“Befriend Courage to Amplify Your Vitality”
Maria, partner in mischief, setting up for a twisty challenge.
There’s a technically challenging, high consequence mountain bike trail in the mountains where I live that scares the hell out of me. I rode it 2 or 3 times over the years, crashed hard once, and swore I’d never go back.
Then 3 years ago, I was guided by forces I know better than to argue with (that story lives here) to get my ass back in there. The clear direction was that it was time to apprentice to this fear.
The thing with fear, or anything that blocks us from being curious, creative and engaged, is it’s almost never about our current experience.
I have thousands of hours of riding experience, and solid skills to ride everything this trail throws at me. My fear was tied to a story created long before now.
Almost a hundred rides and a few more crashes later (like this catapult over the handlebars last fall), I came to see that the anxiety I felt each time I came close to fear was coming from a distrust in safety that I learned growing up in a violent home.
This apprenticeship has been a journey of helping my younger self understand that the tension she feels doesn’t mean a storm of violence is coming next. I get to keep showing her one ride at a time that this is not that.
But as I’ve learned to connect more with trust in myself than fear, and to confidently ride the things that scare me, it doesn’t mean the fear’s gone. Lately it’s been gaining traction again, and talking me into choosing easier, more cruisy rides so I can avoid the nervous feeling I have going in to Topp Notch.
Healing is not a straight line.
THE COST OF LETTING FEAR CHOOSE
Recently I heard a teaching from Thomas Hubl, who blends ancient mysticism and modern science in his work with healing individual and collective trauma.
His wisdom brought something essential into focus that deepened my understanding of the impact of choosing fear over courage.
Thomas says, “Presence is the place where the past is being alchemized into now.” He holds that unhealed trauma is unintegrated past. When we feel intensely uncomfortable emotions, we’re touching a stagnation in our nervous system that’s blocking the free flow of life force through our being.
But when we’re present and attending to that challenging energy, that in itself is helping to integrate it into present time. And when we choose to stay with it, we’re actually helping that energy get unstuck and metabolize.
This matters because vitality is an impact of movement, it is a responsiveness. It’s life moving through us and carrying us into greater and greater flow. When we stay with intense experiences, we’re creating more space in the energy field of our being for life to move.
One morning shortly after hearing this, I was talking myself out of riding Topp Notch and I paused to check, “If fear wasn’t choosing, what would I ride?” I felt an immediate surge of aliveness as the answer came in: Topp Notch.
I got it. If I let fear make the decision and opt to move away from it, then that energy will remain stagnant. Nothing will change. I can have a nice, easy ride, but when it’s over, the fear will still have a hold on me.
My 14 year old self will be stuck in past time, anchored in a place where she truly wasn’t safe, because my choice to move away from the fear validates that the danger she felt then is still real now.
TRACKING YES
There are some words of encouragement I’ve been saying when going into the trail that have been enormously helpful.
If you try this in a place where you need courage, let me know how it goes!
1) Feel the pressure:
Be present to the tension that’s amping up and see if you can be willing to let it be there, to simply include it without trying to change it or overcome it.
2) Be brave:
Choose to be available for courage. Bravery isn’t the absence of fear, it’s connecting with a deeper why.
What matters here that’s more important than the fear?
The stories that fear stirs up are compelling. You can be curious about them and at the same time uninterested in relinquishing power to them.
My friend Maria says, “I remind myself it’s thrilling to do this!”
I know I’m moving consciously through the fear narrows when the energy begins to feel more like aliveness than dread and I’m sensing possibility in the space.
3) Do your best:
There’s unconditional love in this one. It doesn’t feel like a demand, it feels more like a prayer.
I’m calling in forces that love and support me, and who know without a shadow of a doubt what I’m capable of. I’m aligning with the source of my ‘best’, which interestingly doesn’t care “how I do”, it just supports my heartfelt intention to show up and participate.
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