Still Point

 

"...anger is often simply the unwillingness

to live the full measure of our fears

or of our not knowing, in the face of love..." ~David Whyte

FEAR: there are three fundamental fears: 1. the existential fear of dying 2. the cultural fear that we're born into 3. the situational fear of the moment. We all live with fear on some scale and we all face fear differently.  Fight, Flight, Freeze, or Flee.  I think we're all well familiar with these responses in the animal kingdom. It is also a part of our nervous system and how we handle fear when it shows up in our own life.

• what fears are you aware of in your life? name them. how do you respond to that fear when confronted with it? and at what point does your response shift? 
• how does fear factor into your life? what percentage of the pie/of the whole do you dedicate to fear? what would it look like to be fearless? describe it. what would change? what wouldn't change but perhaps be approached, differently?  

ANGER: I've recently been introduced to anger from another perspective by author David Whyte.  That anger is our deepest form of compassion; our most vulnerable spot within that reveals our purest form of care. Anger is what surfaces because of that vulnerability or our feeling of powerlessness to connect with what's in front of us.

• anger is a messenger. it reveals a deep form of caring and our incoherent incapacity to communicate what resides at our center, it's source.  it's a need not connected to...
• when do you notice anger arise in you? what's the trigger? describe the 1st knowing that anger is growing within you: what does it feel like? where does it show up? how do you communicate it... or don't? how might you honor it, differently?  

STILL POINT: this is our rooted self; the ground in which we cultivate to create a more grounded sense of who we are within the reality of this world... and facing our fears and allowing our anger to guide us. This is the space we grow through gratitude, through facing something that scares us, and through meditation. It invites us to stay tender. "...life has become a practice of opening what's before me rather than running to where I imagine life is easier." ~Mark Nepo

• in your journal or with a friend, enter your root conversation with Life. engage the mystery and miracle of being here, knowing we will eventually die. try to stay with the conversation below the initial fear it engenders and listen for the STILL POINT beneath your personality and what it has to say to you 
• when feeling angry, try letting in something new, or being grateful for something simple, or being tender toward yourself or someone you love. later, in a conversation with a friend or your journal, share if and how any of these gestures might have lessened your anger. are you able to identify what you so deeply cared about that you were protecting?