Leaning into what scares you

Debbie Ford often talks about leaning into the emotions that make you uncomfortable. It's never "it will be all right" with her, but rather, "just feel that," "go with that feeling," if you are upset or angry. In order to come to terms and have peace with our feelings we often have to go with the feeling and let it take us where we need to go.

My skiing metaphor is to remember to do that when I ski. When I get on steeps that scare me, I remind myself to lean down into the slope--rather than holding myself back towards the supposed safety of the land. In actuality if I lean back and resist the slope, I'm going to ski faster and with less control than if I lean forward and over my skis and down the slope.

Having found that such a tactic works, I carry this over into my emotional life with the reminder to lean into my feelings. I then remind myself how well this works on the mountain and find that it's that much easier to go with. Next time a feeling scares you or bothers you in some way, remember to lean into the feeling. You'll find that you have more control over the pace of where that takes you and you'll probably have fewer bruises from the experience too!