Elemental Balancing Ritual Stillness Month 20: Fear Unfolding

sigil 5-23-16: We're all in a process of learning. There's never a moment where you have it all figured out. Even when you think you have it figured, you'll uncover something else that'll show that you don't. That's something I love about living life. The realizations are't always pleasant or fun, but I'm always learning and that love of learning is what makes life exciting to be apart of.

5-25-16 Today I was hit with this feeling of fear. Fear of change, but also fear of mortality...and I don't mean death, but more like recognizing I'm aging and how much more work has to go into taking care of the body and feeling fear around that. It happened because I was given some new exercises to do by my acupuncturist and then afterwards he did the session with me and in it I just felt this fear come up. When I told him about it, he said that fear is held in by the Kidneys, which is true, so I guess it isn't surprising that as we're continuing to do this work on my lower back, some fears rear their heads, but its no fun to feel it and to recognize how in some ways that fear has shown more subtly in the challenges I'm dealing in my life and business.

I realize I feel a fear of change because I realize I'm not as young as I was. When you're young, you shrug things off, but as you get older, you feel much more intimately the frailty of the flesh and that's scary to recognize. I did some Taoist meditation later on and I'm going to keep working with this fear, which I think of as the fear of the mid life crisis.

5-28-16 The last few days I've been going in deep with that fear I've been feeling and just stilling myself while I'm with it. It washes over me like an ocean wave, the roar of the wave coming down, the power threatening to take me under, but I am still and I allow it to wash over me so I can experience it profoundly and allow myself to recognize the attachment I have to it. The attachment is that the fear, in its own way, is a justification for whatever isn't working.  And so in releasing that attachment I go deeper into the narrative behind that attachment and what I see is how that narrative is really about trying to avoid making changes or adapting to changes, perhaps because so much change has already happened.

6-4-16 Today I thought about an incident that occurred in high school. I was on tennis team, as was this other kid who was a bit of a braggart. No one on the team liked either of us. I was that weird id who wasn't from the area originally, and he was the braggart. So a few of the other kids on the high school team decided to approach me to beat up this other kid. I think they had this notion that because I lived in a city prior to living in York, I'd know how to fight, or maybe they just figured that if both of us fought, we'd both get kicked off the team. So they manipulated me into fighting him. I didn't see at the time. I think I wanted to feel accepted and for once they were being kind of nice to me. So I got into the fight with the braggart. I bloodied my knuckles. He bloodied his. I lost the fight, but he got kicked off the team. We both got manipulated.

So why am I even writing about this? Well I've been doing further work around that fear I felt and not surprisingly anger has come up as well, and part of what comes up with those emotions are the associated memories and experiences you haven't fully dealt with. So I'm writing about that experience because It's something I've held on to...it's been an attachment that's held me back. I've entered into stillness to really feel it and I'll probably do that over the next few sessions because that's how you let go of those attachments that would otherwise hold you back.

6-10-16 I'm feeling really good about some choices I've made professionally and personally as a result of the stillness work I've done. By stilling myself and really checking in with myself I'm not compromising anymore. I'm going to focus on staying true to how I need to show up because that's what really matters. The time I have and really my overall life satisfaction requires that level of honesty. And following through on it, results wise verifies that I'm on the right course.

6-11-16 I've been thinking about my high school experiences a bit, which isn't surprising given that my daughter just graduated from high school. I hated high school. I was an outsider, and it was made very clear to me everyday. When I graduated, I was really happy to finish up and get out. I knew I was leaving behind a place and people that provided little in the way of joy. For some people high school is an experience they miss. They look forward to the reunions and reminiscing over that period of time. I'll never go to a high school reunion because why would I spend time with people who hated me? There's little reason to reminisce. If anything it is now that is important, now that I enjoy because life is so much richer and deeper.

6-13-16 I got featured on a who's who list of occultists. I'll admit to being surprised that I got on any such list. The surprise is there in part because I've made it a point to just do my own thing. I'm not really involved in most of the occult drama that happens on the web or otherwise, and that's become very purposeful on my part, because I'd rather just focus on doing what I do and focus on helping the people who feel called to come my way. I'll just keep doing that and if I get recognized or not, it's all the same to me.

6-22-16 Fear comes in a variety of forms and the work of stillness, in part, is learning how to be present with all those forms of fear so that instead of them controlling you, you learn how to be present with them and work with them to educate yourself. A lot of this month I've just been sitting with my fears, really allowing myself to get to know them. I've found it to be quite empowering in its own right. So often the fear a person feels can stew underneath the surface and erupt, but never really be worked with. In stilling myself and really allowing myself to feel it on my terms, I've opened myself to it and allowed my fear to teach me. It'll be continuing work, but I'm glad I'm doing it.