EYES WIDE OPEN (BAHAMA MAMA)
I once led a Soulshaping workshop at the beautiful Sivananda Yoga Ashram in the Bahamas. The workshop was composed of an evening talk in front of the entire ashram—about 200 staff and guests—and three afternoon workshops. I came here to teach, and all I did is learn.
Most of my life I have carried a fear of speaking in large public forums. I am comfortable doing live radio. I am comfortable doing radio from home. I am comfortable speaking in small groups in a cozy venue. But if there is a large group, I am usually overcome by anxiety. Clearly, I have picked the right path to confront my fears.
Before the large evening talk, I found myself overwhelmed with anxiety. In an effort to manage it, I practiced and rehearsed my talk repeatedly. I went in the shower and said it aloud. I walked down the beach talking it to myself. I tried to get it so tight that all I had to do is read it—like a pre-recorded speech.
And then it was almost time. The anxiety intensified. I imagined myself at the end of it, celebrating its completion. I wrote friends on Facebook, seeking something familiar to comfort me. I ate a hearty dinner, hoping it would ground me. I repeated all my favourite positive affirmations: “You are a champ”, “I am worthy”, “I am shining.” Blah blah blah.
I went to the temple and sat with everyone in meditation. It made it worse—more time to beat myself up. Then they introduced me, and I sat in front of 200+ strangers. I began to talk about my Soulshaping journey, looking into the eyes of the audience. As I spoke, I projected my own negativity onto them. In my mind’s eye, they were judging me, disliking my story, wondering what I was doing there. I kept talking, listening in for my inner validator: Where did he go? Does he even exist? I thought of my Grandmother’s face, soothing me with her warm gaze. I heard myself say “just 24 more minutes... just keep talking.” I was sweating, even more uncomfortable than I had feared. And then the great faux pas. I said “fucked up” in the temple while describing my family system. There was a ruffle in the crowd. You don’t swear in the sacred space. Some people left. Now I had given them reason not to like me. A shame-fulfilling prophecy.
The next day, the workshop began in front of a small group in the same temple. I asked everyone to close their eyes as I led them through a sacred purpose meditation. The moment their eyes closed, my anxiety vanished. The moment their eyes opened, the anxiety returned. How interesting, such good information. It wasn’t the fact that they were strangers that was triggering me. It had something to do with being seen.
I went to bed that night, and had a dream. In it, I was laying in a crib as a baby. I could see the wood crib walls as though I was still back there. My mother was above me, looking down at me. She looked just like she looked back then, in the early 1960’s. And her open eyes were stern, judging, unkind, unattuned. And I was terrified.
And, there it was. So simple, but so blocked from my awareness for 48 years. My fear of public speaking was related to my primal associations between exposure and judgment. It felt so bloody clear. Often when I was vulnerable before my mother, I was chastised, condemned, competed with. Her eyes were always so harsh, so judging. This experience became an expectation, one that I had been projecting onto strangers ever since. After all, if my own mother wouldn’t embrace me in my authenticity, who would?
I cannot tell you what a relief it was to grok this, both because it contextualizes and softens a long-standing pattern, and because it means that I am still growing on this path. One of my greatest fears is that I will become a teacher who stops growing. It can easily happen as we take on the role, or take our press clippings too seriously, or simply forget our humanness. I have always been convinced that spiritual authors are simply travel agents for the particular trip they need to go on. I write about the emotional-spiritual weave because I need to be reminded. I write about forming healthier boundaries because they don’t come naturally to me. I write about the weight of shame, because I am still working through my shame. The learning just keeps on coming.
And this, yet again, is the “Power of Then”—the effect the past has on our present consciousness. It didn’t matter how many mantras or affirmations I used, it didn’t matter if I asserted my will to overcome the anxiety, it didn’t matter if I meditated on it ad infinitum. When push came to shove, in front of the audience, I was still right back in primal material that demanded recognition and resolution. Although the physical body travels forward chronologically, one’s emotional consciousness always lingers at any point of departure. To move forward on the path, we have to go back and heal the wounds and memories that obstruct us. We just do.
Throughout the week, people came up to me to tell me how much they enjoyed the talk. Surprise, surprise. They weren’t barbarians after all.
If you have a fear of public speaking, explore the relationship between eyes open and eyes closed. Even a few moments of speaking with your own eyes closed, can yield an abundance of relevant information. As can a few moments with the audience’s eyes closed. Also, explore any difference between speaking to those you know and trust, and speaking to strangers. Is it easier, or more difficult, to speak to friends or strangers? If there is a difference, what is at the root of it? What is calling out to be seen and healed?
WRITING YOUR WAY HOME COURSE
My next writing course begins soon at Soulshaping Institute. This empowering and affordable course meets you right where you are and walks beside you as you arrive at the next destination in your creative life. It is not a critical writing course. It’s not about living up to anyone’s idea of ‘perfect’ writing. It’s about honest expression, expressing whatever is true for you. It’s about letting your heart and soul do the talking. It’s about resolving inner tensions and writing your way home.
If you have heard the call to write, please join us on this journey of soul-discovery and self-expression. It begins July 9th at Soulshaping Institute.
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Some people pick up their tools, others become the making itself. ~Rumi
If you’re anything like me, you’re finding it difficult to keep the faith right about now. I’m not talking about religious faith, although that can certainly be part of it. I’m talking about the faith in your emerging future self—the more authentic and path-aligned version of you that you’ve been sculpting for years.
When I chose to become the making itself, I had a myriad of challenges to overcome. Some of them in the external world, but most of them in the inner world and at the heart of my dysfunctional family system. Moving the yardstick from self-hatred to self-regard was no easy feat, but the world was somehow simpler than it is now. Yes, there was less awareness of trauma and emotional debris, but the pace of the western world was less traumatizing than it is now. And technology hadn’t asserted such a prominent role in our consciousness. If you unplugged the phone and turned off the television, you stood a chance of having some time to yourself. Time to rest and regenerate. Time to enjoy life. Time to do some healing. Time to clarify and consolidate your next steps forward.
Little did I know, I was living in paradise...