Big drop: Everything I haven't been able to commit to is solely because of fear.
Mindfulness expert Cory Muscara writes that the opposite of fear isn't courage, it's curiousity. Fear causes you to run away from something, while curiousity compels you to move towards it. I recently finished Muscara's book Stop Missing Your Life, so I've been really digging into this definition of fear, and opening myself up to its much softer antidote, curiousity.
As I challenge myself to dive deeper into a spiritual place of knowing and relating to the world, I've been trying to be more curious instead of reactive (my M.O. when I'm in a place of fear). Now when I'm feeling fearful or stuck, I choose to lean in, to label my inner dialogue as 'thinking' and to question the unsupportive thoughts I'm having. I find myself asking "is this really a fact or did I make it up because it's easier than facing a more complicated truth?"
More often than not, 'truth' is complex and multilayered, skewed by our own traumas and experiences.
If you’re not into mindfulness, it may seem weird to constantly label your thoughts, but for me it makes sense. I have a tendency to become rather dramatic when I'm in a place of fear. My ability to differentiate between the story I'm telling myself and the present moment becomes muddled. My knee jerk reaction is to think of the worst possible outcome and decide that whatever it is must be an inevitable truth. Sometimes I'm right, but rarely is it ever as bad as I had anticipated. Nonetheless, my trauma gun fires off anyway.
Rather than engaging in catastrophic thinking, I choose to simply become more curious about what these thoughts and instant feelings have to tell me. Approaching my inner struggles and outer challenges with curiosity has been transformative for me.
In the past, my fears have caused me to push myself to the brink of burnout and exhaustion; to drink the poisoned chalice of perfectionism; to avoid things I didn't think I would stand a chance of being the best at. I like sure things. I like predictable outcomes. I hate surprises.
My fears have caused me to viciously hold on to things not meant for me, because I thought if I let go, I'd forget who I was. I've become so attached to certain ways of seeing myself and how others see me, that I'd panic if I felt like it was slipping away before I was ready to lose it. Who am I if I'm not sensual and provocative? Who am I if I'm not cerebral? Who am I if I'm not maternal and nurturing? Can these attributes not all live inside me at once? Do I need to forgo one to claim the other?
I don't know the answer. But I'm more open to the idea that I don't know (nor should I know) what is yet to unfold for me and the person I am constantly becoming. That it's not so simple as all or nothing. I don't know who I'll become. I could be wiped out of existence tomorrow, for all I know. We have today, as it were.
So instead of feeling scared and helpless; I've decided to dig into what it feels like to be me in the here and now. To get compassionately curious about my own discomfort with certain people, places, and states of being in the fluidity of the moment. At some point, acceptance creeps in. I find myself allowing the possibility that there can be peace in the moment. The moment isn't fixed; it can change.
And I too can change.
With curiosity, I can change.
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