a.m. post:
I went to bed last night feeling very visible. Exposed. This seems to have resulted in a turbulent sleep cut short by and full of nightmares. I awoke a couple times with adrenaline coursing through my systems. Among the fears drummed up were misgivings about the roadtrip our daughter was leaving on with a few of her friends at 5:45 a.m. Not a good start to any day.
I wrote my three morning pages as usual and explored first of all the questions brought up by the Jim Carey speech I listened to last night. I found myself wondering, oddly after last night's fitful dreams, if perhaps it's time to put the chair down. I wondered if I "should" need to do this Fear Chair Experiment. Why should I? Other people seem to not need to. What's wrong with me? Nothing, I just have to stop carrying the chair! I wondered if I am focusing too much on the fear and not enough on the leaping or the love and if perhaps the burden of the chair isn't more burden than the fear.
Then I stopped "talking" for a moment and became reaquainted with the residual stress left in my body from being awoken by what sounded like a yowl (whether it was the neighbor's dog we are sitting or my own nightmare I don't know). I realized the "water table" of fear rose significantly in the night. I felt and can still feel it so frighteningly close to the surface that I wrote simply "the chair stays."
So this morning I even took the chair on the walk with the dogs. 2 weeks has strengthened my arms enough to do this now, so I feel I must. Walking in the early morning light I saw my shadow with the chair for the first time. And I felt sorry for this burden. Sorry that I have to carry a chair. Sorry that I already carry the burden of Fear. Perhaps a little compassion for myself is growing out of this. Perhaps it is about time.
p.m. post:
Painted the rising "water table" of fear onto the legs of the chair. The dark waters are arising and splashing just beneath the chair's seat. Feels pretty powerful.
VERY glad I didn't chuck the whole thing this morning though, wow did I ever feel like doing so. Also glad I blogged. It helped me hang in there. I brought the chair to work and a woman asked about it. I told her what I am doing and why and she was moved to tears at my burden. It was incredible. I told her her compassion is beautiful. She then talked just a bit about her own Fear struggles.
Fear can lead one through life until one day (hopefully) there is an awakening and one realizes she's lost herself. This has happened to me before and I aim to avoid the same realization again on my deathbed. The Chair is big. It's odd. And it's a bit risky. But at this point I am very grateful to feel it is right with the universe. I need to remember the gratitude, the rightness of the moment and the blatant cooperation of the universe from the very beginning. And live in the moment. The moment is always alright.