Fear and Grace

It seems that there are layers upon layers of fear in my path toward enlightenment. I've grown through so many fears and doubts and processing each layer of fear has been such a huge gift. It's a bit like Grace is the sweet gooey center wrapped in a gob stopper of fear.

My process has gone something like this:

1. I notice that I'm fearful or doubtful about something.
2. I quietly connect with my guides.
3. I name the fear and ask whether it is better to transform it or embrace it.
4. I quietly sense the answer and then ask the guides to help me with whichever action was recommended.

Transform It - I transform fear by asking my guides to help me shift it into my heart. I then use my hands to energetically pull the fear from my gut to my heart. Once the fear is in my heart I appreciate my self in as deep a way possible, so that the electromagnetic frequency of my heart will be in the "coherent - positive emotion" range and this shifts my entire vibration to loving coherence from fearful incoherence.

Embrace It - I embrace my fear by wallowing in it for a bit. I choose to amplify and exagerate the feeling so that I can explore it and understand it. This can take several hours or even a few days. It's scary because once I surrender and dive into my fear I feel like it will consume me completely. But here's the really interesting thing... somewhere in the pits of my own despair I find Grace. I find love, light, and healing down in the darkness.

It is this Grace, this sweetness that I long for at all times. This is what drives me to continue to grow and learn. This is what drives me to be deeply present to my fear, my doubt, my anger, or whatever negative emotional experience might come up in the course of every day living. In some ways I think of myself as a warrior, ever on the quest for a new deamon to slay so that I can revel in the healing and release.

Now that I've intellectualized about my fear (thereby Avoiding processing it) for a few paragraphs. Let me begin to embrace my fear by exposing some of it here.

For three consecutive full moons, I spent 3 evenings feeling wakeful and deeply connected with the Divine Mother, Gaia. During these times I had the experience of chatting with her and hearing her responses as words in my mind. (I often have an internal dialogue with my spirit guides - Pan, Michael, and others). During these conversations Gaia asked me to do several things for her, which I have done. Those include starting a Facebook group called Gaia Rising, planning and hosting monthly phone dialogues for Gaia Rising, and the like.

These evenings were fun and magical and made me feel very special. But on another level, and from another view, I was experiencing insomnia. After three days with much too little sleep a person looses the ability to do regular daily activities... like driving a car or going to work. Only I was feeling good and I didn't realize that I was lacking in those capacities until after getting a little bit of a scare. Thankfully there were no car wrecks, no one got hurt, no jobs were lost... but it was scary because for a few hours I felt out of control.

It made me feel a little crazy. It made my husband wonder. And that called up for me the biggest wound from my current life. In 1995 I lost my mind. I was 20 and I delved very deeply into the expansion of my consciousness. I invited and experienced a number of psychic gifts including telepathy, clairvoyance, clairaudience, etc. But I was doing all that in the most unhealthy ways possible. I was not getting enough food, rest, sunshine, or excercise and I was experimenting with substances which altered my biochemistry. For a period of several months I was really confused and unhealthy. For some of those months I was totally flipping mad. I was insane.

Thank Goddess for my parents who put me in a hospital and got me the help I needed. And thank Goddess for the nurse at the hospital who told me that they weren't interested in changing my spirituallity, they just wanted to make sure that I could take care of my basic needs - like food, shelter, clothing, and interacting with regular people in a regular way. And thank Goddess that I told my husband all about this on our very first date and he fell in love with me anyway.

But ever since then I've had a quantum entanglement between spirituality and sanity. I have predicted plane crashes, heard people's thoughts as if they were speaking outloud, and seen beyond that which is considered ordinary. And I've always wanted to possess these abilities... but for some unfortunate reason on several occassions when my psychic abilities have expanded, it has resulted in my appearing to be, temporarily, completely batty.

With the exception of about 5 hours, I've felt solidly sane for the past 15 years. Yet the scar tissue is immensely out of proportion. While I'm certain that I'm sane, I am fearful that additional spiritual growth might result in me appearing to be temporarily insane again. It puts me right to the place of WHAT IFs. What if I really am crazy? What if I lose everything I care about? What if I lose my job and my family and become homeless and smelly?

And then the other side of me weighs in:

How did you imagine this would look? You believe that all people can expand their consciousness and develop higher sense perception. You have invited this exploration into your life, since childhood. You've spent your entire life experimenting with your consciousness. Your favorite conversations are made of these very topics. Which would be scarier? Waking up to realize that we're all growing these abilities, or waking up and realizing that there is no magic at all?

And with no true sense of resolution I prepare to publish this blog post. I notice that it is scary to be authentic and vulnerable. Yet I press 'publish' with deep trust that my guides would not steer me astray by encouraging me to show this aspect of myself to you.