Sacred pause

When the fear comeYoga of fear

By Shâo

When the fear comes

Know that it may appear as rage

Worry

Bravado

Intense irritation

Know that it might feel like a fight for your life

When dread twists inside

Remember that panic is its calcified shell

Protecting the story within from hatching

Though your nervous system is screaming

Can you breathe?

With the next inhale

Can you bear witness to unease?

With the next exhale

Can you take one step?

Can you approach gently

As you would a wild bird’s nest on a canyon ledge?

Can you flow between the baked rocks

Echoing with the doubt that…

Your loss was too long ago

For the fear of it to linger in your bones

Your loss wasn’t that bad

The skill of feeling fear

Calls on the courage to know

Your loss was that bad

Trust the thundering of your heart

The uncontrollable shaking

Or the turning to stone

The moment you realised your beloved was slipping away

The moment your inner peace

Your self trust

Your sense of control evaporated

Like rain on rock

The moment of acute awareness that you were powerless

The moment fear was locked in

Because no one said, “I see your pain.  It’s ok to fall apart”

Your loss was that bad

And the dread of going through grief alone

Turned the land to sand

Can you keep walking toward your lost self

Across the scorching shale

And rising petrichor?

Can you become the companion you needed back then

To help you move through the fear?

Can you keep moving now

Through freeze and fire

Your frozen lungs

Your burning gut

Your eyes stinging

From the hot ash of hope that anyone would notice you were missing

The charred faith that anyone would come to find you?

Can you rise?

Can you keep shifting into new shapes

Warrior

Dancer 

Cobra

To flow through the wilderness

To greet the part of you that learnt to be scared

But not to feel fear

Because feeling was the scariest thing of all

And as you become the witness you needed then

Can you carry your fragile and hardened defence wrapped fear

Back across the barren land

To the flourishing refuge of who you are right now

You are your own sanctuary

Jaw unclenched

Belly relaxed

Heart open

Wide enough to hold the things that used to scare you?

Can you place your incubated fear in the feathered warmth

Of trust

Of friends

Of your own compassion

Where her lonely shell can finally crack

And break open the story held in

Without a witness for all this time?

Bringing your friendliness to meet your fear

Is the blessing she’s been waiting for

To open her wings

Stretch into an eagle 

And soar into the sunrise sky