Facing our existential fears
What are the masks we wear in our daily life, the roles we play. Sometimes we become so identified with the roles we play in our life we believe this is truly who we are. Pleaser, giver, mother, father, provider, lover, in control, perfectionist, therapist, spiritual person, workaholic, are some of the roles we can become identified with. Our belief systems, I am bad, something is wrong with me, I don’t belong, I am strong, I am weak, I am no good in relationships, I am a angry person, I am caring good person. Fill in the gap as to what identities you hold close, both as a friend you know so well and as a enemy that you want to be rid off.
We can become so lost in the story of me. who I am, we forget to notice life that is breathing, this very moment is pressing up against us. The body is a doorway into the primal life force, our being. It is what all life is made of yet we are trained, conditioned from the moment we arrive in the world to turn away from this innate presence’s of our being. We are told to survive and thrive in this world we need to achieve, be someone, in control. Yet we feel deep within something is missing, a longing that can be at times so subtle, an ache inside and often our response to this ache is searching outside of ourselves to fill what is missing.
What would we be without our stories of who we are and what we believe about ourselves? Do our stories keep us from feeling life through the body? What is beneath the human condition of clinging to our identities? Could it be that beneath this, if we strip it back to the core we come face to face with our existential fears of death and the unknown.
It seems to me that many of us are facing a lot of fear at this time. It may wake us in the middle of the night, or creep up on us in unexpected moments.
Often we can try and deal with this by more anxious striving, trying to be in control. What if this fear, panic was also a doorway into the very essence of our nature. In opening to feelings through the body we come to know life itself, that actually life is holding us. That what we have not wanted to feel becomes the portal to awakening more deeply into the truth of our essence. That we discover an innate trust in this life, beyond our need to control and know. That gradually an intelligence awakens from the transformation of facing our fears. The facing of death becomes itself the transformational journey to wholeness.
Photo Credit - http://caramiapetersen.co.uk/