Know this…

I am a pretty tough chick. I can change my oil and brake pads, plug a tire, change air filters, climb ladders. Fix, repair, tighten and cut (yes I have three kinds of electric saws and I am not scared to use them). 

But …

Let a spider cross my path and I am climbing furniture, screaming for someone to rescue me. 

I’m not sure how this began for me …

Maybe my mother hated them and seeing her fear conditioned me to be ever so vigilant. Even creeped out to the point of abandoning the premises until someone much braver that she (or I) resolved this horrifying issue. 

A student recently shared a picture of a child doing a very challenging yoga pose with such ease and grace that it amazed us both, yet as I reflected on his pose and his even bliss within this posture, it suddenly struck me that he had no fear. So what if he fell. No one had told him it was scary or he should be hesitant. So … he dove right in. 

That is the same for all the fearless acts I have done … that I am proud of. Climbing 12 foot ladders. Moving furniture 10 times my size.  Trying new things that will expand my mind and my thinking (and my muscles too). 

I don’t fear until I see others scared. I don’t gently glean the edges of experiences because others incredulously tell me how stupid it is to try. But sometimes, if I am not mindful, their self speak becomes my own. I don’t attribute this to a weakness in my character, more so a reverence others experiences. But their experiences are their own based on their prior conditioning. (That is a huge ball of yarn for you to unravel) …

or

we can take a different approach. 

(Insert my amazing young child, fearless and soaking up every experience around her). 

Enter the fuzzy-legged spider IN my bath WHILE I am in it! 

Dramatic scene to say the least which may have involved streaking through the house naked pleading with her to come to my aide. 

After the fiasco and water spillage was resolved, like a mother to child she insisted I sit beside her and we have “a talk.” She began by telling me I was the bravest person she knows, then the litany of reasons followed. 

Yep … waterworks then humiliation. 

She consoled me (oh these wise babes we have raised) pulled me towards her and whipped out her phone. She said she wanted me to watch Lucas. And watch it over and over until the edges dulled and I could see these little harmless critters with more compassion. 

This was three years ago. The conditioning often creeps back in but now I am more mindful of my perceptions and my reactions. 

Today I went to the beach. Unpacking my chair and towels I had retrieved from their winter hibernation in the storage room. 

As I shook my towel to lay across my chair, out crawled my little Lucas. Instead of flipping my chair or tossing things about (as I may have years ago) I freed him to the sand and thought…

Oh, how glad he must be to be freed from that dark storage cavern to enjoy the sand and breeze and sea…

Just like me…

So here we sit. 

Micki Beach, owner and lead instructor at Tree of Life Yoga Studio in Oak Island, NC, is the author of 10 Little Rules for Finding Your Truth. Her book is available at www.10littlerules.com, on Amazon, and at select retail stores and in her studio.