I remember
singing a song at summer camp years ago:
“Did you ever get the feeling when
you read the paper the world has gone insane?
That the animal part of the human
heart has finally gone berserk.
Well it just may be that what you see
is the storm before tranquility
And the world isn’t coming to an end
my friend, the world’s just coming to a start.
I feel it in my heart. The world is coming to a start!”
I was
working in the camp office at the time and was surprised to learn the song
wasn’t inspired by what was happening in the news of the day, but was written,
I think, in the 1940’s.
Those lyrics
have stuck in my mind and I’m amazed how relevant, how timely, they continuously
are. Funny how it always feels like the
world is about to come to an end.
Since
November and the American elections, not to mention all the devastation around
the world including Syria, Standing Rock, and even the Gull River basin, the
intensity of this feeling just seems to have multiplied. Recently, I began to wonder
about fear – deeply wonder about it and the hold it had on me. Fear had become
so big I couldn’t see it all, so big it was trapping and depressing me. Sure,
traumatic things had happened but my reaction hadn’t always been in proportion. It was more like present minor events were
triggering something much deeper. It was
like fear, and even terror, were passed down in my DNA for me to keep
re-experiencing. It was like I was constantly
reliving emotional events from my forefathers – from being chased by saber
tooth tigers, to being enslaved by this or that despot, to surviving countless
famines and religious wars. Fear, and
anxiety, it felt, had been bred in my bones.
But there
was something in the air earlier this year - with the inauguration, with the
Bell Let’s Talk campaign and several celebrities coming out and talking about
their mental health problems – guiding me to walk right into the anxiety of my
past and stand still with it and say hello.
Hello anxiety. Hello fear of my
parents. Hello terror of all my
ancestors. Hello. Who are you?
And a flood
of images and emotion were released.
I stayed
still in the emotion - with the
emotion - and soon we both began to soften.
And then the
fear wasn’t out there - huge, looming - anymore. It was inside me, with me, as a
companion. We no longer were separate.
And as I
held it in my heart, sorrow washed through us both.
What
remained was a tender openness, a surrender that comes after having had enough
experience with fear grabbing me by the throat, trying to get my attention. Thank you for the gift of the warning. Thank you for reminding me it is always my
choice to harden or soften my heart, to be a victim or a master of my destiny,
to separate from or speak out and take charge of the present moment. Thank you for helping me remember who I am
not and who I am.
Neuroscience
has shown the body doesn’t know the difference between thoughts and acts of fear
so will produce stress hormones either way.
Worrying about possible future events is where anxiety comes from and accounts
for most illness. After seeing pictures
of icebergs around Newfoundland this spring, it occurred to me our thoughts are
like the tip of the iceberg mixing with all the airy ideas that blow by. Our real essence is the mass below: solid,
stable, enormous. If when I feel fear/anxiety
coming on, I can move my awareness below into my belly and legs, I can connect
with that feeling of stability and enormity and be present to calmly deal with
my situation. And since most of the fear
I experience doesn’t even belong to me, I can let it go, return to the present
moment, and go back to enjoying my day.
Knowledge is
power and knowing how to surrender to feelings, how to sink into my iceberg
base and be still to quietly listen to the insights, is tremendously
empowering.
May we all
know this peace within.
May we all
know this power within.
Mayday is shortened from "venez m'aider," meaning "come and help me."
Lots of hands have been in Minden doing just
that.
Thank you all!
