Thursday, August 22, 2013

Fear: Letting Go

“There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love. When we are afraid, we pull back from life. When we are in love, we open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement, and acceptance. We need to learn to love ourselves first, in all our glory and our imperfections. If we cannot love ourselves, we cannot fully open to our ability to love others or our potential to create. Evolution and all hopes for a better world rest in the fearlessness and open-hearted vision of people who embrace life.”
-John Lennon-   

A friend hugged me in class tonight, it was one of those hugs where you really feel connected to the person giving it, you feel loved and supported. I love hugs, I love making a connection with another person and creating a space for them to feel at ease and important. Sometimes people just need a hug. Well tonight, my friend hugged me, and instead of letting go a few second later she held on and gave me a little back massage. When she finally let go, she told me that my back muscles, the rhomboids, right behind my heart, felt really tense. She said, I bet you need to find a way to let some things go. It was an amazing feeling to have someone hug me and have my body respond to that touch with resistance. I've been thinking a lot about the fear of letting go: of expectations, of results, of outcomes, of resistance, of things to which I truly have no control. It was amazing to me that without even talking to me, my friend could feel this fear bottled up in the space behind my heart. Secretly, I could feel its collapse and rigidity for a week but I haven't acknowledged it out loud to anyone.

Sometimes it's necessary to be vulnerable; to let fear pass over you and through you so it can transform into something else. There will always be something to be afraid of, but when we collapse into fear we can't find the space to open up and explore what else the world is offering. If we believe throat our fears are our future we can never reach me heights, grow, and shift into a stronger sense of self. 

I needed that hug. I needed that hug to remind me to relax, to acknowledge those fears, accept those things that I cannot change, and find a way to let something go! In yoga, we always say, let go what does not serve you, this is one of the hardest things to do but it's also the most transformational.

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