Are YOU Being Controlled by Fear?

When I look back on my life, several major decisions stand out as ones I made out of fear.  I am not sharing this out of regret, or as a way to cleanse what has caused me shame.  I am simply examining my direct experience as a means to explore and understand Abhinivesha: the 5th and final Klesha. *(In yoga, the Kleshas are the afflictions of the mind, or the reasons why we suffer). If yoga is the unveiling of your truth by freeing yourself of limiting perceptions, than maybe, your past can become the most accurate and authentic compass for your present.

It was senior year in high school and I was afforded the opportunity to attend the college of my choosing….yet, I did not see this as an opportunity to explore and discover the unknown; I saw this as a death sentence to the relationship and the boy that I was infatuated with since the sixth grade!  And because nothing else in the world seemed to be even relatively important, I chose a college close to home, so we could BE TOGETHER.  This is definitely NOT going to turn into your classic high school love story, because he dumped me the week before I left for school.

I spent the next four years of my life pining after him and clinging to a distorted version of what our relationship “once was” all while making really bad choices with alcohol and drugs to numb out the pain of rejection and play at being one of the “cool girls.”  Because for some unknown reason, it’s “cool” to drink to oblivion and snort “who knows what” up your nose.  THEN, I spent the next ten years hating him because HE ruined my opportunity to live and explore another part of the country.  So basically, for fourteen years, I held onto a non-existent relationship, the regret of missed opportunity, and the blame of alcohol and drug abuse.

Are you starting to see the spiraling effect here?  Because I am.  The fear of loss, of change, of stepping into unfamiliar territory spiraled into fourteen plus years of hurt, regret, blame, shame, abuse, and the list could go on and on and on.  It’s like the cliche imagery of holding a pile of sand in your palm, when you close your hand, when you try to hold onto something too tightly, it slips right through your finger tips. Or like the song by 38 Special goes….”if you cling to tight girl, your gonna lose control.”  

So where in YOUR life are you being held captive by your own limiting beliefs?  Where in YOUR life are you clinging to SOMETHING or SOMEONE that is comfortable, but NOT aligned with your highest good?  Don’t be like me, don’t spend the next fourteen years of your life taking the Saran Wrap off your compass.  Trust that your compass, the one that was created from the direct experience of your life, WORKS, and the time to look at it, and even more importantly, to listen to it, is NOW.

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Andrea Behler