Loving Presence: Embracing Fear

Recently, one of my clients told me she had realized the lesson from her chronic pain was to be in loving presence all the time. When her fear came up, her body contracted, and she tended to move into isolation. How many of us resonate with this pattern? Some of us are not plagued with intense, disabling chronic pain, but most of us live in contractive isolation of some kind.

Where there is contraction, there is isolation. A contracted tissue is less in relationship with other tissues around it. This means there is less resource available. Cells throughout our bodies want to be in resonance and communication with one another. When strong walls are established between them, they suffer. In extreme, they become cancerous, losing touch with the community of the whole. I read recently that cells know when to die to support the community. Cancer cells have lost that knowing, or perhaps they just don’t care. They have lost their caring. They just keep on living and multiplying regardless of the good of the larger whole.

What if we lived our lives that way? There are those who say our world politics are cancerous. Living selfishly with a pervasive sense of danger and threat, each man for himself, is an expression of isolation.

Defensive Behavior Vs. Being

I loved the Breath of Life conference I attended a few weeks ago in London. One of the speakers, 

Stephen Porges, pointed out the need for us to dampen our defensive neurological reactions in order to return to our social engagement nervous system. Porges developed the polyvagal theory currently proving so important in trauma therapy. Whereas we used to believe that the autonomic nervous system consisted of our sympathetic fight-flight and our parasympathetic freeze dissociation systems, Porges pointed out that there was actually a third system related to another part of the Vagus nerve. This social engagement system is actually our first line of defense when we perceive potential threat. We, as primates, check to see if other humans are available and how they are reacting.

I was at a Continuum Movement intensive in Santa Monica some years ago when an earthquake occurred. We were all in deep fluidity melting into the floor. As the earth shook, every one of us opened our eyes and looked around at each other. This is our social engagement system in action. It enables us, as relatively small, weak mammals, to cooperate with one another to create safety for ourselves and our offspring.

In our overwhelmingly sped up, over-stimulating modern western world, many of us become stuck in our fight-flight or freeze reactions, as if we were still lost in reliving an old traumatic experience. In those states, our perception is different from how we perceive when the social engagement system is online. In defensive states, we perceive the world as threatening and prepare to act accordingly.

I remember being shocked once when I offered a highly supportive comment to a student in my training, only to be rebuked and accused of putting her down. I couldn’t imagine how she had come up with that perception, except to assume she was lost somewhere in her past. Porges’s comment about needing to dampen the defensive systems clarified this for me. She could not perceive my support as support. To her, it must be an attack or a put down because that was all she was capable of perceiving in her activated state. Her nervous system could not allow support in.

It is when we are lodged in these reactive, defensive states that we build protective walls inappropriate to the situation at hand. We actually are not present in the present, but are operating in our current environment as if it were the past. We are isolated in the past, like this student who was isolated from receiving a genuine offer of support.

Integration, Health and Love

Another speaker at the conference, Daniel Siegel, who coined the term Interpersonal Neurobiology, explained to us that health was integration. Where integration was lacking, there was dis-ease of some kind.

What is the most integrative, healing force available to us? I believe it is love. Loving presence can meet whatever arises, without defensiveness, without judgment, without the need for interpretation, being right, fixing it, or even doing anything. Can I just be present with what arises? To me, this is love.

When pain presents, when anxiety shakes us up, when we are afraid, we can be challenged to stay present. It can feel like too much.

Our job becomes finding what can support us in being present. What helps us to stay here in this moment, even when it’s painful, rather than returning to the past? Being present is about being with what is, rather than reacting to what if or what was.

Fear is never actually about the present moment. It is usually about what could happen in the future, based on what we have experienced in the past. If we can actually be here now, whatever it is, is not so bad. Even if we are in a terrible event, like a fire or a bombing or a hurricane, our fear is not of this moment. In this moment, we are actually ok; we fear what might happen next. If I am terribly ill or have been injured, my fear is not of the current condition; it is of the possibility of it never ending or getting worse or having to miss more work because of it or etc., etc. Our minds are very good at creating scenarios, usually based on our past. They quickly take us out of the present, as any meditator can attest.

Recent research has shown that mindfulness meditation actually shifts our neurobiology. The parts of our brain concerned with danger, like the amygdala, begin to settle and quiet as our pre-frontal cortex comes more online, with its ability to orient to present time. The result can include less need for anxiety or depression medications, as the meditator becomes more adept at self-regulation. Being in present time is the key. To me, this is love.

Loving presence is the ability and intention to be present with whatever arises. Awareness is the first step in any healing. If I am not aware of an wound, I am unlikely to take steps to clean it, protect it or in other ways support its healing.

I believe my client’s discovery applies to all of us. It is quite possible that all of our issues are opportunities to learn more about loving presence, challenging us to apply it in any situation. We can be grateful for all the hints we are given that we still can grow and learn by deepening our ability to be with even this moment with loving presence.

When we do this, fear may not disappear, but it often seems to dissolve. It becomes less important, having less clutch on us in our lives and our psyches. We become free to simply be, to be in relationship rather than in isolation, in loving presence with ourselves and each other. This is the setting for cellular resonance, integration, ultimate health. Our cells begin to sing in harmony with one another. We are no longer at war, in struggle, in defensive reaction. Instead, we can be in awe, nurtured by the loving presence everywhere.

Living Life Fully … Like an Embryo

Keep walking, though there’s no place to get to.

Don’t try to see through the distances,

That’s not for human beings. Move within,

But don’t move the way fear makes you move,

Walk to the well,

Turn as the earth and moon turn,

Circling what they love,

Whatever comes from the center.

-      Rumi

Six years ago, I was diagnosed with a malignant melanoma. I had always told myself (and others) that, if I ever had cancer, I would go for holistic treatment.  The moment happened very fast, however. The doctor called me herself the moment she received the results. She asked me if I could come in that morning for the surgery. I hesitated, partly explaining, partly thinking out loud in my shock. I was scheduled to teach a Continuum class that morning. The doctor’s office was in Santa Barbara, almost two hours drive away. She stopped me. “This is important!” she admonished, adding to the shock.

Please understand; I love this doctor. She was actually an osteopath who had chosen to specialize in dermatology. She had explained to me that she chose dermatology because she wanted to see her child grow up. She didn’t want to be on call at all times of the day or night when her child was little.

I drove to Santa Barbara that afternoon directly from teaching my Continuum class (!), telling myself repeatedly how healthy my skin was. As the doctor cut into my body, she exclaimed, “Look at this beautiful, healthy skin!” I was amazed! How often does this happen during an operation? I told her I had been saying this to myself all the way there. She acted like of course that had made a difference.

I then ventured to tell her I had been on a so-called anti-cancer diet for 25 years. Why had this happened when I had been Macrobiotic for so long? Again, I appreciated her response. She pointed out that the melanoma hadn’t spread and I didn’t require extensive surgery or other interventions like many people with this kind of cancer do. Perhaps Macrobiotics had saved me from a more severe situation.

I’m still Macrobiotic and still appreciating the apparent support to my health and well-being. I also still appreciate that I didn’t require extensive medical interventions.  And I am still aware of how close I came to something else.

A Wake Up Call

You never really get over a diagnosis of cancer, or at least, if you do, you shouldn’t. If you survive such an event, I believe it is a wake up call.

Recently, my body reminded me of this experience when I wasn’t paying as much attention to it as it would have liked. I felt pain in the incision site where the ghost of the melanoma lives. Of course fear arose. Could there be something there? Could the cancer have silently spread, invisible to the doctor? Could I have been discharged from regular check ups too soon?

Fear is a natural aspect of life. We can buy into it and feed it, or we can appreciate it and seek its wisdom.

I found myself thinking that I wanted to live my life as if I had cancer. What difference would it make to know if there was a recurrence or metastasis? I could just deepen my commitment to live as if there was. I could listen to the wake up call, as if it were there each day. I could just wake up!

The Wisdom of Fear

Where did that expression above about seeking fear’s wisdom come from? It is actually a new thought for me.

Can fear carry wisdom? We tend to think of fear as problematic. When children or animals are afraid, they need to be calmed, soothed and reassured. When adults act in fear, they seem to be re-living a child aspect, allowing it to rule life.

Fear, however, can also be reality based. We fear the unknown, which is at times very wise. We fear what reminds us of harmful or painful past experiences or relationships.

An important part of our brains, the amygdala, specializes in identifying incoming sensory and perceptual information as dangerous or benign. If the amygdala defines the event as dangerous, a neurobiological alarm sounds throughout the body-mind. We have the ability to quickly make this evaluation and get of harm’s way when deemed appropriate. This is extremely useful, even life-saving, if we are stepping out into the road in front of a speeding car, or about to be attacked by a saber-toothed tiger or other stranger.

The amygdala, however, can also evaluate things incorrectly. It bases its decisions on the information available to it, derived from past experience. That past influence is not limited to what we are consciously aware of. Our early experiences, like those in the womb and our earliest days after birth, can profoundly affect our perceptions throughout life. Developing awareness of our own personal history can actually help to liberate us from its effects, as awareness brings us more into present time, stimulating different parts of the brain. When fear arises, it can be a message to us to pay attention, attend to what is actually happening now, to differentiate between what happened back then and our current reality.

The neurobiological flow of information is something we can affect through regular practices that facilitate us in orienting to present time rather than staying locked in the past. Activities like mindfulness meditation, Continuum Movement, and other practices involving honing sensitivity to the ever-changing myriad of sensations, thoughts, feelings, and images we all experience stimulate the parts of the brain involved with being in present time. When the pre-frontal cortex is well tuned and connected, the amygdala is less likely to control our lives or get out of control. We need not live in fear.

Meeting Life Fully

I feel grateful for all the practices I benefit from. My ability to orient to present time, rather than rigidly responding from past experience, is supported not only by my practice of Continuum and other movement meditations, but also by being a practitioner of Biodynamic Craniosacral therapy. In this beautiful work, I spend hours each work day, sitting quietly in subtle presence and awareness, orienting to slow, subtle rhythms expressed in all of nature, including my clients. My teacher, Anna Chitty, called our work, “meditation in relationship.” What a wonderful opportunity to be as present as possible with another human being! In the process, my brain, as well as my client’s, re-creates itself. This is how I want to be living!

If I had cancer, I would spend most of my time in these mindful practices, doing hours a day of Continuum, Biodynamics and other meditations. When not actively in those practices, I would have an intention to meet all that arises in my life with that kind of awareness, being with life as fully as possible. And, yes, I would be writing about it - another of my favorite activities, which also (I hope) benefits others.

Whether the cancer, my wake up call, took over my body or not, it would take over my life in this positive sense, each moment reminding me of the importance of being. Here we return to the realm of the embryo, a little being floating in fluid, with nowhere to get to and nothing to do except develop.

I want to follow Rumi’s advice. “Keep walking, though there’s no place to get to.” I intend to “circle what (I) love,” allowing my heart and love to guide me, learning from the fear.

Gateway to Wholeness

I passed by this gate the other day on a walk in the country and could not resist taking its picture. There was something about it that spoke to me. It felt so odd and so familiar all at once. Like the haunting image in a dream, I felt a need to be with it as it reminded me of how perception plays out in human relationships.

It is a beautiful gate, carefully constructed with obvious attention to detail. But why?

In the middle of nowhere, a gate at the side of a walking path leading out to a field. You could say it serves the purpose of keeping you out or letting you enter the field beyond it. If we just look at the gate, that might seem obvious. But what if we widen our view? What if we include in our perception the gate’s surroundings - grasses, plants, open fields and … no fence! It has no fence attached to it! What does this mean?

What purpose does this gate serve? Our rational minds may enter here, defending the existence of this lovely gate. It must be a first step toward a fence, leading the way for future construction. Or is it the remnant of a fence that once was, a representative of the past? Future or past? What about the present?

Gated Relationships

I am fascinated by the similarities between this gate and how we so often live our lives, informed by past experience, preparing for the future we fear. How often do we actually meet ourselves and each other in present time?

In my work with people, we frequently encounter structures like this gate interfering with current relationships and activities. For example, paralyzing feelings of being criticized by a boss, romantic partner or even a friend may be reminiscent of an abusive or critical parent or teacher as a child. Fear of speaking in front of a group may be a vestige of the early prenatal experience of not being fully welcomed in the womb. Like the gate without a fence, there is a persistent though not currently relevant need to hide, to remain as small as possible to avoid being discovered. We unconsciously deny ourselves what we most need and desire in desperate attempts to not feel the pain inflicted upon us so many years ago.

Overeating or other addictions are often habitual attempts to numb intolerable feelings related to abuse, rejection, neglect or simple human confusion and overwhelm. We come into life expecting to be received in our wholeness, welcomed and celebrated for just being here, according to our original blueprint. Instead, we may have encountered a field of ambivalence, where our parents felt overwhelmed by our arrival, ranging from surprise and feeling unprepared to have a child, to considering or attempting abortion or opting for adoption. While these are natural understandable reactions for parents in difficult situations, we must acknowledge their potentially devastating effect on the baby in question. Research has shown that unwanted babies run a high risk of developing mental health issues, learning difficulties and even criminal behavior.

Little ones in the womb are highly sensitive and aware beings. They have been seen in ultrasound to avoid or push away a needle during amniocentesis. They are known to be appropriately terrified when their presence isn’t welcomed. Their survival depends on their mother’s attitude toward them. Their sense of welcome or rejection is accordingly registered as a life or death issue. It is challenging to just rest and be when one’s very life is in question. Annihilation may be just a thought away.

Such feelings become like the gate without a fence. When these babies are capable adults no longer dependent on mommy’s acceptance, they may still act as if they are about to be aborted, being hypersensitive to rejection or criticism, always hyper-vigilant in wait of attack. The little one’s terror may persist as unexplained anxiety or phobias still standing strong like the gate, prepared for what horrors the future may bring.

Orienting to Wholeness and Health

We expect to be treated as we were in our first relationships. Unconsciously attempting to maintain order in our psyches, we project our feelings onto others, transferring our experience of our parents and other authority figures onto unsuspecting others participating in our play of life. We re-enact the past again and again, wondering why our current relationship or partner seems so similar to the last one, and the one before. What we don’t tend to acknowledge is that our re-enactments are done by us, as an expression of a deep, essential intention to heal.

As I viewed the gate without a fence, I was reminded of the power of a perceptual practice in Craniosacral Biodynamics of widening our perceptual field and orienting to wholeness. Our clients often arrive focused on the gate - a pain in the back, chronic headaches, depression or anxiety. The structure in focus blocks their passage into the field beyond. Their entire system orients to this blockage. Widening our perceptual field to include not only the problem but also the entire field it sits in shifts the perspective. The gate is no longer a blockage. There are many ways to proceed. The path is as wide as the entire field, offering potential we were previously unaware of.

Widening our view in Biodynamics, we sense deeper, more essential forces. The problem is suspended within a larger whole. We perceive the intelligence of the system in building this structure to contain old unresolved forces until such time as they can be resolved. We also perceive the depth of health that becomes accessible, providing the resource required for resolution. Our perception of wholeness facilitates this shift in orientation for the client. Where there was only a gate, there now is a whole picture, often with such a beautiful background!

Imagine if we all could live with this kind of perception? We are taught in school to focus in and lose our natural ability to hold the whole. What do you see when a friend is complaining? What do you hear when a child cries? The gates constructed limit our perception, perpetuating suffering. Without conscious awareness of this structure or our process of focusing on it, we tend to automatically repeat the past, controlled by unconscious, shadowy echoes of our history. It may even be obvious to all around us that the gate no longer serves, but, until we are aware of this ourselves, it remains in shadow in our consciousness, destined to rule our lives. The simple act of widening our view, opening our senses to what we have ignored or been too busy to pay attention to may be the magic key opening a long closed gate, or even dissolving it.

As we widen our view, including the surround, the gate loses its dominance in our field. While this mindful awareness can be liberating, it can also threaten our very identity. No wonder we so often resist the one thing most likely to set us free.

It is a simple gate. I was just taking an innocent walk. But no moment is that innocent. The truth of our being is always there, beckoning, available, a simple gate opening to a field of presence.