“I’d like to come work with you, but… I’m afraid of horses.”
I hear that a lot, now that I am working with horses. (:>)
When I was teaching Yoga more regularly, people would often say,
“I’d like to come practice with you, but… I’m not flexible.
I always wonder, kindly but truly, when I hear such things, who is speaking?
Is it the person’s heart? Their spirit? Is it the way they’ve been domesticated? Is it something that someone else told them to believe about themselves? About the world? Or what they’re worthy of?
Is it truly fear? Or is it something else?
In her book, Playing Big: Find your Voice, your Mission, your Message, Tara Mohr talks about two kinds of fear. The first, pachad, is that hair-raising, gut-gripping feeling we get when an 18-wheeler swerves too close. It’s the body’s precious alarm signal, “Get out of there!” It’s what keeps us alive, by instinctively protecting us from danger.
The second kind of fear, yirah, comes when we step out of our comfort zone, into a space of greater possibility, a space of awe, a space of expanded energy or awareness.
A good Yoga practice can safely guide us there.
And very naturally, horses bring up such feelings too.
Sometimes pachad, always yirah. After all, horses are much bigger than us – they’re majestic – they’re non-predatory, awe-inspiring, fleet-footed power animals. They remind us of the call of the horizon. Touching them is like touching the river of life, flowing underneath their skin, like touching wild nature itself. Even the most domesticated horse still has wild nature flowing in her veins.
As do you.
I think this brush with wild nature speaks to part of the yearning and the caution I hear in people’s voices when they say, “I’d like to come and work with you, but… I’m afraid of horses.”
How often do you touch, breathe into, tap into, your own wild nature?
We’re taught and told in so many ways to scrunch ourselves into the mold that our culture considers acceptable. Even though there are more than 12 million of us unique, gifted, creative, individual human beings on the planet, there are only a handful of acceptable cookie-cutter forms for body shape, career path, relationship, food choices, what a home and car “should” look like, what success should look like, what we should (and should not) say, do, believe, think, feel…
When we brush up against something that suggests we could be more than what we are, more than the hum-drum routine and the trips to the grocery store, more than the mental-physical-emotional contorted shape that we’ve been hammered and shamed and shaped and acculturated into, then right away we encounter yirah, the second kind of fear.
Who is expressing “fear”?
Quite possibly, the one who wonders, “When is the last time I asked myself what
Quite possibly, the one who questions, echoing Marianne Williamson, “Who am I to be beautiful, brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous, flexible, natural, self-honoring, radiant?”
Quite possibly, the one who suspects, “How much would I rock the boat if I stepped forward into that space of awe, of possibility, of expanded awareness? What precious idols of the ego might smash? What toxic relationships might have to shift? What comfortable limitations might I suddenly outgrow? What “never-agains” might I suddenly find the courage to proclaim? What “Yes!” might soul-fully and joyously arise from deep within?
There is only one person who can answer that. (And that one person will not find the answer sitting on the couch.)
Pema Chodron says it well: “Let your curiosity be greater than your fear.”
Stepping forward into a space of awe, change, expansion, will always feel uncomfortable and disconcerting. Yet only by growing in this way can we step forward to offer the gifts of our spirit to others, humbly and unwaveringly.
The ego will always ask, “how much will it cost?” And pose other dilemmas that knock the wind out of your sails.
The soul will always ask, “when can we start?”
Here’s a list of Key Questions to ask your Fears…
1. Who is speaking?
2. What kind of fear is this – pachad or yirah?
3. If I am experiencing pachad, how can I get to a place of safety?
4. If I am experiencing yirah…
5. How am I being asked to grow?
6. What would shift in my life if I stepped forward?
7. How can I bring courage and curiosity into the equation?
What illuminates my spirit? How can I follow the updraft?
“I’d like to come work with you, but… I’m afraid of horses.”
