What to do when the present moment seems too awful
“Fear is going to be a player in your life.
But you get to decide how much.
You can spend your whole life imagining ghosts. Worrying about the pathway to the future.
But all there will ever be is what is happening in this moment – the decisions we make which are based in love, or fear.
So many of us choose our path out of fear disguised as practicality.
What we really want seems impossibly out of reach and ridiculous to expect.
So we never dare to ask the Universe for it. I’m saying that you can ask the Universe for it.
You will only have two choices – love or fear.
Choose love.
And don’t let fear turn you against your playful heart.
Jim Carrey”
In recent years Jim Carrey has become quite a spiritual dude - who knew?!
For some the present moment seems like an awful place. At that time we are often preoccupied with fearful thoughts, and coping with the emotions that then get triggered. The ‘fear’ can masquerade as anger, shame, guilt or worry – but at its root, it is fear.
Jim Carrey is advising that the antidote to fear is love – compassion for yourself and for others, even those who have, or might, do you harm. Even if they are, or were, the biggest bully going, full of their own self-importance, and they don’t/didn’t appear to like you much, you will find that they are/were operating from fear also, and the denial or ignorance that they also have/had a choice.
Someone who lives that way is to be pitied and the most helpful state for yourself with these people, is compassion for them, whether or not you tell them. This is not ‘letting them get away with it’, it is the management of your own state that is important here. By so doing, you are making the conscious choice to not live in fear yourself.
Now you might still feel emotional from time to time, and that is fine. You are human. Let the emotion play through. There will be somewhere in your body that you are feeling the emotion, perhaps your stomach, the base of your throat, your pelvis? Watch that spot with interest, it will change, just keep watching the place in your body where the emotion is making itself apparent. If you let it, the body-felt spot will alter and diminish quite quickly, in minutes. As long as …
… you do NOT feed the emotion with thoughts about the causes behind the emotion. That is a sure-fire way to keep the emotion going, and perhaps trigger other emotions, which then generate more recrimination, and so the process keeps feeding on itself. If you find yourself caught in this cycle, practice substituting love – it is the best antidote. Perhaps start with the love of your dog, then work your way up to the bully, lol. Love and fear cannot co-exist.
For some these negative fearful emotions have a long historic root, taking place when we were young and vulnerable. The old conditioning and protective behaviours that we learnt back then may have served us well at the time, but now we still carry the baggage. Often the pain was so intense that we may have dissociated from our body, so now we are not even aware where the pain lives.
Sadly, for some there is a perverse comfort in staying with the old conditioning, the devil-you-know – the fear of the unknown, a different approach is just too great. That’s fine, they haven’t reached their breaking point, they are not motivated to want to change, yet.
For those that are motivated, they may need bodywork and other therapy to release the historic bodymind trauma, to re-establish a strong base in their body for their mind to work from. It’s essential to be able to feel their bodies again, or they will just be living in their thoughts 24 x 7, the old conditioning.
Then, living more in the present moment becomes possible again – a present moment that is not dominated by recrimination, but by love for themselves, but not in an egoic way - to appreciate this beautiful life we have been given, to begin see the world from a fresh perspective, no longer clouded by their old conditioning.
This is our work for this lifetime, this is where enlightenment starts from.
And the same antidote works for fear related to relationship, financial or job stress, or grief. I know there’s a few of you coping with one of these right now, and I feel for you. I know its huge for you, but I also know you will get through this.
Substitute love for fear. I want to help.
More training
I have a wonderful opportunity this month to train with an acknowledged expert in Zero Balancing from the US, Judith Sullivan. In two four-day courses in Christchurch we will be learning more techniques for the visceral organs, and for the skull. Both are places where us humans hold a lot of trauma!
Pro Bono Days
Ngaio - Tuesday 23 April
Upper Hutt - Wednesday 24 April
Please share my website, or this page, with anyone you know that may benefit. Or click on this link to book now.
With caring and kindness,
Rhys Dwyer
If you know anyone, from kids up who maybe struggling with body-held tension, energy levels, stress, anxiety, or choices, then please ask them to check me out. Bodywork and present moment awareness may just make a big difference.
Note that bodywork is always complimentary to prudent medical care.