I need a new motherboard
I'm out of warranty
Hello, Happy New Year! Sorry there is no audio version of this post. I am really behind with editing work, and I have a new book coming out in ONE WEEK so I’m all sorts of busy. I hope you’ll check out “The Big Cheese,” my latest silly mystery book that releases 1/16/24. Till then, here are some thoughts on fear…
I need a new motherboard
You didn’t ask, but if you did ask me, I would say that the people who tell those of us who are anxious to “Just relax,” are the same people who also espouse those herein hotly debated words, “Feel the fear and do it anyway.” Clearly these people have never suffered from a body under siege by chronic stress.
Which is fine for them, I guess. Y’all go on out there and be scared and do all the things.
For the rest of us, we are just figuring out how to do some of the things without shutting down in the process. To ask someone whose nervous system is overtaxed on a daily basis to “push through fear” is just cruel. My body already hurts and curls in on itself and fights through exhaustion. Why would I push myself further into that?
Abraham Hicks, well-known entity of the Law of Attraction persuasion, suggests only doing things that feel good. If you don’t, you are creating unnecessary resistance. I love this idea. It does require some fine-tuning of definitions though. This doesn’t mean sitting around until you magically feel super excited about having a colonoscopy. If you are truly inspired to do something, the fear or discomfort you might feel will be tolerable, because the action you are taking comes from a place of desire, from your heart. Anything else is not coming from the right place. Small steps.
It is hard for me to write books. And this newsletter. It’s scary to put myself out there and to tell you all this. But I do it because it feels like my purpose is to tell stories, to add my point of view to the collective consciousness. For me, this is in alignment with who I am, and this fear doesn’t wreak havoc on my nervous system.
My current thoughts on and relationship with fear is different than it was a year ago, even six months ago. Then, I was in a sort of shock. Now is a new phase.
While the body can suffer (or benefit) from the state of one’s nervous system, I learned last year on a more visceral level that this relationship is a two-way street, and you can get to the nervous system via the body. Okay, duh, I am a yoga teacher, I knew this. But it really hit home after working with my massage guy for several months.
My guy is a practitioner of some magic sort of muscle release therapy. I’ve written about him already so you can go read that if you like. Most people apparently only need to see him two or three times; I have gone five times and will go again tomorrow. I’m still not done unfolding.
However, my therapist says I’m “more embodied” these days, so that’s nice! Who wants to be disembodied? That said, a lot of us walk around like zombies in our own flesh suits. Well, that hasn’t worked out so great for me over my lifetime, so dezombification it is.
There are some things coming up in the next few months that I’m really scared to do. Things that I want to do, but upon rumination I find myriad ways to complicate everything and just as many things to worry about. If I’m up at 2 a.m. worrying about how I’m going to go grocery shopping when I’m like 85 and can’t drive anymore because I probably won’t have any friends, you can imagine what a transatlantic flight followed by a train ride a few months from now are doing to me. Maybe you can’t imagine. It’s probably best you don’t.
But six months ago, I was so far into fight or flight I couldn’t even comprehend being scared about traveling alone to Germany. Or spending a weekend with people, two of whom I don’t know, in Phoenix. (How will I get to the grocery store? Will there be things to eat? How can I sleep in a house full of other people’s energy? Gosh, I worry about food a lot. There’s a reason for that, we’ll let it go for now.) Six months ago, I wasn’t physically—and therefore mentally—able to consider these worries. But now I am. Hooray!
One day in mediation last week I saw so clearly that EVERYTHING in my life is viewed through lenses of fear. Deep-seated anxiety. Everything. Apparently even grocery shopping.
What if I took those lenses off?
Sadly, I can’t intellectualize them off. If that were possible, I’d be the happiest person ever.
I don’t think that my massage guy can work that kind of miracle either. I don’t think I can pull off a miracle like that without him, but it will take more than muscle release therapy. Maybe a bit of rewiring. If only I could get a new motherboard. That’s funny, since a lot of my issues stem from my relationship with my mother…
Somatic therapy might be next. Because you know, I am made of money and can try out everything and be a self-help junkie as a hobby.
Really, I just want to go grocery shopping and not have a cortisol overload.
I hear ya! Feel like I'm doing much the same thing with London Book Fair in March - What? Go talk to people? For three days? Ugh. Luckily I have a friend who is also an editor and is going with as my wingperson. It's so irritating to be told again and again: Just do this one thing and it will all be better, I promise. Only they are a million different things, and 99.9% of them want some money for the secret, and often they simply don't work for someone who is "different."
Lots to unpack here. All I know is that you are a gifted writer and yoga teacher and I suspect you are a great human.