Holy Fear

What if fear is holy?

This thought came to me as I was overtaken by a recent trance of believing that I’m somehow not enough. I know this cluster of “lizard fears” intimately.

I’m not good enough. Or there’s simply not enough (goodness or happiness or pistachios, for that matter). And I do know these as big fat lies when I catch them. But circumstances can trigger the old dominant “lack and attack” beliefs (as Martha Beck calls them) and give the reptilian brain power.

I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time petting my lizard, naming my lizard, giving it a cozy place to take a break so it can leave me alone. But I’ve long suspected that there’s another understanding that is possible about fear and anxiety.  Anxiety has been my companion, off and on, for most of my life. It has brought me to my knees and taught me to surrender to deepening change.  Most of the risks I’ve taken, inside and out, have involved a dance, if not a tango, with fear. But my anxiety usually feels more like a mammal (say, a sabertooth tiger) than a lizard. A worthy opponent, a Big Force to be reckoned with, rather than a pet to be calmed.

So I was lit up when I discovered a different description of fear by contemporary rabbi Alan Lew. According to him there are two words for fear. One is  pashad, an over-reactive and irrational fear (or lizard brain fear, in today’s parlance). And then, according to Lew, there’s a second word that’s used in the Old Testament: yirah. This is sometimes defined as the feeling we have when we’re standing on holy ground. THIS, I thought, is that other thing, the anxiety I often feel when I’m drawn to do something bigger or scarier than my current way of living in the world, a new word to describe that familiar gut-crunch deep inside when I’m called to take risks that demand that I open up to being a bigger presence in the world. Avoiding yirah would mean that I’d limit myself from taking the next leap and arriving more fully at some unseen potential.

Since I came across this new definition I’ve been noticing I can let the anxiety simply be there. There’s something calming and strengthening when I have respect for this state of being that was first named more than 2,000-years ago. When I notice that I’m having that yirah feeling, I’ve found out that I can choose to do the thing anyway and see what happens. So far it hasn’t been terminal. Good to know.

To quote Tara Mohr, author of Playing Big, “when any of us are stepping into our real voices, our true aspirations for our life, we feel yirah. And it can feel a bit uncomfortable because it is that tingling, high-energy, out-of-our-comfort-zone sensation.”  This is not necessarily a trigger that leads directly to panic.

Instead, it’s an invitation to get acquainted with the signals that come from a step into your deeper calling. It’s an opportunity to drop into the Self that is beyond the ego. Its voice may be almost indecipherable now, but that “still, small voice,” accompanied by a soupcon of anxiety, can become your new BFF. The very one that will guide you to your best life. See what you think.