ANATOMY OF FEAR

It is said anxiety is excitement plus lack of breathing. Your sympathetic nervous system increases your heart rate to more strongly deal with a frightening situation. But another part of your nervous system, goes into freeze - “maybe if i don’t breathe this won’t be happening!” The problem with hiding our head in the sand is then we really can’t breathe!! So breath and action are required, even if only to flee, if possible - flee in space, because although we might like, we can not flee in time, into the unchangeable past or into the unpredictable futures.

In Asian medicine, fear is associated with the water element and with the bones! We sometimes look at bones and are afraid because they remind of us of death. But our bones are not dead, they are, like the water that lives underground, the deepest source of life. As we now approach spring, let us honor the water element, even the fear that keeps us alert and alive to meet another day.