It was my beloved dad’s third open-heart operation to replace a damaged heart valve. Three cardiologists had advised that they could not operate a third time, as his heart had become too scarred , but one heart surgeon had agreed to go ahead, giving my dad a fifty, fifty chance of coming out of the surgery alive.
My mom, sister and I were all in the hospital waiting room from early that morning. My sister was a doctor herself, but in this situation, she felt completely helpless.
And then my mother turned to us wordlessly and handed us each a valium. We were going to take it to help us deal with the fear. That was our coping mechanism- a valium!- to keep those awful feelings at bay.
That was roughly 20 years ago. I have learnt so much since then!
First and foremost I have learned that pushing your feelings away, perpetuates your weakness and ironically keeps them glued to you. You become trapped in a self- imposed prison, as you seek not to put yourself in any situation that would bring those feelings up again. Whenever you deny, suppress, eat over, medicate, work or even drink over your natural feelings , in an attempt not to feel, it defeats the whole purpose of the experience and deprives you of a great learning opportunity – a chance to step into the next level of your evolution. How on earth could I have known this, then?
Allowing yourself to feel the feeling, breathe into it, be present with it as an actual physical sensation in your body and watching that feeling, observing it with curiosity and NOT making it wrong, is perhaps the most powerful response you can have to it. As the Persian poet Rumi said in his poem The Guest House; Welcome your feelings as if they were honored guests in your home. Open the door laughing and see them as having been sent to you as a guide from beyond.
Then realize that you do NOT have to believe or identify with everything your ‘voice of fear’ says. Your voice of fear (a term coined by Debbie Ford) is the voice of your ego, that part of you that sees you as separate and constantly under threat. Learning to dialogue with, observe and soothe your voice of fear as if it was a small, lost child, enables you to disidentify from its power and lessen its impact. Have you noticed that your fear is often well out of proportion with what is actually happening? Fear mixed with imagination, can be a toxic cocktail. In fact reality is seldom as bad as your thoughts about it.
And I want you to become aware of another voice deep within each and every one of you. It’s a still, silent voice, that Knows. A voice that you can access anytime if you just get quiet enough to LISTEN and TRUST. This voice can best be described as a wise, calm mentor to a terrified child. This is what Debbie Ford refers to as your ‘voice of faith.’ This is the voice that you need to learn to listen to, draw upon, and act upon. Honour it. Focus on it. Treat it as sacred and with reverence.
You must however remember : your voice of fear will not just go away. You cannot ‘get rid’ of it. It is part of your humanity.In fact you will notice that the more you push it away, the louder it gets. But if you learn to BALANCE it with your voice of faith.. in fact make the CHOICE to put your FAITH more in your voice of faith and less in your voice of fear, your entire life will change. You will build up the trust that we all so desperately need in order to feel safe and free in this world and you can finally begin to taste your own greatness.
My dad survived the operation, went back to work as a Supreme Court Judge, but died about two years later. Had I known how to listen to my voice of faith that morning, it would have told me that the outcome of his operation was not in my hands. It would have asked me to trust and have faith that whatever happened that day was going to be in his highest good, even if I couldn’t see it in that moment. My silence would perhaps have allowed me to feel how supported I was and how supported we all are when going through these traumatic experiences.
It would have invited me to begin learning more about the process of death and to begin reading the works and insights of some of the world’s greatest minds on the subject, now easily available in print to anyone who is in search of a deeper truth. Most importantly, my voice of faith would have encouraged me to feel whatever I was feeling, knowing that just by going through my emotions and not attempting to skirt around them, it enabled me to deepen my love for him, and to find my compassion for all of humanity and all our struggles.
Here is a tool I use every time I am in fear. I take a blank piece of paper and draw a line down the middle. On the left hand side I write Voice of Fear and under this all my fears, unedited. On the right hand side, I head it Voice of Faith. I get quiet, take a few deep breaths and listen. I may ask myself what is in my control here and what is out of my hands? How best can I handle this situation? Is there something I need to do? What wisdom does this experience hold for me and those around me ? I write down the answers and then , read my voice of faith back to myself whenever the fear surges up again. Then, when it is all over, I go back to the paper and check, in retrospect, which voice was closer to the truth? This is an excellent way to begin to build up trust in your voice of faith.
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