth to join our family” it hits me like a lightning: 

“I’m in doubt!!! 

I’m in doubt about my capacity to love our new family member the way I love Lea!!!

I’m in doubt about my emotional resources to hold space for our family in the expanded version!!!

I’m scared to lose balance after having found such “great” balance with Lea being almost 5, sleeping through the night, allowing me to take time for self care, practicing, teaching, time with my husband…!

I’m scared to hit the walls I’ve been painfully hitting energetically in the first weeks and months being a first time mom.

I’m scared of Lea being set aside, of challenging my relation ship with sleep deprivation and general lack of time not to even speak about romantic time…”

There I sit on this mat observing myself watching the fountain of fear blasting all those aspects into my consciousness which must have been sitting there just waiting to be seen. After he finishes sharing he asks me if I wanted to share with him what’s going on for me. All those thoughts above have been way too charged and still been too blurry to be shared in that moment and I wasn’t able to speak them just yet. 

Allowing for spaciousness I got to step on my mat to move and breath and blow some air into it all which felt as a great relief. A couple of minutes later Lea stood in the door ready to discharge her inner storm in her own way. She must have been just as touched by her own process of sensing, tasting and digesting the transformation so she woke up and came to find me. For the past days she wouldn’t want to leave my side and would have loved to have me close 24/7. I went to hold her and lie down with her to help her going back to sleep which didn’t happen for hours. A dynamic which stirred up another core topic: The balance of my own needs, her needs and the needs of a new little being -leaving a hopefully self sufficient dad out of the picture to ease up the situation for a moment-.

My hip and sacral pain flared up so much after reading her books and trying to stay quiet next to her that I couldn’t stay quiet anymore. Even though she was resistant to me getting up, I asked Pascal for help to take care of her while I withdraw myself to go for a walk. I knew that she’s gonna explode so I try to go as quick as possible…

 

And there I stand outdoors: at 1am in an outworn pregnancy shirt, my nickers, barely covered to my mid thighs by a wollen coat which I can only close to the start of my massive belly and my flip flops. And I realise I didn’t bring a key. I look up in the sky in deep gratitude for a warm and pleasant night showing bright stars which receive me in my rather extraordinary outfit without any judgement. I laugh quietly at the odds of my particular way of being a mum and start my wide legged pregnancy walk around a quiet block. The peacefulness of the night allows my emotions to calm down and the slow rhythm of my steps calm down my hip and sacral pain. As I return home I find Pascal happily opening the door for me while Lea is asleep.

I allow the whole evening just have unfolded as it did and finally find some sleep at 3am. “Just checking if you have some ghosts left in your closet” my Doula wrote the night before signalling her availability to to chat and allow “the ghosts” to join the party if necessary. As I fall asleep I know it’s time to finally open the closet and look at the ghosts… “Go to your fears. Sit with them. Stare at them. Your fears are your friend”.

After the house is empty in the morning I sit myself on the terrace with a cup of ice cold cacao and call her… together we open the closet and look at all those ghosts, step by step, she allows me to unravel my fears, look at them, allow them to be there… “all quite normal” she says and wow, even though I’m still around 15kg more than regular I feel more than 15kg lighter. 

 

There was nothing to be fixed, nothing to be changed, nothing to be “worked on”. The “simple” yet so profound act of listening, allowing things to be as they are, the permission to be seen and the act of embrace changed it all.

 

“Go to your fears. Sit with them. Stare at them. Your fears are your friend. Their only job is to show you undeveloped parts of yourself that you need to cultivate to live a happy life. The more you things, you’re most afraid of doing the more life opens up. Embrace your fears and your fears will embrace you.”

Jackson Kiddard

 

Deep gratitude to my dear husband Pascal Weis, my Doula Kerys Williams, all my sisters supporting in me in this right of passage and sharing the path of conscious being with me.

May we all open up to all we have to hide… to let it pour let it flow to the outside… so we can be spacious and free to give birth to our pure self, every breath, every step on the way.


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