I have shared my journey of fear felt waking in the morning in six parts—the first time feeling as heavy as lead and cold and using a heating pad to calm me. The second, waking anxious and repeating affirmations until the feeling left. I concentrated on inner light with the third. Then the following fear was milder but still there, and I instead saw my heart become a flower (to remain unnamed) as was the legendary figure who gently hugged me. Ending the series (I thought) was a fifth morning of emptiness and chilliness when I took a new approach and talked to my fear, calling it my friend as I told it I understood it had come to teach me.
Time passed when I was not thinking about those mornings. Then, on one I woke up not in fear but with a revelation—I was no longer waking in fear. A small garden grew in my heart this particular morning, and in it was a young aloe beside yellow flowers and a red rose with no thorns. Surprised, I felt glad … relieved … and grateful.
My realization is, “Learning comes in ways suited to who we are and in experiences that will best teach us to freshly see where we’re uncomfortable, unaware, or resistant to directly facing what is part of us.”
