By Rebecca Traver
“It’s not because things are difficult that we dare not venture. It’s because we dare not venture that they are difficult.” — Seneca
A couple of afternoons ago as I was getting into my car I noticed that a jeep in the space ahead of me had a license plate which read “HDN FEAR”. Hmmmmm….interesting. Just then a woman walked up and began loading its back seat area with sports equipment. I had to ask. “Excuse me – I was wondering what your license plate refers to?” She turned & smiled as she told me that she is a designer of adventure retreats [how cool is that?] and it is her experience that when people show up for their first day they are very gung-ho, but within an hour or two, their previously submerged fears begin to surface & they freak-out. Their enthusiasm begins to turn into the urge to forget the whole silly adventure idea, refunds are requested, and general expressions of ‘Get me outta here – NOW.’ are voiced.
As I drove away I thought that this is a perfect metaphor for our experience as human beings. The way my imagination puts this together, we choose to incarnate in any given lifetime with some very specific intentions for spiritual growth. What a splendid notion! Then we get here, realize that we have a sometimes messy biology to deal with that comes with some very definite, very real, very intense survival issues and instinctual drives. And there are other people here, too – with those same issues and drives – competing to one degree or another for the very same resources and sense of security we are. Suddenly this ‘human adventure retreat’ takes on a whole new feeling. Namely, fear…fear of uncertainty, to be precise. My teacher Spotted Eagle calls this set of existential issues our ‘biological contract.’
For some of us, the contract is framed around issues of safety and environment. For others, the it revolves around issues of personal value and relationships, and for some, it’s all about power and vulnerability. Furthermore, spiritually speaking, it turns out that breaking this contract and overcoming our fear of uncertainty is the whole point of being here. How do we deal with this rather sobering situation? As a rule, rather poorly it seems. As children, most of us learn the ropes from caregivers who have their own issues around these things, and who, in turn, learned from their caregivers with similar issues…and so on.
It takes great courage and willingness to take an unflinching look into our deepest core fears and then be willing to own them, perchance to shift them. Our desires for authenticity and emotional freedom conflict mightily with the agenda of our biological survival drives. Nowhere else is our sense of risk more acute and our efforts to turn away from that risk more fully developed than in the core of our resistance to being here, being present. What if we could learn to choose to turn into the fear, to stand in the present moment – eyes wide open, willing to see what is truly here, willing to feel it all, willing to let go?
I do not think that one has to go on an adventure retreat in order to get a sense of the quality and depth of one’s fears. Ordinary life seems to do a pretty good job of that. And let’s not forget that there can be a powerfully addicting attachment to the adrenaline rush of deliberately putting ourselves in risky situations which, as I see it, is more the imitation of willingness. The good news here is that we also come equipped with gifts and talents and an abiding, though often unconscious, desire to live from our authenticity. It may take us our whole lives to connect with, much less realize, that desire, if ever, but, boy what an adventure – what a brilliant design!
Contributed by Rebecca Traver
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