I had developed a fear of flying after spending one year abroad. The anxiety never seemed to leave me before and during take off. Those long minutes are tricky, challenging and I always, always have the worse case scenario overplaying in my head even before the wheels leave the tarmac. It usually involves me panicking and clawing for the door, begging staff to let me off. I was determined to figure out how to handle it.
These particular thoughts and feelings are unpleasant to say the least. But hours before I was to travel by plane, I decided a meditation session could help my nerves and the result was that it put things in perspective.
I focused on the details that made me feel panicky the most – the height the plane would be travelling at, the enclosure of a small space with lots of people with no option to leave and the fear I would lose control of myself and have some kind of panic attack. At first it was very difficult and uncomfortable to look at each of them – and that’s when I realised that was exactly my problem. I wouldn’t look at them or acknowledge their existence. The fact I kept resisting them and pushing them away was what increased them in size. It’s like with any phobia or disorder – it starts off small and is then avoided and feared to the point of extremity. I saw how I was contributing to the fear by fearing what would happen (assuming the future), and secondly by trying to deny or push these fears down. Because of this, it festered.
Resistance to fear entangles us.
In order to give peace to myself and to take a first step to transcending these fears, I needed to acknowledge them in a friendly way. I needed to make space for them within myself and house them. I learned that we need to make friends with our fears just as easily as we find it easy to make friends with feelings of happiness.
I travelled to the airport that day in a state of peace that I hadn’t felt in a while, and it made me realise that adversity forces us to rise to higher standards of resilience and courage that we never realise we possessed. These fearful situations not only call for our approaching wisdom, but also acceptance of the uncomfortable. Because for all those long minutes during take off, I was proud of myself for facing it and the holiday I received for a few moments of discomfort was worth it.
Resisting the negative only seems to double its efforts, accepting them helps us move through them more quickly and experience positivity again.
Fears are the dirty underside of the coin that most of us do not want to look at. But we give them power when we refuse their presence, and treat them as an inconvenience for us; but what if we could work with them to relinquish them? Having fear teaches us courage, being sad makes us appreciate the moments when we are happy. The negative and positive compliment each other in the same way as Ying Yang do. I believe if I give my fears their space within long enough, I may eventually find that space unoccupied.
The experience can be almost perfectly encapsulated by the famous poem by Rumi:
The Guest House
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.
Be grateful for whatever comes.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
