Fear
Being sick is about being afraid. It is about functioning when you are afraid.
LITANY AGAINST FEAR
I must not fear.Fear is the mind-killer.Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.I will face my fear.I will permit it to pass over me and through me.And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.Only I will remain. Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear - From Frank Herbert's Dune Book Series© 1965 and 1984 Frank HerbertPublished by Putnam Pub GroupISBN: 0399128964
Fear is not, however, the mind killer. But this presupposes you know what a mind is. A mind is not your brain. I think we all assume that our mind is in our headbecausee our eyes are there. But your mind is not there. Your mind is anartificiall contruct, not to be confused with your intellect. Fear, feeds the mind, and obstructs the intellect, which acts. It is the mind which must be dissipated, released, discharged, for the intellect to function.
Take Scott Sonnen's work. It is interesting. I cannot find the article, butScottt talked about how 5th degree black belts, when terrified, which happened outside the familiarity of their training, could not recalltheirr fighting abilities and had the abilities of a novice. We have all been there, where terrified in performance anxiety, we lock up, and forget that over which we are masters. We see rookies freeze, speakers pause, writers block. Scott described a martial arts system that sought to take startle patterns as the platform for strikes and defense, but he argued that the better way, was to train in scary circumstances, while mainting a sense of levity, then youassociatee pressure as fun, and all of a sudden your mind works openly. I have seen video of his kids training. They move beautifully and do things I cannot think of doing. Most striking, they are smiling all the while. Even laughing. The fact is, instead ofperformancee anxiety, which corresponds to ability- in short, the better you are at something, the more you are affected by pressure, these kids had full, unbridled access totheirrabilitiess. Seriously, think Michael Jordan is the greatest basketball player everbecausee of his skills? Hardly.Itss that in pressure situations, his skill level does not diminish. That is the key.
WhenIi played goalie, I saw kids every day take turns in the goal with better raw physical tools, but in a gamesituationn, they crumbled. The career goalies had skills, but more importantly, they did not inhibit those skills with fear. Some call is arrogance, some call is star power, others call it make-up. Whatever.
Well, illness can lock you down. Scare you intohorriblee reactive patterns and paralyze you.
So, what do you do?
You do what anyone does who is paralyzed by fear. You confront and investigate the source of your fear. You do what you can about it, and you accept the rest. This holds true for test taking, aging, the darkness, and even Sz. Once you have accepted what is there, and the fear is gone, it is time to build back confidence in yourself and confidence in you living process.That'ss where I am now. I am not afraid, of course this has a lot to do with healing, but even when I was sick, I was brave enough to look it in the eye and not beafraidd often. But now I am tackling little challenges. Trying to build a solid foundation of small victories. Rebuild my confidence. This may sound silly, but it has been very important. There was a time when I was afraid to eat, afraid to be alone, afraid to be with someone else. I wasafraidd that I would never be well, that anyreprievee from illness would be my last. I became paralyzed.
Well, in healing there is a lot of confronting those fears. I find those startle patterns knit deeply into my life. It is taking time to extricate them, and to live with a sense of levity again. Sometimes I think I failed in my relation to the illness,becausee I never accepted that I would be sick my whole life. But one day, when I am grey, I will be faced again with thediminutionn of health, the steady, unavoidable decent into death, and what then? Will I have learned to laugh in the face of it all? Will I again lock down with terror? Idon'tt know, but I have learned at least that until you have to face it, you have to smile and laugh and play.
LITANY AGAINST FEAR
I must not fear.Fear is the mind-killer.Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.I will face my fear.I will permit it to pass over me and through me.And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.Only I will remain. Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear - From Frank Herbert's Dune Book Series© 1965 and 1984 Frank HerbertPublished by Putnam Pub GroupISBN: 0399128964
Fear is not, however, the mind killer. But this presupposes you know what a mind is. A mind is not your brain. I think we all assume that our mind is in our headbecausee our eyes are there. But your mind is not there. Your mind is anartificiall contruct, not to be confused with your intellect. Fear, feeds the mind, and obstructs the intellect, which acts. It is the mind which must be dissipated, released, discharged, for the intellect to function.
Take Scott Sonnen's work. It is interesting. I cannot find the article, butScottt talked about how 5th degree black belts, when terrified, which happened outside the familiarity of their training, could not recalltheirr fighting abilities and had the abilities of a novice. We have all been there, where terrified in performance anxiety, we lock up, and forget that over which we are masters. We see rookies freeze, speakers pause, writers block. Scott described a martial arts system that sought to take startle patterns as the platform for strikes and defense, but he argued that the better way, was to train in scary circumstances, while mainting a sense of levity, then youassociatee pressure as fun, and all of a sudden your mind works openly. I have seen video of his kids training. They move beautifully and do things I cannot think of doing. Most striking, they are smiling all the while. Even laughing. The fact is, instead ofperformancee anxiety, which corresponds to ability- in short, the better you are at something, the more you are affected by pressure, these kids had full, unbridled access totheirrabilitiess. Seriously, think Michael Jordan is the greatest basketball player everbecausee of his skills? Hardly.Itss that in pressure situations, his skill level does not diminish. That is the key.
WhenIi played goalie, I saw kids every day take turns in the goal with better raw physical tools, but in a gamesituationn, they crumbled. The career goalies had skills, but more importantly, they did not inhibit those skills with fear. Some call is arrogance, some call is star power, others call it make-up. Whatever.
Well, illness can lock you down. Scare you intohorriblee reactive patterns and paralyze you.
So, what do you do?
You do what anyone does who is paralyzed by fear. You confront and investigate the source of your fear. You do what you can about it, and you accept the rest. This holds true for test taking, aging, the darkness, and even Sz. Once you have accepted what is there, and the fear is gone, it is time to build back confidence in yourself and confidence in you living process.That'ss where I am now. I am not afraid, of course this has a lot to do with healing, but even when I was sick, I was brave enough to look it in the eye and not beafraidd often. But now I am tackling little challenges. Trying to build a solid foundation of small victories. Rebuild my confidence. This may sound silly, but it has been very important. There was a time when I was afraid to eat, afraid to be alone, afraid to be with someone else. I wasafraidd that I would never be well, that anyreprievee from illness would be my last. I became paralyzed.
Well, in healing there is a lot of confronting those fears. I find those startle patterns knit deeply into my life. It is taking time to extricate them, and to live with a sense of levity again. Sometimes I think I failed in my relation to the illness,becausee I never accepted that I would be sick my whole life. But one day, when I am grey, I will be faced again with thediminutionn of health, the steady, unavoidable decent into death, and what then? Will I have learned to laugh in the face of it all? Will I again lock down with terror? Idon'tt know, but I have learned at least that until you have to face it, you have to smile and laugh and play.
posted by warnerk | 11:33 AM
1 Comments:
Great site lots of usefull infomation here.
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