Love or Fear?

Are you running away from something? Or are you running toward something? I often gauge if I am moving through life situations based on fear or love. The energy of these emotions may initially feel similar. As your sympathetic nervous system activates, your heartbeat increases, your brain releases cortisol and adrenaline - excitement builds. Your body is increasing mobilized energy. Then, depending on how your brain and body have been wired based on lived experience, the stories begin to play. Is this exciting? Or is it scary? It could be both. And the way you relate to all that is happening, just below your level of conscious awareness, moves your next step toward love or fear. Again, since our autonomic nervous system is automatically operating out of our conscious awareness most of the time, and since it has been wired based on lived experience, it behooves us to tune into it and update it to the present moment. When we grow up, we have more awareness, experience, resources, and choice to navigate a thought, feeling or situation that has historically been scary. That which our autonomic nervous system protected us from when we were little, may be seen, felt and experienced differently as we grow.

Our autonomic nervous system began to wire very early on, constantly seeking cues of safety and threat. And when a threat was sensed, it worked to help us feel safe. For instance, when we are born, we are not only wired to connect, we are wholly dependent on being co-regulated in our emotional state. If our caregivers were unable to consistently offer us the co-regulation needed, our autonomic nervous system began to protect us from feeling overwhelmed. Beautifully adaptive when we are too little to self-regulate. The problem occurs when the very thing that kept us feeling safe when we were little, becomes the thing that keeps us feeling stuck when we grow up.

Our emotions are energy in motion. They are physiological. They are signals that offer us information about what is happening within and around us. And from an autonomic nervous system perspective, fear is rooted in feeling unsafe, dysregulated. One feels under threat - whether within themselves, with another person or within their environment. Their perception begins to shrink as they remain in a fearful, dysregulated state. And in this state, the limbic part of our brain takes over and we either run or collapse, in service of our survival. But what if what we are running from is not as threatening as we think it is? What if our brain is telling us a story of threat that we have long since survived? Or have more resources to navigate this threat than we did when we were little?

How do we begin to discern if we are moving through life in love or fear? Fear is a defensive posture. A guarded stance. It feels different in your body, mind and heart. Tune into your body. Is your breath shallow? Are your muscles tense? Are your thoughts negative and filled with worry and concern? Is your heart caged? That's fear. Ask the question - is this stance necessary and helpful in this present moment in time? (Most of the time the answer will be no). If you slow down enough to bring awareness to the present moment, you can begin to soften your guard. Increase your breath. Bring your body and mind back into presence. Love feels open, safe and connected. Your guard is down, your gaze soft, your posture is sturdy yet flexible. You are not guarded nor indifferent in love. You are alert, yet open and receptive. Again, we are not meant to be stuck in any one state - we are meant to move through life in flexibility, flow and grace. The work is to bring conscious awareness to each moment. To know, when we are aware in the present, we have the power to choose - love or fear?